After the orgy of excess that is Christmas, most of us start thinking about what changes we need to make in the New Year. Yours truly is no different.

There are the inevitable promises to get in shape, to quit smoking, drinking and every other vice under the sun. Many people join the gym now and spend about a week or two religiously working out, only to give it up sometime in February. The couch’s call seems far more potent than making oneself healthier.

I’ve made many pledges like this myself over the years, only to find myself at the end of the following year in the same place as before. Here I am again contemplating making some profound lifestyle changes once again. One problem I had one year was blowing my knees out while running, and anyone with a runner’s knee knows it’s not very pleasant to deal with. Yet there are other ways to stay in shape besides running. Running enabled me to shed about 60lbs in 2005 by sheer willpower and the Weight Watchers calorie calculator. Persistence was key.

Over the last year, I’ve lost 55 lbs thanks to working 3 jobs and 80 hours a week. I’m back where I wanted to be once again.

Most people accept the aging process and what they consider the inevitable weight gain and physical changes that happen over time. It’s our age, we are told. When my 39 year old ex-doctor suggested that my getting up 5 to 20 times a night to urinate was because of my age (I was 44 at the time) I fired him. I then began a four-year research journey to find out that my toothpaste was the cause.  It was just my toothpaste, not age folks.

Most of the changes happening to us have more to do with lifestyle choices than age. Most of us don’t get enough exercise, myself included. At 27 years old, I had a 29-inch waist; at my heaviest, I had a 36-inch waistline. For most, this isn’t all that bad. Seven inches is a little much for me.

I’ve cut sugar out of my diet. I eat a balanced diet of grains, fresh vegetables and meat. My plates are colourful and contain very little beige.  I walk about 15 kilometres on the weekend at one of my jobs and take the stairs as much as possible.

I have concluded that our physical fitness and overall health have much to do with our mental well-being, too. For many reasons, unhappiness permeates so many people’s lives. Many of us let ourselves go because we don’t feel very good about ourselves or our life situation. Instead of making a change, we wallow in everything bad for us. It’s almost like a slow suicide attempt if you think about it. I am one of the seemingly lucky few in love and who has found happiness.

Yet here I am today, thinking about change. I need to make some changes.

Here are some of the things on my change list:

  • Eating even better food
  • More exercise
  • Less television and more reading
  • Daily Meditation
  • Renewed Spirituality

I started a daily mediation practice this year, intending to ratchet it up a notch or two. The last two things on my list are key to where I need to be in 2025.  Historically, meditation and spirituality helped me get through a rough patch in my late 30s and early forties, so I know it works. So, they should be on the top of my list and not the bottom.

My old doctor had told me a few times that I needed to reduce my stress levels. Stress, poor exercise and refined sugars will kill you, she told me. Cutting out sugar is easy, and it’s already done. Killing the stress monster is a little more challenging. Even with meditation, I find it very difficult to reduce my stress levels. If it’s not one thing, it’s another.

The *universe* in all of its wisdom, sent me a couple of messages, one from my Father. My Father informed me that his heart attack in his late seventies was caused by the stress he had in his early fifties it hit home. I promised myself to calm the heck down.

I’ve started thinking about some of the things I do (did) to reduce my stress in my twenties, and I’ve made a lot of progress this year.

Hopefully, this time next year, I’ll be reporting back that everything went as planned.

Wish me luck!

Quote Of The Day

“Let our New Year’s resolution be this: we will be there for one another as fellow members of humanity, in the finest sense of the word.”

~ Goran Persson ~