New Year, Old Me

Here it is, a brand new year!  And yet, it's the same old me.
I guess if I wanted it to be a brand new me,
I would need to do things different.
And sometimes that seems impossible;
if not that, then it seems like too much work.

Working in retail means that the holiday months are NOT time to make personal changes - there are scheduling issues and often long  working hours.  After 17 Holiday seasons in retail, I know what to expect and how my mind and body will react, and I take appropriate measures to do what needs doing so that I can make it through each and every day.  Like prepping enough meals for the entire week, that way I come home and there's something to heat up without having to think about actually preparing anything.  Yes, sometimes it's the same thing I ate yesterday, but that's ok.  For now.

This should be the final week of the holiday push and people returning things.  All the leftover holiday items that didn't sell will be pulled from the sale floor and dealt with.  Thank goodness.  And ~that~ is when my own personal new year starts!  Eating better and exercising more -- two very typical resolutions that I used to make religiously over the years -- but now that I'm older and wiser, I know that I don't keep them long enough for them to matter.  So any kind of resolution needs to be something that is more a lifestyle change, a new habit. 

I did make a change on my Fitbit.  It now activates if I don't get at least 250 steps per hour from 6am to 7pm.  When it's 10 til the hour, it will buzz and jiggle to tell me how many steps I need to make .... Yes, it's a little silly in some ways, but if you've ever sat on a couch doing a Netflix binge, having that reminder to get up and move a little can be a wondrous thing!  Maybe it's these little steps that will help me get to a better me this year!

I know that losing weight is probably the single most important thing I could do for my health, but I'll be honest, it's very difficult when you reach a certain stage in life.  I changed my diet for a month, eating veggies and rice for dinner instead of pasta or burgers.  I changed my steps goal from 7,000 per day to 10,000 per day, to now 12,000 a day.  In the month of December, I averaged 14k steps per day on a working day .....  and no movement of the scale.  Which is both good and bad.  It's bad because I didn't lose weight, but also good, because I didn't gain any either!   So I'll be searching for something else that might tip the scale (pun intended!) in my favor ... I know there isn't a magical formula, but there must be a trick or two out there. 

Here's hoping 2018 is a positive year for all of us,
and that all our wishes come true --
because we worked hard to achieve them!