The Week in Health and Fitness: A Few Resolutions for 2017

This Week in Health and Fitness brings you the best fitness and health goings on around town so you can live your #bestlife.

With just over a week left of 2016, and as I finish yet another indulgent festive meal ("go on then, just one more mince pie"), my thoughts have turned to the dreaded "new year's resolutions." I like to consider myself a pretty healthy person – I work out a few times a week, I avoid carbs, I suffer through kale-based smoothies on the regular – but you can always do more and, if I've learned anything from writing this column over the past few months, there is always something more to do in Beijing. 

By way of a disclaimer, I am neither a trainer nor a dietician, but if you happened to follow some of these resolutions for yourself, it probably wouldn't hurt. 

Quit the gym
You're probably thinking "why on earth would you start a blog about New Year's resolutions with that" but bear with me. Many people join a gym in January in a bid to get fit but after a month or two of effort find they are disappointed with the results. Interest tails off and before you know it a year has gone by, the gym sales team is calling to ask if you want to renew your membership, and you can't even remember the last time you set foot in the gym. So this is me saying: quit the gym. If you're really dedicated to getting fit for 2017, get off the treadmill and try some classes instead. Gyms such as Prime Fitness, B Active, and Living Bigg all offer classes focused on either strength or cardio, or a mixture of both. Training in a group environment is more likely to keep you motivated, plus none of the above options are expensive – a block of 10 group classes at the three above gyms will set you back around RMB 1,000. Pro tip: I’m a big fan of Living Bigg’s Curves class, a female-focused class designed to carve out muscles and angles in all the right places (read: booty). 

Eat less sugar
Apart from cheese (which you can almost convince yourself is healthy, although probably not in the amounts I consume it), sugar is my biggest downfall when it comes to eating healthily. A lot has been written about cutting down, and ultimately quitting sugar, so I won’t go into a lot of detail here, but suffice it to say that I gave up sugar for a few months earlier this year and even in that short space of time I experienced greater mental clarity, slept much better, and generally felt like the sort of smug person you see on Instagram glowing with health and expensive (organic, natch) face creams. To put my plan into action, once January 1 rolls around I’ll be replacing the mince pies and Marks & Spencer chocolate biscuits with sugar-free (and in many cases butter and flour-free) treats from local bakery Morning Lab, who you can find at the weekly Farm to Neighbors market or on WeChat at morninglab. 

Try something new
This resolution is kind of tied to "quitting the gym" above. The days when exercising in Beijing was limited to dingy gyms, expensive hotel health clubs, and a handful of expensive yoga studios are long gone. Nowadays, Beijing has everything from aqua yoga to Zumba, so there’s no excuse not to get out there and find a type of exercise that suits you. Earlier this year I signed up to GuavaPass, which, while not particularly cheap at RMB 1,188 per month, does allow you to take up to three classes per month at a number of different gyms around town, including Glo Kitchen + Crossfit, Ms. Uptown, and even Heyrobics. 

More stories by this author here.

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