Will you make a New Year's resolution, 2015?

No. I don’t see the point in waiting for January 1st to make positive changes in my life.

Most people don’t stick to their resolutions anyway. Which explains why the gym is always packed in January but empty come February or March. “I’m going to lose x amount of weight this year” sounds great until people realize you have to work hard for a nice body. Imagine that!

My plan is to continue doing what I’m doing and make changes as they become necessary.

Stick to it, @livelaughlove21.

I tend to agree, but can see where a milestone might help some people. Quitting smoking is seldom accomplished on the first try.
Although mine was.

Yes. I hope I actually start doing some of it before New Years.

Go back to vegan meals 90% of the time at home.

One hour of cleaning and/or organizing every day.

Yes. The same as every year, my new years resolution will be to fail my new years resolution.

I didn’t know you strove to vegan, @JLeslie. Certainly achievable, realistic goals. G’luck!

I didn’t know [remember] until this week that Jewish tradition prohibited the combining of meat and dairy.

Yes, I will be. I’m allowing this holiday period to be the last time I eat or drink high sugar, or high fat foods. From January 1st 12:01am, I am restricting myself to a low carb low fat diet. My other new years resolution is to exercise more… To lose the extra 200kg (I am not joking) during 2015.

I have struggled with obesity since I was 16 (I turn 27 on Jan 2nd)... So I think it’s time I do something about that.

@livelaughlove21 The funny thing is, Hard work is NOT required… Just self control. A strict diet, and half an hour to an hour brisk walk every day.

It worked for me. I struggled with those fad weight loss programs too… The ones that put you on a meal replacement system (You know the kind, shakes and all that) and had you do a lot of physical exercise… They didn’t work… When I changed to a decent diet (Mostly salads, lite dressings, etc, and only water to drink), and walked for half an hour a day… within two months, I had noticed the difference.

Nope, no point as I don’t have the discipline.

Two years ago tomorrow (Dec 26) I changed how I eat. I started on the 26th because I did not want it to be a resolution, I wanted a permanent change.

I don’t do resolutions.

Yeah. I don’t wait till January to work on self-improvement, but I still appreciate acknowledging the milestone as a chance to really reflect upon the past year and what can be done differently.

Next year will bring a lot of changes as I will leave college and move into the workforce. What I want most out of 2015 is a happy transition – whatever is required to make that happen. Things are looking good but I’m still so scared.

As far as things that are a little more within my control…my course load lightens a LOT in the spring so I plan to spend more time taking care of myself – going to the gym, cooking better food, indulging in my creative hobbies.

I hope to finish the second novel in my trilogy in 2015 which should be no problem, it is near its end. Maybe take some real steps towards thinking about publication. I dunno.

I also want to take steps to fix the mood in my apartment; we’ve all been at each other’s throats. I’ll be the mediator and I’ll start uncomfortable conversations if I have to. I just want things to improve.

No, I don’t have enough strength to fight with my inner demon. Instead I will make wishes, like at most New Year’s Eve. I think my 2015 wish will be for my family. I wish all the nasty recent affairs would be resolved, so that everyone could enjoy a new year.

I don’t really believe in magic, but making wishes makes me feel a bit more positive. And most people in my place prefer to wish anyway.

My doctor made a resolution for me: less sugar in ‘15.

@ibstubro Vegan mostly for health reasons, but I also can get my self worked up about the animals if I allow myself.

I’m not sure why you thought of the kosher rules? I don’t follow any kosher rules, neither did my family while I was growing up. Although, I think some things carry over. Like we never drank milk with a meal at my house (we did with cookies when we were little). I don’t even remember seeing anyone have milk with a meal until I moved to the Midwest. We did have milk with school lunch when I was a kid, which was a struggle for me, thank goodness they had a choice of chocolate milk.

My grandma didn’t make meals where cheese and dairy were combined on a plate, but I didn’t even notice until I was much older. My mother made cheeseburgers, lasagna, omelets with ham and cheese, etc.

No I don’t make New Years resolutions. If I need to improve in some aspects of my life, I try to do so throughout the year, if I have already solved a problem during the year, there is no need for New Years resolutions. I just take life one day at a time, if a problem arises, I try to take care of it when it comes along.

@elmillia “I struggled with those fad weight loss programs too…”

Too? Implying fad diets are what I meant by “hard work”? No dice. I’d consider a strict diet consisting mostly of salads with light dressing (which are useless, because they’re reducing fats that are not all that harmful with sugar and sodium, which are no healthier) absolute torture. It also depends on what you consider a “nice body.” No amount of walking will get me wrong he body I strive for (or the body I already have). I’m not one of those people that just want to be skinny. I want to be strong and fit. Therefore, I eat plenty of real food, with hardly any salads, and I lift heavy weights. It’s hard work, but it’s worth it. I feel good, I look good, and I’m not hungry or miserable like I used to be when I was clueless about nutrition/fitness and eating 1200 calories per day with nothing but cardio for exercise. That wasn’t hard work; it was starvation.

