No More Resolutions. These Are the Bad Habits We’re Keeping in 2024.

Every year, come late December, dozens of articles appear online telling you how to optimize, maximize, slenderize, and otherwise level up in the new year. Here at Outside, we have a general distaste for the idea that we, the over-caffeinated, internet-brained magazine editors, should tell you how to live your brilliant life. Instead, we choose to celebrate the bad habits that make our own lives weird and wonderful. Cookies for breakfast? Skinny dips? Chairlift beers? Binge watching an entire TV show in one sitting? You bet! Breaking the rules is fun. Here are all the habits we know we ought to address in 2024—but won’t.

Talking Non-Stop on the Uphill

Moving uphill efficiently and having a conversation are not mutually supportive activities. You might even argue that they are at odds—especially if you have a middling aerobic capacity, as I do. And yet, no matter if I’m on skis, a bike, or my two tired feet, I refuse to give up the uphill heart-to-heart. I’m sure my Strava feed would look more impressive if I would just zip it and focus on breathing, but I won’t. Once, while ski touring, a talkative friend and I were jabbering relentlessly while our quiet friend led the pack, until he told us we were annoying enough to have our own radio show. (We didn’t stop talking.) This summer, on a mountain bike ride, my friend and I paused our chatter to silently punch out a technical move, then resumed our conversation as we continued up. Laughing, she said, “See? Some features shut us up!” Skinning up our local hill at dawn last week, a friend and I managed, in the first ten minutes, to discuss what happens when we die. I love to sport, but I love my people more. Moving my body and getting to hear about my friends’ inner worlds? That’s the dream. I’ll sacrifice some uphill speed to ask about the afterlife any day. —Abigail Barronian, senior editor, Outside

Drinking Aperol Spritzes on Remote Peaks

Thanks to a massive snowpack, the summer ski mountaineering season in California’s Sierra Nevada felt infinite last year. As I ticked line after line out of my ragged guidebook, I always lugged a little luxury with me to the summit. My ski partners became less surprised each time I pulled a glass bottle of premixed Aperol spritz out of my pack, but they were no less delighted. In a nation without a hütte on every summit, you’ve got to BYO. The drink itself is somewhat absurd—fragile, heavy, and at nine percent ABV, far too strong. It probably made me ski worse and slower as I descended Shasta, Wood, and various named and unnamed peaks in my home range, but the drinks were an apt celebration of our accomplishments and valuable time spent with valuable people. I’ll be bringing my preposterous summit spritzes with me into the new year and beyond. —Jake Stern, digital editor, Outside

Treating Swedish Fish as a Food Group

If you look in the pocket of my bike jersey, you will find Swedish Fish candies. Stashed in my hiking pack, Swedish Fish. On the pool deck during a monster swim—you guessed it—Swedish Fish. I know candy isn’t great for you, and I probably should fuel my active adventures with some kind of organic gloop or scientifically-optimized performance fuel, and yet I just can’t quit Swedish Fish. And I won’t. They do such a good job of keeping me going on rides, runs, and more. They’ve got the simple calories I need, they don’t melt or get sticky in my sweaty pockets, and they serve as the perfect carrot to dangle as a reward. (Treating myself with Swedish Fish at certain mile markers actually got me through the latter half of a brutal ultramarathon.) Now that I think about it, dangling Swedish Fish off the front of my bike helmet on my next ride might be all I need to set a PR. —Susan Lacke, senior editor, Triathlete

Enjoying My Outdoor Rut

It dawned on me recently that my life in middle age revolves around a series of repetitive tasks and schedules: take the kid to school, send work emails, wash the dishes, repeat day after day. Living in this “rut,” of course, is dictated by adulthood’s nagging but necessary commitments to parenting, mortgage payments, my marriage, and my career. Alas, rut life long ago spilled into my outdoor recreation, and these days I often find myself riding my bike up the same climb or skiing the same six runs at the resort. This hamster wheel-approach to outdoor fun is so different from how I pursued it in my twenties and thirties. Back then, going outdoors was all about exploration and adventure—rides or trail runs with no end time, ski days that always lasted a few extra hours so I could hike to the back bowls. Alas, those days are long gone. But you know what? My commitment to an outdoor rut means I always get the most out of my rides, runs, and ski sessions. I’ve boiled down the experience to exactly what makes me happy, and I know the most efficient and effective way to score that hit of exercise-induced endorphins or powder-day dopamine. So, for 2024, I don’t expect to break out of my rut. Maybe it will happen when I turn 60. —Fred Dreier, articles editor, Outside

Eating Dinner at Midnight

I’ll be the first to admit that this situation doesn’t sound ideal, but on most nights, my wife, her dad, and I eat dinner in the range of 11:45 P.M. to 12:00 A.M. He’s in his mid-nineties now, and the way his daily schedule works determines our, um, meal plan: breakfast is late morning or midday, he eats a jumbo snack at around 6 P.M., and dinner follows at the time of night when owls and vampires wing toward their appointed rounds. My wife handles breakfast and the snack; I do dinner, which means I start meal prep at 10 or so. It is a special time of day! Between cooking tasks, I listen to songs on YouTube and swap Slack messages with Outside’s night owl creative director. When everything’s ready, we all settle in front of the TV to watch something soothing—most recently, all 26 episodes of The World at War. Who needs sleep when you’ve got all that? —Alex Heard, editor in chief, Outside magazine

