It’s round about now that new year’s resolutions start to tumble. That convincingly enthusiastic new year’s day trip to the gym which saw you coming home pumped in mind (‘You see? All I needed was that little extra push, I AM driven, I CAN do this) and body (ow) – is now but a distant ache. You haven’t been since and you don’t want to, you just wish you hadn’t called it a resolution.
I have never been a gym goer (except for a few years in LA, it’s actually a civil offence there not to and I didn’t fancy another run-in with the LAPD) and much prefer exercise that is part of rather than an addition to normal life. Cycling to work, harvesting olives, mowing the lawn – these are all good examples of exercise. Spin classes, jogging on the spot these are not.
And I have a theory about winter exercise. With winter exercise, a little goes a lot further. Just think how much extra effort your body is making just to keep a normal temperature when the world outside is freezing its ass off; you’re practically exercising by just getting out of bed. Shivering – that’s high velocity muscle pumping. Chattering teeth? A full workout for craniofacial ligaments. Those old people noises that arrive unbidden when you stand up? Meditation with vocal enhancement.
So go for a nice brisk bracing walk, knowing that you’re practically running a half marathon of effort, enjoy a nice cup of tea with a fully earned piece of cake at the end of it, and leave your resolutions where they should have stayed in the first place, in the bin with the party popper carcasses.
