Confessions of a resolution-breaker

For a good part of the last decade, I have embarked on every New Year with "losing weight and getting to shape" as one of my resolutions. New years are born, progress into middle age, grey and lumber into old-age and death, but this resolution of mine has always remained the same - fresh, untouched and young. It resiliently survives every year and gets into the next list for the next year. To be fair to myself, this is the only one that has remained in the list for so long - all the others are either kept or knocked off the list because I know they don't fit into my scheme of things.

I am going to use this post to rant about my inability to stick to this resolution, which continues to haunt. I am sure I will have plenty of empathy from like-minded readers out there. And this post might also be sneered upon by many a fitness-freak. But then that is a risk that one always has while speaking out one's mind.

As I have always affirmed, I love good food - read "fattening food". Most people who know me consider me strong-willed (hubby will vehemently vouch for this). But this so-called strong will trembles like jelly and comes down on its knees at the thought of good food. So when hubby dear suggests we order pizza, I make a feeble attempt at refusal saying "O should we really?" And to give him due brownies in his contribution in making us a rotund couple, he says “Yes" with utmost finality and certainty. My mind, which was trying to do a tight-rope walk on the very thin line of my new year resolution, does a little jig and hums to itself as it loses balance and falls into the abyss. I waste no time in ringing up Pizza Hut and ordering a pizza. When the pizza guy offers a new stuffed-cheese version, I give in and tell myself "Ok - just this once".

I have never been a "sports-loving" type person who loves physical exertion. The rest of this paragraph has a list of excuses that I have for not exercising and staying fit. If you are a fitness freak, please feel free to skip the remaining stretch. In the convent school that I went to, we had 1 sports-hour a week till standard 6, after which age, I assume that the nuns were of the opinion that girls did not need sports. Being an only child, I thrived on books for company during vacations. Well into my adulthood, I found that the lack of interest in physical exertion was not helping me with my resolution at all. I used to walk to and from school daily - which was a good 5 km, and was enough activity for me then. The only activity I still love is walking and I get to do very little of that with my long hours at work and now, a baby at home.

Inertia, inertia, inertia - I stick to my resolution by exercising promptly and keeping tab on my food habits for a week. And then I relax for a day.. And inertia sets in. And I feel almost certainly that my metabolism, which has a mind of its own, is also so used to status-quo that any change in the fat-burning rate is very slow and requires a lot of stimulation. Heredity is not a strong point for me here. There are marked tendencies towards pudginess on both mom's and dad's sides. And it looks like I have inherited the worst from both the gene trees.

And last but not the least, I have to talk about the many friends and well-wishers and sometimes total-strangers who have taken liberties to casually joke about the weight-factor. The first few times this was the butt of jokes, I went beet-red with shame. I made silent promises to myself that I would do something about it. The next few times, I really didn't feel as bad about it as initially. And then within a year or so, I got to a stage where I could joke about it myself. I should say that these people have made a phenomenal contribution in making me mentally "accept" the problem. And as long as I could accept it mentally, I could live with it. I recognize this, but am yet to shake myself off this state.

And so I begin 2007 with this resolution still in my list. This year, I have spent some time thinking of the reasons behind my failure. And now that I have made my confession, I feel a wee bit more equipped to stick to my resolution. Cheer me on, folks :-)