Guest Post from Miss P

Continuing with the resolutions theme I have my very first guest post. Courtesy of the wonderful 
Paula

RESOLUTIONS + P = FAILURE???

I’m not very good at giving things up. Take wine, for example. I tried to give that up for Lent this year*. I lasted two weeks. Actually a major achievement for me, but then I made up for it for the rest of Lent by drinking all the wine. All the wine in the world. Have you noticed there’s a shortage of wine around right now? TOTALLY my fault.

But see, this proves something. I shouldn’t make New Year’s resolutions. Let’s face it, most resolutions involve SOME sort of sacrifice- even if it’s not giving something up, it tends to involve some sort of life change and not only am I bad at giving things up, I’m bad at giving away my own time and slightly inflexible to change in my personal life.

And this year I had all these grand plans. I called it a goal, not a resolution, but really? I was just being a bit wanky because it was basically six resolutions in one. I was destined to fail from the start really. My” goal” was to get healthy. That was going to involve eating better, drinking less (see first paragraph to figure out how THAT worked out), doing more exercise, being less stressed, going to bed earlier . . .by the end of January – NAY, by the end of the first WEEK in January, I was already flagging.

The eating healthy bit I was REALLY enthusiastic about at the beginning. I spent ages on food websites researching recipes because part of the being healthy thing was cooking from scratch. In reality though, it’s hard to cook properly when the flatmate you share the kitchen with seems to be on exactly the same cooking schedule as you (NO MATTER WHEN YOU DECIDE TO USE THE KITCHEN!) and sometimes it just seems so much easier to just go online and order a Dominos veg-a-roma. With double cheese. And a side of mozzarella sticks. And when I say “sometimes”, I really mean “at least once a week”. (Seriously. I checked my confirmation emails from Dominos a week or two ago and I had about 20 just from this year.)

The drinking part was clearly a fail. I bought a yoga dvd to try and help me wind down at night. It nearly BORED me to sleep. I bought a roll-on “relax” stick off amazon to make me feel less stressed. I lost it 20 minutes after I removed it from its packaging. Which stressed me out, ironically, as if I lose something I become ridiculously fixated on it. (I found it three months later and it actually DOES help make me less stressed – at least temporarily.) And, as for my sleep in general, I seem to still flit between being sober and awake for most of the night, or falling asleep in my clothes and contact lenses because I’m a bit pissed and have had a hard day.

So pretty much all fails there. No gold star for you, P!

But there is ONE thing I’ve succeeded in. The exercise thing. See, I get a lot of exercise anyway. I walk A LOT. 40 minutes to work, and back, five days a week. One hour of pole fitness every Wednesday. But I knew I needed to do more than that. My body is used to me walking a lot. It keeps me fit but it doesn’t tone me up. So, one night, while mildly inebriated, I joined the gym. And I’ve been going regularly. A minimum of three times a week, but more likely to be four or five. I can’t see a difference in the bits I really WANT to change (ie. Stomach, waist, hips) but I do keep asking my friends to feel my bum, cos it FEELS amazing, even if I don’t really know how it LOOKS.  I’ll be keeping the gym up until at least August, so I’m bikini-fit for Ibiza. But technically, I only started going to the gym in April, so does that REALLY count towards my resolution?

I think New Year’s resolutions really are a bit like Valentine’s Day; I always think Valentine’s Day is a bit of a crock because why would you only show someone you really loved them one day a year? And New Year’s resolutions, when it comes down to it, are just a way to eat all the shit you want over Christmas and be a total couch potato with the promise that you’ll make up for it come January. And then, let’s face it, you usually don’t. I certainly didn’t . . .

 

*You’ll notice I said I tried to give up WINE. Not alcohol. I was still drinking other types of alcohol. I STILL didn’t last. Says it all.

If you enjoyed this post you can check out Miss P's blog right here.