What I consider a nice body does require hard work and dedication. What you consider a nice body may not, but my point was that people who vow to lose weight at the beginning of every year often fail because they don’t want to put any effort into it. Saying weight loss requires no effort is simply ridiculous. If that were true, no one would be overweight.

While I mostly agree with @prairierose about making self improvement a year-round pursuit, I do think the tradition of setting goals for the coming 12 months on Jan. 1 and using the same date as a marker to review one’s achievements over the past 12 months are worthwhile from a psychological viewpoint.

@Pachy sure setting goals for the year is a good thing, but most people break their resolutions about the second week into the New Year and then feel guilty about it. That, to my way of thinking, is not a good way to start the year.

WHENEVER one makes a resolution, just the act of making it is the first step toward achieving it, no?

@Pachy it seems though that most people make the resolution and then quickly fail.

Play my trumpet 5 days a week (1 hour per day).

@gondwanalon
That is going to cause a lot of chafing

Have a happier year.

The last New Year’s Resolution I made turns 35 next Thursday! In 1980 I resolved to not make any more Resolutions. Easiest to keep resolution I ever made.

No Nyet Nein Non Nee Nada Nope.
I steadfastly resolve to resist from speaking in tongues…or not.

I’ve never made a New Year’s resolution and can’t foresee 2015 being any different.

@ragingloli They don’t call me leather-lips for nothing.

@livelaughlove21 Dedication, yes. Hard work, no. Losing weight does not require ten hours a day at the gym and all that silly things people do. It’s easy to lose to weight… Very easy infact. It just requires dedication and determination, not hard work.

The problem with todays world is that many people are caught up in the fake food craze… Junk food, high sugar foods, high fat foods… Foods that are fast to make, quick to order, etc.

They forget that real foods, like salads, are very easy to make, They are good for you, and they taste great… Steak, pork chops, chicken, and other lean meats don’t take forever to cook and prepare. I enjoy roast chickens, I enjoy chicken salads, I enjoy the occasional chicken roll (Yes, I have a thing for chicken). My roasts do not include potatoes, pumpkin, or anything else unhealthy for me.

Perfect body? I’m not sure there is a such thing as a perfect body… But I’ll define my ideal body as slim, with no trace of fat. I do not care for muscles, and do not need to show my abs. I just want to be healthy, and I want to have the energy to live life.

Let me put it this way. Two years ago, I was pretty obese… roughly 300kg. And yes, I fell into that same fast food,quick meal craze that I just criticized. But it was my dedication and determination, not hard work that turned my life around. With eating right, as I stated about, and one hour walk a day, I lost all that excess weight within a year. I did not visit the gym. I just walked.

The most important thing is, as you put it, dedication. No one can change their life without dedication, no matter what method they choose to lose the weight. :)

@elmillia 300 K equals over 600 pounds! Were you really that weight?

@emilia Even if you have a typo there if you weighed over 100 kilos and are an average height woman losing the first 20 kilos wouldn’t be very hard in terms of diet change and exercise. If you’re eating 6,000 calories a day and switch to 5,000 you still get to eat a whole lot if food and lose weight. If previously you did no exercise and now walk 30+ minutes a day that would be a little extra help too.

If you eat 2200 calories a day, exercise 3 times a week for an hour and weigh 140 pounds and want to get down to 125 pounds you have to seriously change the portions on your plate or what is in your plate.

I’m thinking your thin weight is @livelaughlove21‘s fat weight. I’m size 8 (American) and I feel overweight. The average sized women in America us more like a size 12 and they would thin at size 8. Everything is relative.

I’m not trying to say it’s psychologically easier for one person over the other, but the battle of weight is different depending on actual weight and weight goals.

@elmillia “My roasts do not include potatoes, pumpkin, or anything else unhealthy for me.”

Potatoes and pumpkin are not “unhealthy.” Which goes to show that losing a lot of weight does not make someone knowledgable about nutrition. You won’t need to only eat salads and an occasional chicken roll to lose weight. And as @JLeslie said, small changes can result in big results when you’re very large to begin with. Going from 155 lbs to 125 lbs is a lot different than going from 500 lbs to 200 lbs.

I also never said anything about a “perfect body.” I said “ideal body,” which I acknowledged is not the same for everyone. I’m 5’5” and 122lbs. Last time I was this weight, I had dropped 40 lbs on Atkins with no exercise. However, my body looks a million times better now than it did then. I was the dreaded “skinny fat” – in the healthy weight range for my height, but with a body fat percentage that was still too high for my liking. I was very unhappy with how I looked even though I was slim. I don’t have bulging biceps and ripped abs now, but lifting weights has changed my body like walking/cardio never could – I look strong and fit and healthy, and I work hard to look this way. You certainly don’t need to value strength and fitness, but plenty of people do.

Weight loss is a numbers game. Calories in vs. calories out. No exercise is really necessary. Being fit is something else entirely. And “effort” isn’t just physical work. Mental effort is required for weight loss.

I hereby resolve to ask more, and better, questions on Fluther in 2015.

Anyone care to join me?
:-)