Tag Archives: fitness

New Year, new you, and all that…

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I don’t know who came up with the idea of starting afresh in January, as it seems like a crazy idea to me. It’s so cold and miserable, and heaving yourself back in to normal life after the Christmas break is hard enough already without trying to keep up a dozen New Year’s Resolutions as well. Bah humbug (if that’s still a thing once Christmas is over).

The trouble with a lot of goal setting (whether it’s New Year related or just a mini resolution all for yourself) is that it’s not specific enough. You can say something like “This year I’m going to eat more healthily” but what does that actually MEAN? If you normally get through twelve bars of chocolate a week and cut down to eleven, you are technically keeping to your resolution even though you are not eating healthily by any stretch of the imagination.

Some people might set a goal of eating more healthily, cut out one chocolate bar a week and feel that they have achieved what they wanted, or at least made a start. Others might make exactly the same resolution, reach exactly the same point, and feel like they’ve failed. If you’re not specific enough with what you’re aiming for not only will the goal be harder to achieve (if you don’t know what you’re aiming for, how will you know when you get there?) but it may stop you from noticing and celebrating the small steps along the way. Cutting out that one bar of chocolate may be a fairly small thing but it’s a step in the right direction, and deserves to be acknowledged as such.

After all my griping about resolutions, it may surprise you to learn that I’m doing a *thing* this January (the timing is merely coincidental, I can assure you!). I’m joining in the World’s Biggest Juice Detox and going completely juicy for 28 days. Yes, that’s right – for the next 28 days I will be living entirely off freshly made juices and smoothies. It’s going to be a challenge (I’ve done 7 days before and that was bad enough) and I’m going to be recording my progress on this blog.

For me, one of the most important things heading in to a challenge like this is being really clear on WHY I’m doing it, why it’s important, and why I’m not going to give up – there are going to be tough moments over the next four weeks and I’m going to need to revisit this over and over again to keep myself focused. I’ve already waffled enough in this post, but if you’re interested I’ll share my story in the next post, and my motivations for doing this, and doing it right now.

If you’re reading this and you’re also on the detox – good luck! Comment below to let me know how you’re getting on 🙂

Cat x

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Going to the gym.. no I really am going.. honest.

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I’m trying to get fit at the moment. I don’t just mean fitter, because that implies some basic level of ‘fit’ to improve on. I’d even settle for fit-ish to be honest.

I have been to the gym this morning. I’m supposed to go three times a week, however last week I went once, and the week before I’m not sure I managed it at all. But here’s the thing – whenever I do make it to the gym, I do quite enjoy it. In fact, I’d go as far as to say that thinking about going to the gym is far worse than actually doing it.

I could spend the rest of this blog post speculating about why that is, but I don’t think that’s a particularly helpful question at this stage, so here’s the one I’m going with:

How can I get myself down the gym even when I don’t want to go?

Seeing as I’m going to attempt two more trips this week, I thought I’d better try to answer this question, so I can refer back to it later if necessary. Here’s what I have come up with so far:

– Don’t think about it (this was my tactic this morning). Decide that you are going (preferably the night before when it’s a safe distance away), and then refuse to think about it again.

– Arrange everything beforehand so that it’s easy for you to do it. This morning I put everything in my car that I would need before I did the school run, then when I got back I didn’t need to go in the house for anything, and didn’t risk a sneaky sit down turning in to a two-hour email marathon.

– Tie it to another activity, so that in your head both are linked – this morning for me this was the school run and going straight to the gym afterwards.

– Arrange a reward for afterwards (no, not cake). My gym has a jacuzzi so sometimes I bribe myself with a relax in the bubbles afterwards.

– Realise that, no matter how important it seems to reply to this email RIGHT NOW (or finish that game of Candy Crush), actually the world is not going to end if you take an hour out for yourself.  I have started to see the gym as some me-time, and as something that I am doing for myself, to improve my health and fitness, and general quality of life. It’s very easy to lose yourself in the demands of other people, and it’s a really important and special thing to be able to set aside some time that is just for you.

If you’ve got any more tips about getting yourself to the gym, please comment below – I may need some backup on the days when even my top five aren’t cutting it!

Now, I just need to see if I can apply these principles to doing my tax return…. 😉

Cat x