What is the Difference ?

What’s the difference between a new year’s resolution and a plan (any plan) for the 2026 ?

It’s a very dull, overcast and damp January afternoon here and it was a bit of a struggle to close the book i’m working through, switch the computer off and go out for my (planned) daily walk. It was especially difficult today because my currently problem knee is being painful after last week’effort – I pushed my distance maybe a bit too far at the end of last week so i’m suffering for my enthusiasm at the end of this one.

A few weeks ago, well before Christmas, I decided that I should give it a go to lose some weight and at least get to Dr Peter Attia’s definition of basline fitness. My plan – yes, I made an actual plan for the first few weeks, was to start with just fifteen minutes of walking every day and then as soon as I could to increase that to two or three sessions per day. In week three I laced the three daily sessions into one longer walk that also takes in another steep (ish) Cornish lane and by week four i’d pushed out even more to take in the longer and steeper hill that I used to stomp my way up with a loaded pack when I was into rucking for cardio training,

I have this rather ambitious plan to walk most of the distance between this village and the local town with an ultralight bushcraft pack and bivvi out for at least one night : I used to do that route as a training hike in around two and a half hours but now I should allow myself two full days and arrange both a drop off for the walk in and definitely a pick up at the finish – how the mighty have fallen eh ?

In week five, which starts on the same day that this post goes live, my plan is to start some physio directed exercises out on the back deck : that’s mainly one leg step-ups onto my old training box and that’s back in place as I heaved it up there last week, I even set up my old Olympic barbell with the highly ambitious idea of doing a few bar end squats – the physio says not to mess about with added weight so i’ll be adding some as soon as I feel able !

My plan comes in two halves – that’s all about the first side for now except that in week two I decided to give up biscuits completely and then next week I intend to give up on anything sugary at all. That part might well come with a fight as the nearby cafe that does the best coffee in the area also makes excellent shortbread – I have though decided to only have it when we go out there once a week so that’s some minor progress I guess.

Dr Attia, by the way says that the lowest level of everyday fitness is what most people do – ie nothing or totally sedentary. From nothing to just 15 minutes a day, every day, he says is of the greatest value when starting out. Dr Peterson, when he interviewed Attia, says that making that change, from nought to one, is that hardest jump or change in any field of human endeavour.

I don’t have much progress to report with the various ongoing projects – i’m still waiting patiently for the roofing materials to arrive but iv’e done a bit more work on the scale model. As you can see, above, the mini-me is sat on the upgraded workbench which is now wider (deeper) and runs the full length of the back wall. Iv’e pretty much decided (using the model) that the main door will be hung as a pair of sliding barn doors so that they don’t interfere with the inside or outside space.

This week I failed on finding a 1 : 12 scale model of an engineers vice or a pillar drill as they are the first things i’ll fit once the wall battens, wall panels, doors, floor, electrics and roof are variously fitted and/or made. That is, kinda/sorta a plan as well.

Anyway….lets hear some blah blah about new years resolutions.

Several years ago – correction, many years ago now, I got a muscle tear injury that meant that I had to start the rehab in a swimming pool just at the worst time of year (Christmas) and from the pool I progressed on to wobble boards BOSU’s and the like and from there I springboarded to using the various weights machines and ultimately free weights. It was a great three years and I was lighter, stronger and happier than i’d been in many years – most of the problem was the work I did and the eventual breakdown of any normal sleep.

Anyway, at the beginning of year two I rocked up at the gym one morning in January and the usually quiet gym was full of people that i’d never seen before – later one of the instructors explained that these were the new years resolutions newbies. During my workout session that morning I was going quickly between upper and lower body exercises so I was going straight from the bench press to the squats bar and combining both with decline press-ups and bar pull ups. While I was off the bench press – I had racked the bar but not stripped the weights off – a smart looking couple came along, both of them in smart new gym clothes and shiny trainers, and the bloke wriggled his way onto the bench under the bench press and went immediately into unracking the loaded bar, got it onto his chest but couldn’t press it off again.

I had to quickly rack the squats bar that I was using and jump in to rescue him by pulling the loaded bar off of his chest where he was still trying and failing to get it back onto the rack pins. My bad for having not stripped the bench press of plates but I wasn’t expecting a complete newbie to just jump onto a bench that he would have seen was being used. Both he and his partner scuttled away looking rather sheepish and embarrassed. I would like to think that had he said something that I would have set the bar up with an appropriate amount of weight – even just a bare bar for a total beginner – and ‘spotted’ him until he was at least comfortable – as it was they walked out of the gym and I never saw them again.

Within just a few weeks the gym was back to it’s usual quiet state on a Monday morning – except that is for the group of ladies (ladies that do lunch) that came in and sat on the exercise bikes for a quarter hour before going back to the bar for coffee or lunch. After a while it all started to make sense – the pattern of that time of year was that people would make ambitious but unformed resolutions to get fit or lose some of that Christmas excess weight gain and thus go out and spend lots of money on new trainers and gym clothes and then rock up to the nearest gym cum health club and take out a membership. As it was I was barely getting value out of my years membership as I was only training three or four times a week – plus some swimming – which I often did on the way to or from work (in those days I worked just across the road from the gym and could be in the outside pool within five minutes of leaving work)

Me ?…..I never had a plan to get fit, what happened is that I had an injury and the only rehab I could get was me doing it or waiting a month to be seen by the hospital physio. I got into the whole deal of training with free weights because I enjoyed being in the gym : what’s more I had to pay for a year’s membership so I wanted to get some use out of it. Way back in my thirties I suddenly got back into rock climbing when I moved away from the sea and realized that I would have to be both a lot lighter and a lot fitter to even be able to second some of my friends. That realization had me making my first ever plan of training.

I’m a poor example when it comes to new year resolutions – I don’t remember any that iv’e made but I do know that I never kept a single one – as is the case with most people if my experience with that gym is anything to go by. Now……I have a plan for completing the workshop but it’s on hold because the materials haven’t arrived. I do also have a plan about how best to deal with my increasing weight and vanishing fitness even though it’s almost laughably basic and low key : what I don’t have though is yet another failed resolution.