Usually towards the end of a year, people start making those new year resolutions and everybody knows the usual suspects – lose weight, eat healthier, win the lottery, blah blah ooh the lottery? – and while I’m not a particularly big fan of making resolutions, I am a big fan of winning the lottery, but that’s not what this post is about.
To be honest, when I started writing this post, I wasn’t quite sure on what it would be about, but now in the nanosecond it took to give it a little more thought, I realize going into the new year I’d like to have some sort of measurable game plan on accomplishing some new things this year. One might call them goals, and I guess in some way they are but if I make them feel rigid and set and I don’t accomplish them, then I’d feel defeated. Sometimes I feel defeated enough in running. Instead, here are some hopes I’d like to see myself doing this year.
Don’t get injured
At the end of 2014, I made it a goal to not get injured in 2015. 2014 wasn’t particularly kind to me when I spraining my ankle a couple of times, but I realize getting injured just can’t be predicted or prevented. Sure we can work hard at strengthening, stretching, and being more mindful of how we’re feeling as we’re running (heed any warning signs of potential injury) and those are probably great things to remember, but sometimes you just never know when you’re going to step on a rolling rock and oops, there goes your ankle with it.
Considering how this year of races is starting to pan out, NOT getting injured is at the top of my list, and there’s no doubt I need to focus more on strengthening, and core work to help accomplish this. I believe a stronger, balanced body is less prone to injury so I’d like to work on making my weaker areas stronger.
Retreat into my headspace
Last year I downloaded the Headspace app because I wanted to get more into meditation. Turns out I wasn’t very good at it. You can download the app very easily and get a free 10-day trial. Each day you do a 10 minute episode where a host with a nice smooth British accent talks you through relaxing mental exercises and breathing techniques. I think I did a couple of exercises and called it a day. Of course, I always intended on getting back into it, but I just never found those 10 minutes. The truth is I didn’t make it much of a priority. Now, I’m ready to give it a go again, starting with Day 1. Just need to set a Day 1 first.
Clean up the ol’ diet
This is a big one and I’ll just cut to the chase. Lately I feel like I’ve been eating fairly poorly and by “lately” I mean, the past 11 months. Alright, maybe not THAT long. While I do eat my fair share of fruits and vegetables, I also eat my fair share of cookies, candy (helloooo Red Vines), potato chips, processed foods, etc. In fact, December was a slew of making not the best food choices and I ate a lot of refined sugary foods and a bit of non-vegan goodies, which turned out not to be so good for me. Apparently all of the crap finally caught up to me on New Years Eve when I didn’t feel well and spent the night consuming my last meal of 2015 consisting of Ginger Ale and saltine crackers.
While I didn’t feel great, I realized it was a wake up call for me to clean up my diet once and for all so I’m doing my best to stay away from the refined sugars, processed white flours, and gluten. It won’t be perfect and that’s fine with me, but small changes can lead to big results and my body will tell me if I’m on the right track or not.
Renewing my vegan vows
If you skimmed over that last section, you might have missed my mention of consuming non-vegan goodies. I wish I could say I’m a perfect anything but there is no perfect anything. Choices are made and there is no going back. There is only moving forward. The holidays and being around family and friends drove the temptations and I ate ice cream, grilled cheese and pizza with dairy-based cheese, and croissants. It happened. All of it. And I didn’t feel so great afterwards. Knowing how I felt after consuming those things doesn’t benefit me physically, mentally, or emotionally. Yeah, and someone can tell me “you know you can get vegan versions of those.” It’s true and I have no great excuse, but I moved on. As I like to say, there are no mistakes, only lessons. And I’ve learned my lesson.
The truth is I feel great eating a plant-based vegan diet! I feel great making my food choices based on compassion. That’s why I eat this way, but I also know I still need to clean up the vegan diet. Yes, you can still eat processed junk food as a vegan. *Read the above section, “Cleaning up the ol’ diet”*
When January 1st hit, I began it as Veganuary, and I made it my time to hit the restart button and to get back to the reasons why I went vegan in the first place. Now, there is no going back. There are no other temptations. Except what someone brought temptation into the office Friday morning…
These donuts smelled soooo good but that’s where I drew the line at indulging in them. Sure they would’ve tasted delicious. Sure they would’ve satisfied for a brief moment, but so far in my lifetime, I’ve had a good fair amount of donuts. And of course, my weakness is that chocolate one with peanuts in the top left corner. Kryptonite! I admired from afar.
Yeah, 2016 is a new year and a new year for changes and better decision-making. There are definitely more things I’d like to work on changing and accomplishing but I won’t list them all here or else you’d be reading this for days!
But I will leave you with one last hope I’d like to have for the year…
to enjoy more sunrises.
Enjoy and thanks for reading and Happy New Year!