new year, healthier dust

I inadvertently scheduled a physical in the last couple of weeks last year.  The timing was an accident, but it has led to a bit of an odd situation.

Every year I make a point of not making a New Year's resolution.  I know that most people break their resolutions (if they're even specific enough to break) before the end of January, and so making a New Year's resolution always feels to me like an impulsive or a showy move.  I know many people have great reasons for making resolutions, but for me to do it doesn't feel natural.

Since I went to the doctor's office and had the typical blood work done right before Christmas, I got a call over the Christmas holiday that my triglyceride and bad cholesterol levels were consistently elevated enough that I need to start exercising more regularly.  For me this means that I need to start exercising at all.

Golden's first reaction was that we should get a membership to the local community center and work out there.  My first reaction was thinking that I don't want to be one of those guys the regulars see as an annoyance who will give up in a few weeks.

What I have done so far is find a YouTube channel called FitnessBlender and start with some of their beginner routines.  It turns out my boss uses the same channel for some of his exercises, so I'm not the only person I know who uses the channel.  He's more active and healthier than me, though.  I've committed to doing twenty minutes of routines every day, even when I'm very busy.  This sounds great on the surface, but to this point I have primarily proven to myself that I am horribly out of shape because I have a hard time completing anything other than the beginner routines.

My short term goal is to get healthy enough to regularly complete the normal, not-beginner routines without too much trouble.  My medium term goal is simply not to gain more weight, and ideally trim some (five pounds in a few months would be great at this point).  That goal is more psychological than anything.  My long term goal is to not have given up on this endeavor in one, two, five, or ten years.

Thus far, I have not modified my eating habits because I don't want to make major changes all at once that are unsustainable.  To me, this whole thing is pointless if I don't keep this up over the long term.  We'll see how committed I can remain to this since it's now more directly a question of health rather than just clothing size.