Make 2026 Resolutions Stick

Hello and welcome to episode

10 of The Outlifting Lounge. I'm Alan.

And I'm Derec. This show is going out during that period between

Christmas and New Year when generally you don't even

know what day of the week it is.

So nothing too serious today.

We are just going to have a bit

of a chat about our Christmas, about our

New Year's resolutions, and we're going to share

quite a funny Reddit post that we found.

So let's get going.

Right, let's have a little chat about our

Christmas, our second Christmas on Gran Canaria.

It was fun, it was a different kind of

Christmas as well because it's so hot here, nice

and sunny, not to make anybody feel jealous.

I was about 21 degrees on Christmas Day.

Definitely was not a white Christmas here.

And of course on Christmas morning we did

our favourite thing to do here and that's

to check the weather back in Glasgow.

So they didn't get a white Christmas either.

No. Although they got a dry Christmas which I mean

if you're living in Glasgow you'll take that.

I'll tell you what, our Christmas day wasn't dry.

I'm still feeling the effects of it.

The spirits were free flowing shall we say?

They were. But it was good fun, it was really good fun.

There was a good crowd of us that went

out and celebrated Christmas together with a nice meal.

With a nice bottle of fizz at Nik's which was nice,

that was just to kind of set us up for

the day and then we went to our local, Copacabana.

Couple of nice wee cocktails in

there and then our Christmas lunch.

We went to a little place called The Bistro, fab

guys that run a really nice staff that work there

and stuff and it was a huge big table of

us so lots of people there people we hadn't met

before people we had met but didn't know really well

so it was quite nice to get to to speak

to them and enjoy Christmas and have a laugh.

Yeah, it was good. Like you said, there was some people we didn't know

and people that we kind of know of and

we say hi to, but to actually sit down

and have a chat with them was really nice.

It was really good. And then after the meal, we went and got Haggis.

So Haggis spent the rest of Christmas Day with us.

And yeah, we just went down to the Yumbo

Centre, went to Copacabana for a few drinks, went

to Mardi Gras for a few drinks, went

to the Rainbow Room for a few drinks.

Then it was time to go home.

No. Oh no, then we went to Tom's for a drink.

Did you forget that we ended up in Tom's?

It came back to me then, yeah.

Yeah, and then it's very difficult to get Haggis

home because the taxis just won't take dogs normally,

so we ended up having to bribe a taxi

driver with 20 euros to take us home.

We had to double the fare to take us home.

But listen, we got home and that was the main thing.

Haggis loves being in the Yumbo, doesn't he?

Because he just gets so much attention and

he was getting plenty of attention in

Rainbow Room when we were round as well.

It was a good Christmas for him too.

Aye, he enjoyed it.

But of course in Spain, the Christmas doesn't really

start or end on the 25th of December.

Christmas really starts on the 22nd of

December for the Christmas lottery. El Gordo.

And if anybody hasn't experienced this, I

think we wanted to talk about

this because it is an experience.

It's actually mental.

It starts really early in the morning. Everybody buys

their tickets well in advance and you get basically

get a ticket with a five digit number on

it and then they have two huge big

they're like those old bingo ball things, yeah.

So they've got like a hundred thousand numbers in

one of them and then in the other one

that they've got, this is the smaller one, they've got

lots of different prizes. And it's a massive draw

as well they give out something like, was it

two and a half billion euros worth of prizes?

Yeah none of it came our way though. Raging!

Two Christmases in a row we've won nothing. I know, raging!

And it's a huge thing as well because you said when

you took Haggis out for a walk like walking past

all our neighbours you could hear it on the TV

as well because everybody watches it. There were people in

the street with their phones like watching it on their

phones there were people that pulled their cars over to

watch it and it goes on for hours and it's

these like we'll put a little clip in so people

can hear what it sounds like but they’ve these kids that

take part and they sing the numbers and the prizes

Cincuenta y dos mil doscientos sesenta y seis.

Mil Euros.

Ochenta y siete mil novicientos trenta.

Mil Euros.

But it goes on for hours like this, so

long that they have to keep changing the kids

over so none of them lose their voice.

And it's a good way for us

to practice our numbers in Spanish.

Well, yeah, I think they sing way too fast.

But in Spain, it's such a massive thing.

For people in Spain, it's like tradition.

So for them, that's when Christmas begins.

It's when they tune into the lottery and hear

the songs being sung, hear the numbers being sung.

