Grit Doctor: Rethink the resolutions and cut out the gym

Q Dear Dr Grit. So far 2015 has been a failure for me. I have managed to drink alcohol on four separate occasions with no good excuse, despite having promised to go dry in January. Another resolution was to join the gym but I have not been back once and I have been shouting at my kids every day. I had promised not to shout at them all the time. So, I am feeling like a very unfit, slightly-fatter-than-this-time-last-year angry mum with a drink problem.

Help me, I need some grit factor. SB

A I want to give you a huge gritty hug, SB, soothing tones of “now, now dear” and offer you an Irish coffee. The fact you’ve managed, what, 15 days of it sober? That alone deserves a medal, my dear. And I know from further correspondence that you do not have a drink problem, but that you do have an excellent sense of humour. That’s a most vital weapon at this particularly gritty time of year.

I had a lady write to me recently saying she wanted to make giving up booze her “crap-cutting commitment” for January, because she blamed her thicker waistline on all the wine she’d drunk over the festive period.

My response was to suggest she amend the commitment to giving up wine and beer, which are full of calories, and instead opt for the odd spirit, which is not so fattening. She has since reported back that it has helped with both the weight and her mood.*

Shouting

As for no shouting at the kids, that isn’t a resolution, my dear, it’s the Holy Grail and if anyone with kids under five has found it: pray, tell us.

I know not of any mother who is not shouting, or screaming, at her kids, herself, and her partner at the very least 20 times a day. Shouting is the very heartbeat of motherhood and the only language my twin sons seem to understand.

I can request that they do x, y or z (or more often than not it’s a request to desist from doing x, y or z) and I can request calmly about 20-50 times, thus ensuring we are late for nursery/still eating lunch five hours after we started, or I can bypass all that softly-softly, nicely-nicely business and just scream blue murder at them. Job done.

Okay, I jest, we all know that shouting and screaming isn’t a solution, nor does it actually work a lot of the time (mine have started laughing more wildly in the face of my increasingly demented shouts for obedience).

What I am trying to do is to offer you empathy, SB, because every mother reading this understands how hard it is not to shout at their little angels.

I’m afraid I don’t think it is something that can actually be given up, or gritdoctored away. Nor would it necessarily be healthy to do so.

If our kids think we are totally zen all the time, how is that going to prepare them for life, for real people, and imperfect, challenging relationships? We are mothers, not effing superheros, and we are going to lose our rag – daily – whether we like it or not, and that’s even after a four-mile run and muchos endorphinos in my case, so please don’t beat yourself up about this one.

Providing all is well at the end of the day and they are tucked up in bed safe and sound, you are doing grand.

Gym worship

I think of the gym as the holy place where the already fit go to worship. It is where they congregate to hone their skills, expand their repertoire and admire their progress.

It is not a great starting point for the slightly out-of-condition knackered mum and can be the polar opposite of motivating: dispiriting in the extreme.

What’s worse is, just like the dieting industry, the gym is actually banking on your failure. It is invested in it. If all of its members turned up as it claimed they would, there wouldn’t be room to breathe, let alone a free treadmill to use and that’s just how they like it.**

Choose some form of exercise instead that you can realistically stick to and then potentially build on, such as walking: which we all know can be, oh so easily and magically, transformed into running. (See the brilliant Irish Times Get Running beginners programme). Squeeze in a 30-minute brisk walk today, and you will be well on your way.

The Grit Doctor says Use your first month get-out-of-jail free card and give up your gym membership. Spend that hard-earned cash instead on some quality gin and a massage to take the edge off all that shouting.

* The GD does not wish to trivialise alcoholism. Please do seek help if you or anyone in your family has a genuine drink problem (alcoholicsanonymous.ie is a good place to start) **iti.ms/1Cg3cuH Ruth Field is the author of Run, Fat B!tch, Run and Get Your Sh!t Together. Her latest book, Cut the Crap, is out now.