Hello, Happy New year! I hope you had a wonderful time celebrating whatever you did. We had close friends (practically family) over to stay and ate, drank and sang our way into the new year. It was so much fun! The kids all enjoyed it too and were well behaved despite staying up so late. There wasn't a grisly child in sight. On new years day we wrapped up warm and braved the cold and rain for a walk on Wells beach (we are crazy!) it was so lovely though! The sea air made us all feel so much better and afterwards we went for fish and chips to soak up the last of New Years Eve's alcohol.

Needless to say, we were all pretty tired by the evening and when our friends set off home about 6ish New Years Day we locked up, got our PJ's on and snuggled up in bed watching TV. It was bliss!

I am not usually a big lover of New Year resolutions especially regarding diet or anything, I think it is too easy to get caught up in the whole 'new year, new me' crap and try to aim to do too much thus finding it all too overwhelming come February and nine times out of ten, failing. Call me cynical but it's true. That being said, I do love the feeling of a new year. Out with the old and in with the new. A time to reflect on the year just gone, good times and bad, any lessons we have learnt and focus on what we would like to achieve in the coming 12 months.

For me, I simply want to be healthier and happier. That is all. I am not setting myself an unrealistic goal by throwing out all the food that's in the cupboard in favour of sachet meal replacements. I just need to be healthier. Yes that does involve a lot of changes, some that most would consider overwhelming - including myself - but I intend on making it a long term lifestyle change so there is no expiry date. I plan on joining the gym at the end of the week and have just done our first food shop of the year which is full of healthy and nutritious food. Over the next month I plan on easing the gym into my weekly routine and cut down on portion sizes rather than go at it hammer and tong and be fed up within two weeks. The healthy eating part isn't an issue for me, I love healthy food, it is the portion size.

"For me, I simply want to be healthier and happier."


My main goal though is to be happy, hence the exercise and healthy food. It isn't a secret that exercise helps boost your mood and makes you feel better mentally, as does good food. You are what you eat after all. Most importantly I want to do positive things with my life this year. Stress less about all the little shitty things that get in the way (most of them can't be controlled anyway so why worry about them?) Focus on my thoughts more often so I am aware when negative thoughts are creeping in and do more things that I enjoy and that scare me (the gym being one of them) if we stay in our comfort zone then we never really go anywhere do we?

I want to join the gym to get fit and look and feel good of course but mainly, I want to go because I know it will make me feel good inside.

There will be times that I will feel unmotivated and there will be times I really don't want to work out, but last year taught me that it is pushing through the toughest days that make you the strongest. When I felt low and like I wanted to give up I didn't, I pushed through. I crumpled those bad thoughts and forced myself to do things that made me feel better and made those thoughts shrink. Like most things, diet and exercise is always easy to follow on the good days, it is the tough days which shape and teach us. I will force myself to work out even more so on days where I don't want to because those are the days I will benefit from it most.