And it is just tradition for them.

What's the best part of it, though?

Mil Euros.

No, because that's the thing you hear all the time.

The thing I was going to say

was when somebody wins a prize.

Oh yeah. So when somebody wins a prize, what you do,

basically, if you win the big prize or

the second big prize or whatever, you go

to the place where you bought the ticket and celebrate.

But they've got camera crews like situated all over

Spain and they're there within like 10-15 minutes.

It's mental actually how quick they can get

there and then there's people there celebrating

with their champagne and stuff and they

get a literal 15 minutes of fame.

That's good fun and it's nice that

we're falling into these new Christmas traditions.

So our Christmas is finished, but actually Spanish

Christmas isn't actually until the 6th of January.

Yeah, it's really weird.

Their Christmas is totally different here.

They've got different things that they celebrate.

And so today's like the 28th of December

and it's Día de los Inocentes, which is

basically their version of April Fool's Day.

but let's go back so let's follow the timeline

properly so we've got El Gordo on the 22nd.

Yes. Then on Christmas Eve is Nochebuena. Yes.

And that's really when people

celebrate here, because our neighbours

were up to two o'clock in the f***ing morning.

Well, that's the last time you heard them. I

think I heard them after that but they really

celebrate it's such a big thing here is like

Christmas Eve night. But then their Christmas Day

is more like a traditional UK Boxing Day.

Yeah everybody's off work. You see people out doing like DIY

and stuff like that and it's just a bit of

a normal day and the only people that

you really see out doing like the Christmas day thing

are tourists or people from other countries that live here.

Like us. So yeah, so that's up to the 28th

and so this is a little bit of a lull now

before as i would call it Hogmanay. New Year's Eve.

But we're back to work tomorrow. I've got client

check-ins tomorrow so that's quite nice to have a

wee bit of normality before having a couple of

days off again. Yeah. And we don't really do

much at Hogmanay because of Haggis because he's

scared of the fireworks.

Yeah he's a s***ebag

No, he's bad with the fireworks so we've

never really been able to do anything

at New Year's Eve because of that.

Yeah. Which is a shame but he's priority.

So normally stay in, have a couple of

drinks at the bells, watch The Steamie.

Oh. Now if anybody doesn't know what The Steamie

is, I'm sure a lot of people

from Scotland will know what it is.

Actually probably a lot of older people.

Because it's from the 19...

You're telling on yourself here?

I know, I know. It's from the 1980s I want to say.

I remember it as a kid. It was late 1980s.

Yeah, I remember it being on the TV as a kid

and it's Tony Roper who wrote this play and it's about

Glasgow women in the 1950s going to the steamie which is

where they used to go to wash their clothes and

it just... so many memories of watching it with

my gran and my mum as a kid and we

love it. I introduced it to you and you...

We always have a greet as we would say in Glasgow

which is a cry basically at it because it's so nostalgic.

It's heartwarming. It captures a moment in time and

there's so many different themes to it as well

it's like, one of the main underlying themes in

it is about the strength and resilience of women

and there is something really timeless about that as

well but particularly for that period in time. They

talk about their husbands, what their husbands have

been getting up to and the one male

character that's actually in it is just getting

drunker and drunker as the show goes on

and the women are having to put

up with his nonsense as well.

It's really good. If anybody hasn't seen The Steamie

before, it's such a good watch.

It's just so funny.

There's so many stupid little lines in

there that we quote all the time.

And we get really excited to watch it every year.

I love it. I love it.

And the actual day of, when the women are at

the steamie, is Hogmanay, New Year's Eve as well.

So that's why it's kind of got

that theme running through it as well.

Everybody gets a chance to go and see the stage show

of it because they do it every now and again.

Go and see it, it's brilliant.

And we actually went to see a drag version of it.

Dragged To The Steamie, that was brilliant.

It was so funny.

They had so much success with that that they

then got to tour around Scotland and do

Dragged To The Steamie all around Scotland and

that got a really good reception as well. People loved it.

And then we went to see Nine to

Five, they did a drag version of that.

That was very funny.

And I'm sure one of the actors that

they had on was just dragged in

that night because they kept making mistakes.

Yeah, it was very good.

So if anybody hasn't seen The Steamie, it's on STV

Player which is available in Scotland but also I

think you can watch it on YouTube as well.

I don't know how legit that is but

I'm pretty sure the whole thing's on YouTube.

