I mentioned in the original post that I had made four New Year's Resolutions. Let's take a closer look at three of them today.
Eat more vegetables before noon and have lighter dinners
This resolution hasn't really gotten off the ground yet but I'm still holding out hope for an improvement in the next few weeks. It may not be obvious at first glance how the two components work in tandem - by moving up the vegetables I would otherwise eat at dinner, I end up accomplishing both parts of the resolution since I end up with less to eat at dinner. So as you can see, the plan is solid, but it's just the execution proving to be an issue. I still feel like this is a good idea, so I think it will happen this spring.
The main idea behind this one was twofold. First, there is a hint of a healthly diet aspect, which I think is true in the sense that eating vegetables early (a) ensures I have at least one healthy meal per day, since my unhealthier meals tend to happen at dinner, and (b) you never see anyone advising late, heavy meals as the route to optimal health (1). However, the broader connection of this resolution to my lifestyle is the thought that my main goal for 2022 is to improve sleep quality. Decisions last fall like buying a new bed set the right foundation in terms of equipment, and one of my other resolutions (to be reviewed in the next leftovers post) directly addresses another necessary step toward the goal. This resolution fits in a less direct way because I understand the digestive process can disrupt sleep quality if large meals are eaten later in the day.
Reread my old book notes and condense the best ideas
In my first few years after college, I read a lot without taking notes. Once I started scribbling down my thoughts, I realized an extra step was necessary to connect the learning to aspects of my routine. I implemented a regular review process where I would collect ideas from my notes, group them under different themes, and then refine the initial lists into reference documents for specific purposes. This was especially helpful in my first job when I was teaching myself how to be an effective manager - I had documents full of curated notes on topics such as organizing workloads, running job interviews, and teaching new tasks, all of which I would reference every few days as I tried to get up to speed with the new responsibility.
I fell off the routine in recent years so this resolution was my idea to get back to my roots. Why not, right, given how valuable it once was? The funny thing is that although I got started this January, I never felt like it was doing much good, so I've given up for now. I think the obvious explanation is that starting TOA back in 2016 was a replacement for this task, and possibly the logical evolution on my reference documents. Whether TOA is to blame or not, it seems that I am retaining information far better than I used to, so the practice of reviewing notes is proving less beneficial than anticipated. I might still get back to this in the future, but for now I'm going to place it on the proverbial "for later" shelf.
Take a few weeks off from exercise
I couldn't resist, really, putting this spin on the classic "get a gym membership" resolution. Who makes "no exercise" their resolution? My specific challenge was that I've run for about twenty-two straight months since the start of the pandemic, often five or six days a week, and I was starting to feel the strain from the workload. I reviewed my long-term exercise history and noted that in the past I had always enjoyed sporadic "breaks", but these breaks tended to be enforced through injury rather than a training plan. It occurred to me that my so-called "workload strain" was a likely precursor to an incoming injury, so I decided to take a few weeks off.
I read a few articles online about breaks and tried to get a sense of what marathon runners did between races. My research was inconclusive but everyone suggested at least two weeks. I've actually taken some two-week breaks in the past without obvious benefit (most recently this summer), so I decided to start with a break of nearly four weeks, which at that time meant the rest of January. As the month progressed, I noticed various aches and pains lingered or even emerged (I remember this happening after basketball seasons, almost as if the routine aches distracted from the deeper issues until I allowed a proper rest to heal the simpler ailments). I felt no interest in running at the end of January, so I extended my break a few days at a time until I got to President's Day. At this point I was starting to feel the need to get back to work, so I've been back on my feet for a couple of weeks now. The idea of a break from early January until President's Day has a nice ring to it, and there was the added benefit of avoiding the sub-freezing conditions that leave my hands and feet in rough shape. I know I'm likely to keep a relatively consistent running schedule from now until the end of the year, so for me a break of nearly six weeks might be an appropriate fit. Of course, what matters is the result - if I have a good running year, you can expect this concept to become a permanent feature of my annual running cycle.
Footnotes
1. Elaborating on point (a)...
By this, I mean that saving vegetables for later in the day puts me at risk for skipping them entirely if I end up having an unhealthy meal. However, if I eat them earlier, then I might still skip the planned dinner, but at least the plan won't include those vegetables. In some ways, what I am describing here is a process that ensures I never have two bad meals in a row.
