Staying true to New Year resolutions — or not

The tradition of making New Year’s resolutions dates back to the ancient Babylonians, who greeted every fresh calendar by promising the gods that they would pay off all their debts. But the practice of actually sticking to New Year’s resolutions rarely makes it to St. Patrick’s Day. We asked several New Eastsiders to share their personal methods for dealing with those champagne-enhanced vows.

“My husband and I do something called the ‘Daniel Fast,’” says Cheryl Lewis, a freelance reporter who relocated to New Eastside from Atlanta with her husband, an architect, in March. “You kind of reset your eating schedule after the holiday craziness.”

Named in honor of the Jewish noble whom King Nebuchadnezzar imprisoned with a bunch of lions in Babylon, the Daniel Fast emphasizes cuisine that may have graced Mesopotamian meals three millennia ago. It’s heavy on grains and light on meat.

“It resets some of your choices and gets [you] back to healthy eating,” Lewis explains.

The couple has survived on the program for “two or three” Januarys. Lewis credits the diet’s effects for their success. “A lot of food has kind of an unfortunate aftermath where you hurt after you eat,” she explains. “Eating vegan, I don’t feel that way.”

And, this year, Lewis definitely didn’t break her resolution.

“I liked it so well, the way that I felt after eating mostly grains, that I’ve been vegan for three months now.”

“Every year, I make about five resolutions,” says Bill Prahofer, the owner of Buck’s Four Star Grill at Buckingham Fountain and Buck’s Café in Millennium Park. “I think that’s a right amount to try to achieve. I usually make four out of five. I never make the five.”

Prahofer may not be batting a thousand, but he makes the hits count.

“Usually, one’s about doing something for charity every year, so I do the Polar Plunge at North Avenue Beach, helping the Special Olympics,” he continues.

He also stretches a resolution “to see the world” over the course of multiple years. “Last year,” he says, “I traveled to three different countries.”

Monique, a New Eastside resident and assistant in a construction firm, also finds success with the law of averages.

“Every end of the year, I try to make a list of things I have to accomplish,” she says. “I work to accomplish them all, but generally accomplish about half.”

2016 is the best year she’s had since moving to Chicago seven years ago from Cameroon, where she was born.

“I got a better job and I got a better apartment in a better location,” she says. “That and going home to visit.”

Cameroonians, she says, take a casual approach to New Year’s Eve. “Some of them care and some of them don’t.” Although she has not yet decided exactly how she’ll welcome 2017, she’s confident that it will involve “watching the fireworks” from her new apartment.

Harold stopped doing the New Year’s resolutions “about five years ago” because they never worked. “Every time I’d make one, I’d end up breaking it,” he says. Whether he vowed to live more prudently or end certain bad habits, his lifestyle remained unchanged.

By rejecting the yardstick of progress, he found he removed the stigma of failure. “If you don’t have any rules, you can’t break them,” he explains.

Without the distraction of unachieved goals, he was free to pursue self-improvement year-round, strengthening his relationship with God and joining the Salvation Army. Harold currently mans the Red Kettle at Mariano’s on Benton Place. When not ringing, he performs song and dance routines.

Triva Donnel distinctly recalls her most successful NYE resolution. “In 2012, I vowed not to eat sugar,” she says. “It lasted about six months.”

The retired grandmother from Louisville, who made a stop at Mariano’s before venturing to Michigan Avenue during a holiday shopping vacation, explained that sugarless victory was the result of sheer willpower.

“I gave up all the unnatural sugars.” Although she has since lifted the restriction, Donnel stays healthy with an active lifestyle that includes “shopping with my granddaughters and purchasing dolls.” Her next stop: afternoon tea at the American Girl Place with daughter Tam and granddaughters Trinity, Rheagan and Jada.

Don’t want to make a bargain with 2017? You can always try the Argentinean way of celebrating, as explained by Marianela, a doctor of internal medicine on rotation at the University of Chicago. She was waiting for a friend at Mariano’s when she explained how the New Year is greeted in her homeland.

“You get together with family and friends and toast for those things that you have achieved during the previous year,” she says. “My brother is about to be an architect, so we’ll cheer for that.”

Unlike every other midnight countdown in her life, she’ll toast her brother with a “cheers” from the Midwest instead of a “salud” in the Southern Hemisphere. Ideally, it’ll happen down- town, “a quick bus ride” from her home in Hyde Park.

“This is my first New Year’s outside of Argentina,” she says. “I want to figure out how Chicagoans have fun.”

Daniel Patton, Staff Writer