Two staff members make resolutions
– and opt to share their efforts
We’ve all done it at one time or another
– whether we vowed to eat healthier, exercise more or quit
smoking, few adults ring in a new year without making
well-intentioned resolutions to change our lives for the
better.
But a call for readers to share their resolutions
– and their progress – proved fruitless. Perhaps by Jan. 11 most
of those resolutions had gone the way of resolutions past. So we
looked closer to home.
Two staff members make resolutions – and opt to share their efforts
We’ve all done it at one time or another – whether we vowed to eat healthier, exercise more or quit smoking, few adults ring in a new year without making well-intentioned resolutions to change our lives for the better.
But a call for readers to share their resolutions – and their progress – proved fruitless. Perhaps by Jan. 11 most of those resolutions had gone the way of resolutions past. So we looked closer to home.
Tracy Young, the Weekend Pinnacle’s advertising executive, and Daniel Cressman, the paper’s lead photographer, entered 2008 with specific goals in mind. Tracy hopes to lose 15-20 pounds by the end of the year, while Dan wants to sculpt his body to “look like one of the guys on the cover of ‘Men’s Fitness’ magazine.” The pair has offered to share their efforts with our readers, letting the public become a part of their highs and lows as they work towards their goals.
The idea is to check in with Tracy and Dan a few times throughout the year, to see how well they are doing and how hard it has been to keep their resolutions. Hopefully, their stories will help inspire the rest of us who may have made resolutions but are struggling to keep them.
Tracy’s story
One of the most popular modern New Year’s resolutions is to lose weight, according to wilstar.com. Tracy Young, 26, says she understands why so many people think a new year is a great time to begin dieting.
“I allowed myself to get really crazy during the holidays and I ate whatever I wanted,” she said. “I knew I was going to start my diet right after.”
Tracy had already decided she wanted to lose 20 pounds; the perky blonde had gained some weight over the past 18 months and says she was definitely feeling the effects of the extra weight.
“I wasn’t feeling like myself, so I started dieting in the fall and I lost 12 pounds,” she said. “With just that little bit of weight gone, I felt a little bit better, a little bit stronger and I was in a better mood.”
As the holidays approached, Tracy said she stopped watching what she ate, choosing instead to enjoy the holidays and the foods that came with them. Since New Year’s, however, Tracy is focusing on eating healthy, eliminating sweets and going to the gym regularly.
“When I go to the store, I buy the right things. I buy fruits and vegetables and boneless, skinless chicken breasts,” she said. “I’m doing more of my own cooking.”
One major lifestyle change Tracy has adopted is bringing her lunch to work instead of going out to eat each day.
“When you go out to eat, at least for me, I’d go with the best intentions thinking ‘oh, I’ll just order a salad,’ but then I’d get there and there would be so many good things to tempt me,” she said. “Now, I’m packing my lunch, and when I cook, I make sure I make enough to bring leftovers the next day.”
Tracy is trying to keep her caloric intake to 1,731 calories a day, and keeps track of what she eats and drinks, as well as her workouts, with the help of a Web site, www.thedailyplate.com. She can go to the site, enter exactly what she is planning to eat, and see calorie counts and other nutritional information for a particular dish. The site also provides its users with information for popular restaurants and take-out foods, and also provides access to a free calorie counter, a food journal and a fitness log.
“It’s an awesome site,” Tracy said. “It’s really helped me figure out which of my favorites I can keep and what I need to change, like my lattes from Starbucks. Now I can order skim milk or lighten it in other ways and still drink my Starbucks.”
Another major change Tracy has adopted is increasing the amount of time she spends working out. As a child and teenager, Tracy was extremely athletic, and participated in several organized youth sports. Today, she plays recreational softball and goes to the gym at least five times a week, concentrating mostly on cardio exercises.
“I used to go the gym in the evenings, but a lot of times I would convince myself I was too tired or I would make other excuses,” she said. “I’ve started going to the gym first thing in the morning. I find if I do that, I have more energy throughout the day and sometimes I even feel so good I’ll go again in the afternoon.”
Tracy said while the thought of going public with her resolution adds a little bit of pressure, it also adds an incentive for sticking to it.
“Most people make a New Year’s resolution and they break it by March,” she said. “In my case, I already wanted to do this, and it just happened to coincide with the New Year. Now that I’m doing this in the paper, I’m thinking that I don’t want anyone to see me in a restaurant ordering something I shouldn’t! But I’m up for the challenge. If I don’t make these lifestyle changes now, then I never will.”
Daniel’s story
Dan Cressman, 29, spent his high school years as a jock – the Pennsylvania native was a three-sport athlete, playing football, baseball and volleyball. He was in good shape, but not in an obvious way.
“When you do sports, you don’t do a whole lot of sit-ups,” he said. “It’s more about conditioning and training for whatever position you are playing. It’s not about how you look.”
Dan says he tends to eat pretty healthy foods, although he does snack quite a bit. To counter this, and as a way to relieve daily stress, Dan goes to the gym a couple of times a week.
“Working out helps clear your mind,” he said. “But I wasn’t really going to change my physical appearance.”
For his New Year’s resolution, Dan has decided he wants to work on his abdomen muscles, creating what he calls “six-pack abs.”
“I’ve always had a bit of a ‘spare tire’ and I’ve thought about doing something about it and I never follow through,” he said. “Now I’m just going to go for it. I want to see what the hell I’ll look like if I can do this.”
For his workouts, Dan says he is following suggestions he reads in “Men’s Fitness” and other exercise magazines by concentrating on cardio exercises and doing lots of sit-ups and crunches. He also plans to ask the trainer at the gym near his Aptos home for suggestions on working his abdomen muscles.
“I’m going for defined, not big. I want to look like those guys in the movie ‘300.’ Some of those guys were airbrushed, I know, because you can see brush strokes in photos, but they had to be in some kind of shape,” he said. “I want to be chiseled.”
Dan is also trying to keep his resolution by watching what he eats.
“I can still eat all the time, I just have to change what I eat,” he said. “For breakfast, I’m following the serving guidelines – like with my cereal, I actually measured one cup of cereal and ½ cup of milk and at first it seemed small, but it seems to hold me. I also have a slice of bread with peanut butter and jelly, and then for lunch I’m trying to eat just salads and maybe some yogurt.”
Organic foods play a major role in Dan’s diet, and he also plans to do a three-day juice fast to help “cleanse my body of a lot of junk.”
While Tracy says taking their resolutions public adds a bit of pressure, Dan says the idea of someone seeing him a few months from now and not seeing “my six-pack” will just spur him on.
“If I did this just for myself, I probably wouldn’t stick to it,” he said. “Since I’m doing it for something else, it’s like ‘wow, I’d better get this done.'”
