New year, new you?
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Thats the tricky question this time of year.
Are we going to follow through on all those NYE fitness vows.
Or really stick at something for a change and give old you free reign?
Its a familiar pressure after the annual festive binge. A pressure that finds particular expression round the belt line.
Amazing how belts contract in the heat of summer. Defying all theories of thermo-dynamics.
Not that you want to focus on running yourself down. Because youd be a big target.
But it would be nice to think not stuffing yourself with ham isnt really a choice.
More like a mantra.
That the living is good, but possibly short-lived if you keep it up.
Eat, drink, sleep do it all again.
So hard to rein it in once that holiday rhythm gets going.
But all good things come to an end. Like holidays, and the ham. So proud and noble before Christmas. So manky by the end.
And all those voices.
Telling you to stop picking at the bone.
Lest you get food poisoning.
Telling you to get active.
For the good of your health.
Or at least your heart, which might well stop if you dont start exercising - discipline.
Then the heatwave arrives with more force than a Milos Raonic first serve.
The Aussie Open offers yet another reason to lay on the couch and do nothing.
Except wave goodbye to most of the Aussies.
Cant they count past round one?
And theres poor old Bernard tick tick Tomic bomb.
The most misunderstood tweet in Australian sport. Just ask Nick Kyrgios.
Leaving it all up to young Di Minaur to exorcise the demons.
But dont say exorcise.
Sounds too much like exercise.
And going to the fridge is not exercise.
Unless its 10,000 steps away.
Its crunch time, and they always hurt.
Are you going to persist with the old you.
Or betray that familiar easy going eating machine for an aspirational stranger?
Who promises something leaner, with hopefully lower blood pressure, not lurching towards diabetes.
Wheres the loyalty in that, old you asks? What happened to hanging tough in a crisis? Or at least sagging.
Loyalty is strength of character in some circles.
Not medical circles mind you.
But we cant live forever.
And sticking to old you just might bear that out.
Life wasnt meant to be easy. But its been far from hard.
You could change the NYE mission statement to new year, new belt, and keep expanding on that.
Or bite something with less calories than a pav. Try the bullet, and give new year, new you a shot.
The choice is just yours.
