NY, NY: If you can lose it here, you can lose it anywhere

The small group of volunteers that designed the New Year, New You: Healthy Lifestyle Challenge were deliciously clever to wait until Monday. Jan. 11 to declare that the game was afoot. The 95 employee participants and I have had time to get our bearings for 2021. We returned to work at our university last week, after an 11-day holiday break, and situated ourselves for the start of a new semester without the added pressure of resolutions to drink water, take steps, eat well, exercise while also sorting piles of email, or assisting with last-minute student registrations, or grappling with a wholesale changeover to a new HR platform. 

Starting the NY, NY Challenge today reminded me that, yeah, the shininess of a new year isn't completely gone. I woke thinking of the 6-person team into which I was randomly sorted and noticed a certain buoyancy to my step as I planned my meals for the day and poured my first of 80 ounces of water. 

My five colleagues and I are Team Weight, Weight, Don't Tell Me. 

I think the crew at the NPR quiz show about the weekly news would appreciate our pun! 

Day 1: Actually, it's not about being a loser

Despite the sound advice in a terrific book called Burnout, in which the authors rail against the "Bikini Industrial Complex," I do own a bathroom scale. And I did weigh myself this morning. I may not do it again for the four weeks of the Challenge. Or, I might do it this weekend. But whatever I decide, it will be for my knowledge only. 

This challenge is not about losing weight. We are not sizing ourselves up against each other. Instead, the organizing committee is encouraging us to examine our daily habits and choices, and to make a shift to choosing more water, less coffee or pop. More steps, less sitting. More encouraging muttering to ourselves, less self-sabotaging self-talk. 

I earned a point today in the "Successfully Avoid Self Sabotage" column when I realized I wasn't going to have a heart-pounding workout on my bike after all, and yet steered clear of spending the next couple of hours berating myself for not following my original intent. I decided instead to stay inside, out of the rain, and complete a 30-minute indoor weights and stretching routine. Because I had avoided the downright mean self-talk, I enjoyed the indoor workout significantly more. Rather than classify it as a less-than alternative, it was simply my workout for the day. 

When I notice how hard I can be on myself, I often think of late August 2016 when I hiked from the North Rim to the South Rim of the Grand Canyon. This picture, taken on the third night, sitting on a plateau that stretched back to the north, captures the complete joy I felt from the inside out. It was perhaps the most physically and mentally fit I had ever been. It is a state of being to which I plan to return in this new year.