There’s one thing about New Year’s Day that everyone is familiar with.
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Hangovers.
No, wait. So … there are two things about New Year’s Day that everyone is familiar with.
One is waking up with a sore head. The other is deciding to make changes to your life.
While we could have done that on October 12, November 29 or any other damn day of the year, we wait till the start of a new year to make all sorts of changes to our lives.
One of the most common is to cast off your slovenly ways and get fit.
That it comes after Christmas is perhaps no coincidence; we loosen our belts a notch or two as we move into late December in anticipation of the forthcoming festival of overeating.
We feel bad about that, so we look to do something to make up for it. And that would be a pledge to exercise.
For most people, it’s a New Year’s pledge that doesn’t last very long; and that’s down to one simple fact – exercising sucks.
Sure. the uber-fit types think it’s awesome, but they’re crazy.
For the rest of us? It’s a chore, it’s a royal pain in the backside.
I exercise five days a week and – aside from the lap swimming on a Saturday – I hate it. Relentlessly.
I hate getting up before 6am to go for a run. I hate getting sweaty. I hate sore muscles. I hate walking around sore for most of the day. I hate stretching try and stop myself from walking around sore.
Why do I do it? Well, because I’ll feel worse if I don’t do it. If I skip it, I get this nagging voice in the back of my head that says “you didn’t exercise” over and over again.
I exercise to shut that voice up.
So, if you make that New Year’s resolution to get fit and you find exercising sucks, that just means you’re doing it right.
That’s the way we all feel.