Watch it, definitely, yeah. We will.

And we've got a visitor on New Year's Eve as well.

Yes, so the boys from Copacabana, Grant and Jeff,

they have a dog Nala and she's very very frightened

of the fireworks probably worse than Haggis actually so we're

going to have her that night so that the boys

are obviously working and we're going to make sure that

the doggos are okay. We’re going to build them

a wee den so they feel nice and safe.

Yeah. So that's gonna be our favourite thing. The Steamie

and dogs. Pretty much and then we'll start the

new year as we mean to go on. Out

with the dogs first thing in the morning and...

And we'll be fresh probably as well.

Yes, we'll probably be the

freshest people for kilometres around.

And Christmas won't actually be done here

by that point. In the UK, 5th

of January, everybody's back to work, depressed.

And then the 6th is actually the King's Day here.

Día de los Reyes, I'm pretty sure it's called.

Most kids in Spain I think pretty much get

the presents from the three wise men, the kings.

So they don't arrive until the 12th day of Christmas

which is the 6th of January so that's a big

thing here. That's like kind of like Christmas Day essentially.

And then Christmas is done. And then Christmas is done!

And it starts getting back to normal. Christmas is

very much finished for us though and once New

Year's is over we are looking ahead. Yes, 2026.

yeah and we're going to set ourselves some resolutions and

stick to them and make 2026 a really good year

and kick it off the way we want. So

we'll announce what some of our resolutions are on

camera so that we have to stick to them.

F***. Nae pressure. So what are your resolutions?

I think for me it's

definitely learning more Spanish.

We kind of dip in and out of it don't we,

our study, but I need to be more structured and strict

and have a bit of a routine with that so that

by the end of 2026 I'm at least C1 level. I'm

kind of at B1 level at the minute which is intermediate

I would say but I want to be above that.

I think you're finding the same difficulty

as me because we are self-taught, we're

learning ourselves, we're watching programs in Spanish,

we're learning things as we go on.

I think very much the problem for me

is I can read Spanish really well.

Like I've read a couple of books and things and it's

a good way to learn because anytime I come across a

word I don't know, I'm adding it to my vocabulary.

So I can do that really well.

I can write in Spanish pretty okay.

But when it comes to having a conversation in Spanish,

some days I'm really good and I can blab away.

And then other days I just, or with certain

people, I just freeze and I find it difficult.

So for me, definitely learning Spanish is

a big priority, big resolution going into

2026, but specifically I think practicing

speaking. Yeah. Speaking and listening that's the the problem and

I think here as well because the Canarian accent is

so strong, it's fast, they miss off letters from the

ends of words. So it's just for us it's

really really difficult. And how we describe it normally

is if someone was to learn English and then

they suddenly found themselves in the middle of Glasgow

city centre and people are like, all right pal

how you doing what's happening, you’d just be like,

what the hell. Or asking somebody oh excuse me have you

seen where the newspapers are and somebody from Glasgow turning

around going, there they're there. There they're there.

Yeah, so I think that's the situation we find ourselves

in that the Canarian accent is so strong that

we find it difficult and it's fast, the cadence

is like super fast so we just need to

throw ourselves into it.I think we need some more

gay Canarian pals because that will help us with like

pop culture as well. Yeah I think for me as

well as well as the Spanish one thing that I

was not as good at in 2025 which I

previously was really good at was my yoga practice

so I think for me a big resolution going into

next year is definitely to pick the yoga practice way

back up again, do it much more regularly because I'm

starting to notice that I'm becoming a little more inflexible

my body's definitely got a little bit more rigid and

yeah just in general my body is not as

loose as it used to be. Yeah I think

with the amount of strength... I can't believe I

just said that and you didn't even make

an innuendo. You're not on your game today.

Right, hang on...

You're quite loose.

Yeah, I think as well, because

we're getting a bit older.

Maybe you are... But listen, this was a

running theme on Christmas Day.

You kept saying that you were considerably younger than me.

I am! You're a year and a half younger.

It's gay years though.

That's not a lot.

March is coming and you're going to be two

years younger, apparently. Because I'm 45 in March.

Yes. And you’ll still be 43.

Anyway, we digress.

That should be the name of our podcast, actually.

Never mind The Outlifting Lounge, it

should just be, We Digress.

So I think as we get a bit older, it's super

important to make sure that we are stretching a bit more

because of the amount of training we do in the gym.

