Despite having eaten my own body weight in chocolate over Christmas \u2013 and vowing to do better in the new year \u2013 my inner Augustus Gloop means I still feel duty-bound to finish what\u2019s left. Self-control when it comes to eating has never been one of my strengths. My New Year\u2019s resolution about a healthier diet will have to wait. In addition to buying the usual tubs of festive favourites \u2013 Heroes, Quality Street and Roses \u2013 I got a ton of confectionery as Christmas presents. I reason that it would be ungrateful not to enjoy it.<\/p>\n
My New Year\u2019s goals are perennial: eat less and exercise more. I fail every time. I mean, I do a reasonable amount of exercise anyway: at least 10,000 steps a day with the dog, yoga every evening and a martial arts class once a week. But I really need to do more cardio. I bought a pair of running shoes last year with the intention of joining the local parkrun, but never quite made it: 9 a.m. on a Saturday seemed just that bit too early. I did road-test the new joggers a few times, but swiftly lost interest. So dragging my 58-year-old carcass along to the park is back on my to-do list.<\/p>\n
January is notoriously the time when gym membership peaks. I\u2019ve belonged to several over the years and, typically, after the initial burst of enthusiasm, my attendance has tailed off dramatically. Quite apart from feeling slightly intimidated by the serious bodybuilders, I find the hot, sweaty, artificially lit environment unconducive. I\u2019d much rather be outside in the fresh air. I also find it boring. Running on a treadmill \u2013 never reaching a destination \u2013 like a hamster spinning on its wheel in time to techno music \u2013 feels like an exercise in futility. A country walk listening to a radio play on my AirPods is far more appealing.<\/p>\n
Dry January doesn\u2019t really affect me, as I tend not to drink at home anyway unless we have guests. But Christmas was a bit of a washout: our youngest spent three days in hospital after an extreme allergic reaction caused her to blow up like a pufferfish. As a result, my opportunities for tippling were scant. So I feel that I\u2019m owed a couple of trips to the pub this month. Besides, January\u2019s not the best time to go alcohol-free: it\u2019s cold, dark and nobody has any money.<\/p>\n
Veganuary has never appealed. While on holiday in Sri Lanka once, my then girlfriend and I were invited to dinner by some vegans. It was one of the strangest experiences of my life. The evening didn\u2019t get off to a great start after they revealed they were from Dresden and then looked at us with narrowed eyes as if expecting an apology (thanks, Bomber Harris!). We were offered a mixture of berries, fruits and nuts, which, while undeniably healthy, didn\u2019t make for a particularly satisfying meal. Maybe they grazed all day like herbivores. When we asked for water, the head vegan smirked and said they got all the liquid they needed from the food they ate. Apart from being decidedly odd, what was most off-putting was their appearance: emaciated and listless, with a strange, faraway look in their eyes as if they were party to some cosmic truth the rest of us didn\u2019t share. A positive advertisement for veganism, they were not. After making our excuses, we returned to the hotel and \u2013 still being in time for the evening meal \u2013 sat down at the all-you-can-eat buffet. I\u2019ve rarely eaten with greater relish.<\/p>\n
My New Year\u2019s goals are perennial: eat less and exercise more. I fail every time<\/p>\n
Reading more is always high on my self-improvement list at the start of any year. Being something of a bibliophile, I\u2019ve accumulated a half-decent collection of books. However, I\u2019m now beginning to worry I might not live long enough to read them all. I used to keep a pile by my bed, reading from a selection every evening. Now I struggle to manage two. Those Penguin Classics that I\u2019ve never quite got round to \u2013 Aristotle, Cicero, Edward Gibbon \u2013 have become little more than dust magnets. But I have set myself the task of reading Meditations by Marcus Aurelius this year. I\u2019m still on the introduction.<\/p>\n
After Christmas, the wife and I sat down with the cookery books and made a long list of healthy recipes. We also bought ourselves a smoothie maker and have been enjoying effortless fruit-laden drinks. It\u2019s a welcome antidote to the cloying richness of Christmas food. However, the leftover cake is almost begging to be eaten. And I\u2019ve already made two trips to Greggs since the year started.<\/p>\n
Irresolute I may be, but I bumble along doing the best I can, self-aware enough to realise that setting myself lofty goals will only lead to even greater failure. Hence the same resolutions each year. At least I know I\u2019ll fail to keep them, which will lessen the disappointment in myself. In Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Augustus Gloop falls into the Chocolate River, gets sucked up a pipe and emerges much thinner, having been squeezed by the machinery \u2013 which, as a weight-loss method, doesn\u2019t seem too bad. I\u2019ll try to walk that bit faster and further, watch the calories and, perhaps, if you\u2019re in my part of Bristol this spring, you may just see a large, middle-aged man bringing up the rear as he huffs and puffs his way to the end of a 5 km run.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Despite having eaten my own body weight in chocolate over Christmas \u2013 and vowing to do better in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":408004,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[49,48,407,84],"class_list":{"0":"post-408003","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-fitness","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-fitness","11":"tag-health"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/408003","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=408003"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/408003\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/408004"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=408003"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=408003"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=408003"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}