The Resolutioner's: Why You Are Doomed to Fail and What to do About It

Are you a "Resolutioner?" That's the name I've given to the folks who resolve to lose weight toward the end of the year, flood into the gym for the first couple months of the new year, only to fizzle out.

Fortunately, I don't fight the resolutioner crowd because I exercise in my garage, but I drive by the gym every morning and evening on may way to and from work, and this time of year there are cars parked on top of cars during the morning and evening peak exercise hours. I also listen to friends who use the gym complain about how crowded they are and how they can't get on this or that machine.

The crowded gym parking lot usually lasts until mid-February or early March. That's about when the resolutioner's run out of schlitz, but it doesn't have to be this way.

I think most of the resolutioner's are doomed to fail because the system is designed to make you fail. The system says you have to read this fitness magazine or follow this fitness plan, eat this kind of food, go to a gym, and use these kinds of machines.

The system is designed so you make a half-hearted attempt to get into shape, spend some of your hard-earned money, and give up; only to do it all over the next year. You never really get anywhere.

Why is that? The system doesn't realistically fit into your daily routine. Just the act of going to the gym is what usually dooms most of the resolutioner's. To get your exercise in you have to get up early (or go after work), pack a bag with shower supplies, towel, shower shoes, etc. After a while, this drill becomes tiresome and, suddenly, a little extra sleep in the morning, or happy hour after work are more enticing.

So what can you do? Make your exercise fit into your routine. Try the below workout, which doesn't require machines and can be done anywhere.

-5 push-ups

-5 air squats

-5 dips

-20 crunches

-Run 100 yards

Scale as needed and do it three times. Good luck!

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Thu Pic of the Day: "Inanimate" Object

Any idea what this is? No, it's not a planet, but after a few repetitions it feels as heavy as one.

It's my home-made medecine ball. It's a basketball filled with twenty pounds of sand and wrapped with duct tape.

If you've resolved to get into shape this year, make yourself a medecine ball and do some Wall Ball Shots.

While it's an inanimate object, do enough work with it, and other exercises, and it just might give you a little more life. But I guarantee you'll come to love and hate "fellowship" time with your medecine ball and Wall Ball Shots.

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Guest Post: Exercising: My Love/Hate Relationship With The Gym

By Patricia "Patty" Pendleton

When I moved to Minnesota at the age of thirty-six I decided to get healthy. Well, I would like to think that was why I joined the gym, but it really was my desire to get skinny. I even went so far as to have liposuction a few years back. All that did was take the fat from my butt and redistribute it to my abdomen and arms. I have never liked to exercise. If I could take a pill to do it I would go that route. I do not like getting sweaty and winded. I haven't the drive to be the best and compete for glory. I just want to be thin, plain and simple. It sounds vain and I own up to that. After being nicknamed Piggy by my two older sisters during my teen years my body image suffered greatly. Now, going on thirty-nine I am still battling this demon that drove me to do an unspeakable thing to my body. I joined a boot camp class.

Over the years I have spent thousands of dollars on at-home exercise equipment. Sitting in my garage right now is the elliptical machine I had to have. The most exercise I got from that thing was dragging it up from the basement this past weekend so I can Craigslist it so I can pay for my gym membership. At the gym there are plenty of free classes I could go to, but I decided to do the boot camp class, which cost extra, much to the dismay of my ever patient husband. I did the boot camp class because it is supposedly the hardest class at the gym. Boot camp is for bad asses and I wanted to be one of them. I wanted to have a sculpted stomach with a tight, high muscular butt, free of cellulite and jiggle. I wanted arms like Madonna. I would get thin in this class. I just knew it.

After twenty-four weeks of boot camp class not much in my physical appearance has changed. I still have my mom gut and, sadly, cellulite. However, I can pump out one hundred seventy push ups during the hour long class when told to do so. I can even run five miles with little fatigue. If someone told me I would be able to do these things when I first started I wouldn't have joined at all. I would have said: "They are going to make me do what? Why would I want to run holding twenty extra pounds of weight over my head? I am a house wife for Christ sake, why would I ever need to hold a plank position for ten minutes?"

Though my initial goals were not achieved, the whole "thin" thingy keeps me going. It isn't because I love the feeling of reaching a new level of strength and endurance. Rather, I am afraid if I quit now I really am going to get huge. I figured I was burning, on average, at least five hundred calories per class. Times that by three, and the calories I burn running twice a week, and I would have to cut out a lot of food from my life to maintain my current weight. It is a vicious cycle. The exercising increases my appetite, so I have been eating more food then ever, and if I quit exercising my metabolism is going to tank. I feel like the rat on the wheel running in circles and going nowhere fast.

Another thing about exercising I have noticed is I don't feel any healthier. In fact, I have more aches and pains then ever. My ankles, knees and the muscle right underneath my left butt cheek have suffered from "fitness". The running has made my neck problem flare up from all the jarring. I hate exercising so much I clench my teeth the entire time (when I am not mouth breathing, gulping air into my burning lungs) creating tension headaches. On top of all that it makes me swear like a sailor. I drop the f-bomb at least thirty times during a class. I think the other people in class think I have Tourette Syndrome. So what is a woman to do?

I have one month left to figure it all out before my boot camp ends. It would have been over this week, but I won an extra month doing a fitness challenge at the club. Isn't that ironic? I can admit I am proud that I have stuck with it as long as I have. My motivations were shallow and trite, but I think in all this misery, which I paid extra for, I learned something about myself: I realize if someone tells me to do something I will do it. On my own I am a quitter. I need people to inspire, motivate, even threaten me to reach my potential. I can live with that.

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