Hello, I’m Martel and I am a January cliché.
This realisation struck on Monday when I asked why the gym car park was full – and the receptionist said it’s because everyone has the same idea.
Namely, to transform body and mind for a New Year, new you.
She didn’t add”‘and pretend to be Jane Fonda until January 10,” but she’d be right.
Clearly I wasn’t the only parent who’d dropped the kids for the first day back at school, booked into three high impact classes, fuelled only by a superjuice with spirulina, whatever that is.
By tea time, I was ratty, skunnered and starving.
Same old story- go hell for leather*, burn out too soon and hit the kids’ Haribos before tea.
While a January cliche I may be, a January bore I am hopefully not.
You know the ones – doing Dry January and won’t talk about anything else.
“It’s liberating,” they say, elongating their vowels like Hyacinth Bouquet on a phone call in the hall.
“I can’t imagine e-e-ever going back to the way I wa-a-as. The headaches and hangovers, it just isn’t worth it.
“No, if – and it’s a big ‘if’ – I do ever drink again, it will be just the one – I don’t need alcohol to have a good time.”
And by the second Friday in the month, that’s exactly the pal you spot outside Mennies, with pint in hand and pants on head, demanding one for the road. And you decide you can continue your friendship after all.
For the past few years, I have actually done Dry January, simply because I want it after the madness of December. Well, ‘done’ it as in gave it a good go.
The whole month was dry first time round, the next year abstinence ended on the 29th for a night out, the following year it was on Burns’ Night on the 25th, worthy of glass of red.
This month, I have a wedding on the 23rd and I just can’t picture toasting the happy couple with a Diet Coke.
But the seal is then broken and while you start February with good intentions of only a weekend tipple, that bottle of warming red’s wink has a way of winning you over mid week.
Every year, my Dry bit is becoming shorter – and at this rate, by 2027 a morning off on the 1st could be the goal.
The first couple of days I find easy, a relief not have have a drink.
The rest of the first week is only achievably Dry by substituting wine with sugar.
Chocolate, biscuits, cake – anything. The first year, going Dry had the unexpected result of gaining half a stone – on top of the December half stone.
But then, the benefits do kick in – with weeks two and three bringing better, deeper sleep, a calmness of mind and ability to be more efficient in getting stuff done.
But I (pray) I am not a bore because I don’t – unless it comes up naturally – tell anyone I’m doing Dry January. It’s rather personal and reflective.
This year l, I’m on a more even keel** and have possibly had a bit of a lightbulb moment.
Getting healthier is seen as hard work, but actually, it’s the doing nothing that gets you through and gets results.
It’s the not going to the wine rack; the not pausing the TV to raid the crisps drawer or biscuit tin.
Doing absolutely nothing – albeit, while feeling a hungry and savouring a rice cake – is all we have to do.
Be still and wait for the return of a waist, clear skin and bright eyes.
I speak for myself of course. You are quite possibly, fabulously perfect.
*curious phrases should always be looked up, I say. Rudyard Kipling used “hell for leather” in his 1889 story “The Story of the Gadsbys.” The phrase likely refers to riding hard and fast, with “leather” possibly alluding to the saddle
**Stable, balanced, as in She had the knack of keeping us on an even keel in any emergency. This term, used figuratively since the mid-1800s, alludes to keeping a vessel’s keel in a level position, assuring smooth sailing.
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