My New Year's Resolution Progress

How Is MY resolution so far?

I love a good new year’s resolution. In 2025 I made around five or ten new resolutions to take into the new year. It ranged from locking in my fitness to playing piano, learning how to market my business daily, improving in chess, budgeting monthly, and learning how to play golf. I tried to insert all of these habits the first of the year and I figured I could hit those easily. As you probably guessed, all of these habits had different levels of success. Some were around for a month or two, some were around for over a half of the year. I can’t say any of them stuck around for a FULL year. I watched a Tedtalk about a guy setting 12 new year resolutions and I figured I could try that.

Now, time hit the skip button and we are in 2026. I am feeling very bare bones on the habit front. December was a small reset for me to plan a better start for 2026. I also was sick for a week in November and a small portion of December.

After a few days of productive procrastination, I decided to try and establish one habit for 2026. What is the one habit that could make the biggest difference in my life. One that could be the first domino that could lead to better choices. After a few more days of thinking after the productive procrastination, writing lists of pros/cons, and of many other habits I would like to try. I finally landed on one.

Consistent exercise.

Due to vacations, sickness, and general laziness. I was approaching my heaviest weight once again. 220 pounds was when my anxiety attacked me the most. Where I hated looking in the mirror, and started to wear shirts at the beach because I was embarrassed of the weight gain. That was in June of 2024, and I dropped to 194 with the help of marathon training, while eating slightly better. From December 2024 to December 2025, I had gained back almost all of the weight.

As a kid I struggled to put on any type of weight. I remember before I moved to Orlando, I was 140 pounds, that was very sickly. I didn’t want to eat anything. I was missing out on my necessary calories every day, and I thought I was going to be sickly for the rest of my life. I had little to no energy back then. Now, I am 80 pounds heavier with little to no energy as well. I am hoping to drop to a sustainable weight of 180-190 pounds. Much heavier than my 140-pound sickly self and much lighter than my heaviest. I am around six feet tall, and 220 was my father’s weight when he was 50 years old. I am in the “prime” of my life at 27 years old.

At the end of December, I decided to make a change. I was going to start running again. I started this change in October with great consistency but after two vacations and two sicknesses. I finally got back on track in December. I wanted to have the type of consistency I had a year ago where I would actually run on vacation… I went on vacation in January while exercising daily, and I took two days off. Still got my daily steps, but no intentional exercise.

After that small spoiler, how is my resolution going? In January I had 17 workout days and traveled 60 miles in those days. This excludes my daily walks. My daily step average for the month of January was 9480 steps. I was 220 when this month started. I weighed myself 2/1 and I was 217 at night time. This is a huge success as I am still in the beginning stages of mileage as my longest run was 10 miles. My fastest mile time was 10 minutes 57 seconds. I was finally able to run a full mile without stopping at 12 minutes and 20 seconds. My fastest 5K was 43 minutes and 19 seconds.

Usually when it comes to habits, I am a jack of all trades. A mile wide but an inch deep. For this month, the habit was an inch wide and a mile deep.

I learned about max anaerobic rate at 153 beats per minute. I learned about the benefits of staying in zone 2 for a majority of my workouts. I downloaded Strava to track my progress. I tried to break records weekly in speed, and mileage.

I also dove into the world of triathlons. Something that I was slightly interested in 2021 but brushed it off with a couple of days. In 2026, it has grown larger, now with a road bike hanging up in my garage and my teenage cruiser bike was up for sale on Facebook Marketplace. I needed a new bike already, but I pushed that off until the drum from triathlons began to grow louder and louder. Riding the bike is a nice respite from the constant impact I put on my feet during my runs.

The last portion of a triathlon is swimming. I haven’t swam in a lap pool since middle school. Which was 15 years ago. Do I have to buy another membership to have access to a pool? Luckily, the University of Central Florida has a lap pool that I can use for “free”. I have the idea in my head to go swimming after my classes are done on the days that I have to drive out there. A way to get some more impact out of my tuition. I just had to buy a pair of goggles on Walmart and I will be out there.

I would… But currently, the whole country is in a Winter storm and the pool is outside. The issue of bad weather made me do something I haven’t done in several years…. Purchase a gym membership that is five minutes away from my house. I would be able to get away with this with the apartment gyms, but now that I am living in a house, I have no access to a gym in walking distance. There is some anxiety to go back to the gym, but it needs to be done. Closer access to a pool and is independent from weather.

Can I still count this as a single habit? Daily exercise has grown into a money pit and I haven’t even registered for the $500 Ironman 70.3 race. While my finances aren’t exactly happy with me, I am happy with myself. I have laid the ground work of consistent exercise and I was able to do it as cheap as I could while being able to train on nasty weather days, and during school days. Many more articles based on exercise coming soon. My ADHD brain has been full of new exercise tactics.