What are your resolutions for 2012? > Reviews (12)

I don't often participate in ciao cafe reviews these days but this one caught my eye as I had just written a blog about it yesterday. Normally, I don't make resolutions but this year I decided I NEEDED to. Except, to try and make it less like a resolution and, therefore, hopefully easier to stick to, I'm calling it a "goal".

I've been quite worried about my health over this past year as i was getting lots of random pains in my side and the two doctors I visited (which shows I must have been worried because I NEVER go to the doctors!) couldn't find anything wrong with me - one of them even managed to misplace my urine sample! (TMI I know, but when a diagnosis could be based on this, it's kind of an important thing to lose!) Anyway, I started to realise that the problem might actually just be ME. For years now I've taken my health for granted, barely exercised, ate junk and drank waaayyy too much alcohol. So I've decided that my "goal" for this year is to be healthy. Not necessarily to lose weight - I am, naturally, hoping that will be a side effect of it but I feel like if I do this for health reasons rather than weight reasons, I might take it more seriously.

I have several parts to this goal.

The first is to stop eating so many convenience meals, takeaways and eating out . . . and start cooking healthy stuff for myself. I only started cooking properly towards the end of last year, so it's important to maintain this and do it more often. I also want to try and experiment with food I haven't tried before. I'm not a particularly fussy eater but I want to make sure I'm getting a bit more variety in my food intake. I definitely want to eat more vegetables so I've been looking mainly at vegetarian and vegan recipes for inspiration here - which could potentially be another lifestyle change for me.

The second is to seriously cut down on my alcohol intake. I don't intend to stop all together, but for now at least I want to ensure I'm not imbibing cava every other night in my flat like it's going out of fashion!

The next is to get more sleep (I say as I type this at 1.45am in the the morning - in my defence I'm back at work in the morning after my annual leave so my body clock is messed up.) I need to get into a routine and work out how to get to sleep before midnight. Usually even if I TRY to go to bed early I end up tossing and turning well into the wee small hours.

And lastly I want to do more exercise. I walk to work and back so that's somewhere between 16 and 20 miles a week, and I'm going back to my pole fitness class once a week again as from tomorrow, but I'm going to try and be more active and do a fitness dvd at least three times a week. Nothing major - if I can manage 20 mins extra exercise 3 times a week, I'll be happy with that.

I know this sounds like a lot when I said I wasn't making any resolutions - it's like that advert where they caution you not to try to change everything at once - but in my case I think I need to fix all this at the same time, for the sake of my health, and also for my happiness.

If I fix one part at a time, I'll slip back into the old habits too easily - i won't be putting the proper effort in. I feel like if I'm eating healthier and getting more exercise and drinking less, as well as getting a better quality of sleep, I'll be less stressed and happier than I have been recently. And it's very important to me that I'm happier this year than I was last year.

In addition, if putting in this work results in my health and happiness not only improving, but also in me toning up and actually saving some money (the amount I spend on alcohol and on eating out is pretty ridiculous - I'm not in debt but I do live paycheque to paycheque) then that can only be a good thing too!

Subconsciously, I think I've known for a while I need to make these changes and although to make them at the time people make New Year's Resolutions feels like a total cliche, I think in other ways it makes a lot of sense. New Year, New Start - I may as well start as I mean to go on. I may get to the end of January and have had enough, but I'm hoping that by that point I'll have saw some clear benefits to my health and that will be enough to push me to continue. I'm trying to see this as a lifestyle change rather than a quick fix.

Anyway, all I can do is try, and if anyone has any advice they can give me to keep me on the straight and narrow, please feel free to leave a comment or pop by my guestbook at any time. Tips on healthy eating, healthy recipe websites and/or ways to wind down earlier and get to sleep at a more normal hour would be gratefully accepted.

I wanted to make this funny but it turned out more serious than I intended - even the pee part! So sorry about that - guess perhaps I'm more determined about this than I realised deep down.

Wish me luck!!!