Revis­it­ing Your New Years Fit­ness Resolutions

Do you remem­ber your New Year’s Resolutions?

Were any of them related to run­ning, health, or fitness?

How are you doing with them?

Most peo­ple for­got their res­o­lu­tions by Feb­ru­ary or March. But a few, the intre­pid and per­sis­tent ones, hung on at least into the sum­mer. And that’s when the one-​​two punch knocked the rest of us out.

First, the ‘lazy days’ of sum­mer filled with vaca­tion road trips and back­yard bar­be­ques both gave us excuses to stray from oth­er­wise healthy diets and to cut back on exer­cise (“I’ll be active at the beach, and we’re pack­ing so much already, so I’ll leave my run­ning clothes behind and catch up when we get back…”).

Then, before we could recover from the “sum­mer effect,” school started. And with the start of the school year came all the extracur­ric­u­lar activ­i­ties – fall soc­cer, small-​​fry foot­ball, music lessons, scouts, Sun­day school, etc.

And that’s where life gets the best of us. We’re no longer think­ing about our New Year’s res­o­lu­tions from nine months ago. We’re no longer think­ing about doing what’s good for us. At this point in the year, we just want to make it through the day with­out going insane. So we skip a run here, grab a fast food lunch there, and lit­tle by lit­tle end up back­slid­ing into inac­tiv­ity. Before we know it the hol­i­days are here, we’ve gained 10 pounds at hol­i­day par­ties, and we approach the New Year with ambi­tious ide­al­ism and renewed vigor to really keep our res­o­lu­tions “this time.”

But you know what, it’s not too late! There are still three months left in the year. Now is the time to climb back on the horse and recom­mit your­self to your run­ning and fit­ness goals. Then, when New Year’s Day rolls around, you won’t have to resolve to get back on track with your health again, because you’ll already be back on track.

Also, if you make the effort to find a rou­tine that works for you now – when life is at its busiest and most hec­tic – then you’ll know that you have a run­ning and fit­ness sched­ule that will work any­time. Not an ambi­tious and ide­al­is­tic New Year’s Day res­o­lu­tion sched­ule that you are con­stantly com­pro­mis­ing, but a real­is­tic day-​​to-​​day sched­ule that you can stick with all year.

And remem­ber, your fam­ily wants you to be healthy too. So for your sake and theirs, resolve to get back on track now!

What are you wait­ing for?

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