Inevitable New Year Resolutions

My resolutions for 2015 are to accomplish the resolutions of 2014 which I should have done in 2013 because I promised them in 2012 and planned them in 2011….

Well… the years could certainly go backwards as I count the umpteen new years that passed me by, where I had diligently prepared exhaustive lists of do’s and don’ts, should do’s and could do’s that filled crisp, white pages of diaries that I invariably managed to misplace. Just the other day, as I was cleaning out my book shelf, out came a blue hard bound diary with gilt edged pages, of 2010, that was stashed away with some of my ‘should-read-again’ favorite books.  I opened it excitedly and guess what! There was this list of my resolution for the year 2010 listed out on the first page itself, in my best handwriting. It went something like this…

1. Lose weight
2. Enroll in the gym
3. Start yoga
4. Snack on salads and fruits.
5. Cut out sweets from diet.
6. Go for a walk daily.
7. Tidy up my cupboard often.
8. Get more organized.
9. Spend time gardening.
10. Find a new hobby.

Ha! Looks like some resolutions never change! If I were to create a list today, I am certain that it would contain more or less similar goals with the weight loss goal being foremost among them.  

For one, the ‘weighty issue’ that I have had to confront since God knows when, has never been solved till now. My ideal weight is still eons away, very much beyond sight, but hopeful and optimistic that I am, I still ponder diligently over ways and means of losing my stubborn flab. Was it King Solomon who said, “Try, try, try again”?

Every child of this generation knows that diminishing the blubber requires a strong control over the diet. That is exactly when the sensible mind in me listed out the goal of cutting out off sweets from my diet. Each year, the first two weeks of January sees me as a totally controlled person, careful about each morsel that enters my mouth. I stock up my fridge with carrots, cucumbers, tomatoes and all the good stuff which promises a stomach full of healthy calories. Then comes a Sunday, where someone walks in with a box full of black forest pastries and forces me to take a teeny weeny bite. That’s it. Then it is a long wait till the coming January 1^st, where I restart my no-sweet resolution.  

Looking back at the year 2010, I think I really deserved a pat on my back because true to my list of goals created, I remember having enrolled both in a gym and the yoga class. Every single day, for about 6 months, as the clock struck 6 in the morning, I would drive down to the yoga class, sleepy eyed, but filled with enthusiasm, and do bouts of surya namaskars, yoga mudras’, vipareethakaranis’, and a whole lot of other asanas under the watchful eye of the zero-sized instructor who would be comfortably sitting on the pedestal, blurting out instructions. I must say that the only thing that I lost in those six months was an extra hour of sleep that I would have otherwise enjoyed. True to my Gemini blood, I gave it up in about 6 months’ time…  The gym was another story altogether, where a bunch of like-figured, not-so-petite ladies soon formed a ‘bum chum’ association and very soon, someone or the other would always be bringing some homemade goodies to eat, just so that we didn’t get too bored on the treadmill or elliptical trainer. In about 3 months time, I was ready to give that up too, and my gain this time was quite a bit of valuable bonds of friendship that is still going strong, along with a few inevitable kilos.

The other things in my list had more or less the same fate and will be a subject for another day. But I must say one thing about myself. Being a diehard optimist and a stubborn one at that, I never give up on creating resolutions.

Today, I am sitting in front of an open brand new diary, listing out my resolution for 2015. Inevitably, the first in the list is a goal to ‘lose weight’.