New Year Resolutions: help or hinder?

Making New Year resolutions is not a new phenomena, it is a tradition steeped in history, and thought generally to date back to around 62BC-ish in Rome.

The resolutions tended to be a little more conscientious and moral than they are today, issuing wishes of good will and the like.

With the adoption of Christianity by the Roman Empire in the 4th Century things took a decided turn towards abstaining and religious worship, and so prayer and fasting became the dominant theme.

Many people today still participate in this sort of New Year resolution, but with the increasing secularisation of many countries it is a much less dominant theme, as anyone who has ever asked their female work colleague what they will be giving up (horrible men, Ben and Jerry's, and red wine on a weeknight mostly), will know.

For the most part nowadays, we either give up: chocolate, crisps, alcohol, men/women, complaining, using the car when we could walk.

                     

                                                             or

We vow to start: doing more exercise, going to see granma more often (she isn't getting any younger), joining more clubs, reading more books, saying 'Hi' to that nice attractive security man on the front desk at work, learning a new language, cooking rather than eating ready meals... the list goes on and on.

Here are some cups of tea and ice cream to steady your nerves at the prospect of having to do any of those.

I can't help you with most of these attempts, but relish in the fact that if you have chosen to succumb to the pressure of creating new year resolutions, they tend not to last long and you are not alone. 

Here is my advice for successful resolutions:

1) Don't tell anybody them, write them down, put them somewhere you will see them, and quietly try and complete them because a) if you don't manage it, no one will mock you, and b) Imagine the look on your friends face when you drop into conversation a couple months on that you've been learning Spanish for the last 8 weeks and can now translate the menu in that little tapas bar you have both been longing to go to but were too scared about what the dishes contained and too self-conscious to ask the waiter.

2) Choose things that are possible, and more than that, likely to be done. Success is a very big incentive to continue!

3) Give yourself a reasonable amount of time to complete them, otherwise you will give up at the sheer thought of trying to lose 10lbs in 5 days, let alone the actual attempt.

If exercise is your aim, here are two ideas for you:

1) Take up piloxing, it burns 700 calories an hour, so even if you go to one class, you will have burnt off more than if your foray into New Year resolution exercise had been running or yoga, and will have definitely earnt the recovery kitkat.

What is piloxing?

It's the new American sports craze, attracting famous followers everywhere it goes, hitting a gym near you, bringing with it its mantra 'sleek, sexy, and powerful'.

As the name suggests, piloxing is a combination of pilates and boxing. It originated in the United States, created by fitness guru Viveca Jensen, before quickly catching on and makings its transatlantic journey to the UK.

The fast paced exercise consists of interval training to blitz fat, improve posture, gain better spatial awareness, and work your inner core. Aimed at women, and with no age limit but the simple warning "not for the faint hearted".

2)Everyone is talking about the '4 minute miracle' that is the Tabata workout. Consisting of 4 minutes exercise a day it sounds like the lazy resolution keepers dream. A recent study has shown doing these 4 minutes a day is more beneficial than 60 minutes of aerobic work out.

It is a Japanese exercise regime, developed back in the 70's for Japanese Olympians, it requires those undertaking the craze to choose a cardio activitiy eg squats, skipping, etc, and put as much effort into it as possible for 20 seconds, then allow yourself a 10 second recuperation break before repeating the whole thing 7 times over.

Promising a leaner physique, and at only 4 minutes a day, it certainly makes keeping the resolution that bit easier, though i suspect a piece of cake may be in order to recover.

Who knows, maybe the resolutions will lead to some permanent changes. Like choosing cake AND fruit, not just the cake. Small steps!