You know, we look after ourselves in that sense,

but we definitely need to do a bit

more because when we lived in Glasgow, you

were teaching three Bodybalance classes a week.

Yeah, then I was going and covering some classes

and we were doing our own practice as well.

I was really good at stretching in

the evenings and things like that.

I've not been as good at it recently.

And it's just like anything, it just kind of falls

on the wayside unless you have a focus on it.

So that's a big focus for me.

Yeah. Something I want to continue doing into the new

year in 2026 is reading more. Since I bought a

Kindle like in October last year I've absolutely loved it

and I never thought I would be a Kindle person

I like a book but it's great grabbing my Kindle,

getting into bed, and just having a right good read

and I've been loving a lot of the things that

I've been reading lately and I still need to

read A Room Above A Shop which...

Did we speak about it a couple of weeks ago?

I don’t think we have spoken about it yet.

So, it’s a book that you’ve read twice actually

and I need to get into it

so we can speak about it.

I never do this but

I read that book cover to cover

in like, a couple of hours.

It’s not a particularly long book.

But I read it cover to cover, did not stop

until I'd finished. It is beautiful and I don't know

like what it is about it there's, there's so many

different themes underlying in the book it's one of those

books that when you do finish it just sits with

you for a little while. I didn't know how I

felt afterwards. Honestly the book is just so beautifully written.

The sentences are quite short but they

are dense, like they're so descriptive.

It's almost like poetry in places.

A Room Above A Shop by Anthony Shapland.

Phenomenal. Cannot recommend it more.

We're going to get you to read it and we'll maybe

talk about it on a, like, properly on a future show.

Yeah, I think so.

I've just finished reading Shuggie Bain, it's 1980s, it’s

Glasgow, so you know you can relate to

it because I was an 80s child growing up

in Glasgow, so if anybody hasn't read Shuggie

Bain then I would recommend that as well.

I need to read Young Mungo, that's the follow up.

I haven’t read that yet and I need to.

Yeah I think I preferred Young Mungo

to Shuggie Bain just because... I won't

give too much read but yeah.

Young Mungo is on my New Year's reading list and

Room Above A Shop can be on yours then. Okay deal.

And then we're going to need some more recommendations

so if anybody's tuning in and knows any good

LGBT specific interest books because that is what we

like reading, LGBT fiction, please comment, send us

messages, let us know what your recommendations are.

Any other resolutions then?

Definite work-life balance. Yeah. And I think we’ve been

quite good over Christmas. We have switched off. Yes.

We haven't... the only thing we're doing really work

related is this right there but this is fun

as well. That's because you don't do the editing.

So we started the business at the start of 2025.

I know. In January.

Outlifting's nearly a year old.

Nearly a year old already.

It has been great. It's been so much fun.

Like we love what we do, but we have

maybe been guilty of not taking enough us time.

And that definitely, it's something we got better at

towards the end of the year, but going into

2026, that has to be a non-negotiable for us,

is time off.

Yeah and during the summer we were very good at

taking a Friday afternoon off and going for a beach

walk and then we stopped doing that because we were

so busy so I think getting that back into our

schedule during the week is a good thing. Yes, even

just taking an hour out sometimes like we have done

that where we take a lunch break, we go

into the garden, sunbathe and then we continue on

with our day and that hour of just switching

off, forgetting about work, is like really essential.

Yeah and I think as well because we are

self-employed, obviously we're partners, we live together,

we work together it's very easy just to start talking

about work because it's there all the time

so we need to have...

Boundaries. Boundaries, yes!

Definite boundaries and taking an actual day off

as well we need to decide on a day off.

Yes. Having a better work-life balance is

an aspirational resolution but some of the other

stuff that we're talking about about setting boundaries,

having a set day off, making that plan,

that's how we're going to make it work

and that leads quite nicely into a little plug

but this is something that we're doing for free

for people so please listen in. We're not trying,

this is not going to be a hard sell.

So we are running from the 3rd of January

for 28 days, we are running a new year's

resolution workshop called Make It Stick so this is

all about making your new year's resolutions a reality

and bringing them forward into 2026 and hopefully beyond

How many times have you started a New Year's

resolution or set an intention and maybe it's okay

at first but then it falls on the wayside?

What we want to do is bring people

together as a group and we've also already

got quite a few people interested in this.