Wearing the Same Clothes Every Day

You may have heard of hyperfixation meals—eating the same thing over and over again—but have you heard of hyperfixation outfits? For each season, I have approximately two items that I wear almost every day—even if I neglect to wash them for weeks. Is that unhygienic? Maybe. But when I find an article of clothing that is comfortable, somewhat appropriate in my everyday scenarios, and fits me exactly how I want it to, there’s no stopping me from wearing it several times a week. For example, in the summer I wear my Everlane A-Line Denim shorts and my Jungmaven sporty tank, a classic, versatile outfit, just about every day. Though this ensemble wouldn’t work in a formal setting, I’ll wear it to work at my desk, for a trip to the bike shop, on a weekend outing to Big Sky, for an afternoon stroll, or just to a coffee date with a friend. The Jungmaven tank is made with hemp, and you aren’t even supposed to wash hemp anyway, right? Plus, there are few things more satisfying in this world than purchasing a piece of clothing and wearing it so many times that the price per wear comes down to half a cent. I will wear my hyperfixation oufits until they are shreds hanging limply from my body. —Kelly Klein, associate gear editor

Drinking Coffee on an Empty Stomach

Although I was born two years too late to be considered a millennial, I possess many traits my fellow zoomers would call “millennial cringe.” My texts are riddled with emojis. I have been known to use the word “doggo.” And while I don’t own a mug that says, “Don’t talk to me until I’ve had my coffee,” that cliché essentially encapsulates my morning ethos. Years of Pavlovian conditioning have made me crave caffeine the minute I roll out of bed. And so, before I eat or drink anything else, I down a cup. Experts say drinking coffee on an empty stomach can spike your cortisol levels, impair blood sugar control, and trigger digestive issues. At the very least, nutritionists suggest having breakfast with your morning brew. “In order to get a calm energy, I would definitely recommend having it alongside breakfast so you aren’t pouring caffeine into your system without a protective layer of food to blunt [its] rapid absorption,” registered dietician Tracy Lockwood Beckerman told HuffPost. But here’s the thing: I don’t want to “get a calm energy.” I just want an incentive—a little treat, if you will—to get up. —Isabella Rosario, associate editor, Outside

Or, Worse: Drinking Red Bull On an Empty Stomach

In my day-to-day life, I eat well enough (lots of vegetables, whole foods, and home cooking) and I’m sort of a morning person (I get out of bed around 6 A.M., but I’m not obnoxiously cheerful about it). But I love an alpine start, and there are very few things in this life that bring me as much joy as downing a Red Bull in a trailhead parking lot before dawn and heading out on the skintrack or trail as the sun rises. I know that 4 A.M. energy drinks are not good nutrition, and that starting a big day in the mountains with caffeine and an empty stomach is not optimal for performance. But energy drinks are delicious, and easier than making coffee, so I’m going to keep getting my early-morning caffeine fixes from a sweet little can. —Miyo McGinn, assistant editor, Outside

Or, Perhaps, Just Drinking Far Too Much Caffeine In General

By most measures, I live a remarkably clean life. I don’t eat meat or drink alcohol, and I try to limit my intake of refined sugar. I don’t smoke and have sworn off all illicit chemical habits. But our vices make us human, and I’m convinced every person needs at least one. That why in 2024, I’m going to keep drinking a near-lethal amount of caffeine. I don’t care where it comes from: drive-thru coffee, gas station four-packs of Red Bull, the cheap espresso machine that my wife bought off Amazon during the pandemic. It’s my wake-up call on winter mornings before the sun goes up, the participation trophy I award to myself after I close my laptop for the day, and the witches brew I sip when I’m up late pondering the mystery of why I’m so jittery these days. —Adam Roy, executive editor, Backpacker

Flying Alongside the One Percent

For years, I’ve chased elite status with American Airlines. I use its credit card for extra points, book my hotel stays through the website for bonus miles, and fly the airline whenever I can. The miles add up, which brings cherished opportunities for upgrades. Sometimes I get them, sometimes I don’t. And when I don’t, and have to walk past those relaxed business class passengers sipping champagne or orange juice from real glasses, stretching out their legs without a care in the world, browsing the printed menu cards and pondering whether to choose spinach ravioli or chicken saltimbocca, I become green with envy. You could argue that my carbon footprint is bigger sitting in the front of the plane, since your tally during airline travel is calculated by how much space you take up on the plane. According to Earth 911, flying 3,000 miles in economy produces 1320 pounds of CO2. Premium economy produces 1,650; business produces 3,870; and first class produces a whopping 6,300 pounds. Even though much of my life revolves around trying to reduce my impact, I can’t say no to an upgrade when offered. That would just be rude. —Kristin Hostetter, contributing editor and head of sustainability