So on the 3rd of January,

we will run an online webinar.

Everybody gets together.

We will provide a digital workbook with lots

of resources in there to support your journey.

You will set your resolutions and we will

go through the process of bringing a plan

in place to make those resolutions a reality.

Over the course of the next 28 days we

will check in with you weekly to see how

you're doing with your resolutions, to see if you

need any support and to help keep you accountable.

Then at the end of the 28 days we

will get together for another video chat and everybody

can discuss how their January was for their resolutions,

where they were successful and we can hopefully help

each other out if we've maybe not had the

level of success that we wanted with our resolutions.

So, if this sounds like something that

you would like to take part in,

we would love to welcome you along.

It's totally free, totally no obligation, you don't

need to be a member of Outlifting.

We'd love to bring you on board.

We are opening the registrations very, very soon.

So in order to get on the waiting list all

you need to do is sign up. There is a

link in the show notes or the description that you

can click through just pop in your name and your

email address and you will be the first to know

when registrations open. So don't delay, do that now, get

on that list, and we will let you know

and we are looking forward to kicking off January

2026 together and making it our most successful yet.

Right, let's get on with the show.

Just before we wrap up, we're going

to do our regular fitness segment.

This is just going to be short.

This is absolutely no hate whatsoever to

the person who posted this on Reddit.

We are not making fun of them.

We are not laughing at them.

This is probably quite a relatable fitness

problem to have as a guy.

As a guy, yes.

For many guys, I would say.

Right, let me just get this a bit

closer because I'm at that age now where

I'm probably needing glasses, to be honest.

Okay so... I'm a teenager who just recently in

brackets very recently started lifting and I've noticed that

my right arm, in brackets, dominant one is

much more developed. I only use 10 pound

weights and exercise both arms evenly. Should I

start doing the exercises on each arm individually?

This is something that's pretty natural.

If you're using your right arm for a

certain vigorous activity, quite regularly, that muscle's going

to develop a little bit more, eh?

Like a seven minute elliptical.

So this, digressing again, but there was a scene

on Gogglebox a few years ago, and it's

the brother and sister from Blackpool, can't remember

their names, but I love them, they're hilarious.

And the sister says to the brother, I got a

notification on my Apple Watch that you had a

seven minute elliptical workout last night and it was

about midnight and his face went absolutely beetroot.

To be fair he didn't realise at first

but you could see when you were watching

his face the realisation dawning on him.

That, oh god, I was in bed at that time.

I definitely was not on an elliptical trailer.

So we use that quite often as a running joke.

It's a euphemism for the five knuckle shuffle.

But on a more serious note, if you find

that you do have imbalances in your muscles, then

yeah, unilateral training. So training one side separately

from the other is a really good way

of fixing those imbalances that you might have.

And that can go for any part of your body as well.

I had a lateral hip tilt. So one side

of my hip was higher than the other and

over time that became worse because I hadn't addressed

it and it means then you're overcompensating on one

side and because of that you end up

overdeveloped on one side, under and the other.

So it is the kind of thing that you need

to be very conscious of when you are training.

So if you have these imbalances you can even them up

but you need to be very mindful of

how you do that in your training.

Perhaps what you might want to do is just maybe do

an extra set on the left side when you're doing bicep

work to try to get a lot more work on that

side or you could have a day when you're maybe

not exercising your biceps in the gym where you maybe

go and do a couple of sets on that side.

So it is about working out what you need and

there are certain ways that you can measure that as

well. How you look in the mirro, you can take

tape measure measurements of your biceps or any other

body part and see whether they are imbalanced, how

badly imbalanced they are and then you can also

monitor your progress if you keep taking those measurements.

Yeah you tend to find that, chest press for example. So

if you're doing a barbell chest press, if you have

an arm or a side that's more dominant than the

other that one will lead, so a good way of

balancing that out is using dumbbells because they both have

you know both sides need to work equally to get

the dumbbells up. So yeah a fun post but actually

there is a message in there as well about how

training unilaterally really, really benefits you.

Let's wrap it up then.

As ever, thank you so much for

tuning in to The Outlifting Lounge.

Next week, we are going to

be talking about plant-based nutrition.

If you didn't know, Alan and I don't eat any meat.

So we are wanting to share tips with you.

If you are doing Veganuary or maybe one

of your New Year's resolutions is to just

eat less meat and eat more plants,

this is going to be the show for you.

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