My resolve

Hello New Year! I do believe that may have been the fastest year yet. I'm becoming one of those 'old' people who can't stop talking about how quickly time flies. It doesn't help that my six year old daughter is almost as tall as I am. I jest. A little.

I'm not big on New Year's Resolutions, primarily because I never keep them. Why have I never resolved not to take up smoking, clean my car at least once a month, watch TV nearly everyday or to manufacture a new wrinkle or two? I have got to get smarter about all of this.

So, this is not a resolution because of the new year, it just so happens to coincide with it. It makes sense, just after all of the gluttony of the holidays wraps up... a natural chance to start anew! Yes please! And oh yes, was there gluttony. Good thing what's his name from Se7en (shudder) doesn't know where I live. Perhaps he wouldn't judge so harshly if he tasted my mother-in-law's cheesecake. This year she also made twisted candy cane sugar cookies the size of my forearm. They had red hots cooked right in; oh, how I do love the sugar cookie/red hot combination. I think I ate 6 of them. They're three times the size of a normal cookie. 6 x 3. In two days. Look! Elvis!

Starting now, I will begin to lose 30 pounds. I almost wrote: resolve to, aspire to, want to, whatever... no, I will lose 30 pounds. At first, I wrote: "In 2009, I will lose 30 pounds", but a whole year is waaay too long. I've become unrecognizable to myself. There was a time not too long ago - actually quite a long time ago - that I felt great. Looked pretty good too, if two invitations from Playb*y were any indication.... "No way, but (gush!) THANK YOU!!!!" I never thought at the time that someday I would almost wish I would have (no, not REALLY) just to have proof of my (former) hotness.

I very much took for grated the feeling I had. Confident. Healthy. If memory serves, getting hit on all the time is not all it's cracked up to be, but it's a distinctly odd feeling having been there to becoming completely invisible. I've put off writing this, again and again, because I'm a little scared of accountability. But I desperately need it. I considered publishing my actual weight but there is a limit to my sharing. And (justifying) I'm 5'10" and I'd have to keep reminding you - for my mental comfort - that a "normal" woman's weight range is not applicable... if I weighed 120, I'd be on my death bed. So my current weight shall henceforth be known as "X". Every week - probably every Saturday - I will publish X minus (insert large number here!)... when I reach X-30, please say nice and wonderful things about me!

This is very helpful to me. "...for every impulse bite that I took, I lost small pieces of myself - my self-esteem, my happiness, my energy, my overall health. And for what? For a few seconds of ecstasy..." SO NOT WORTH IT. "I laugh in the face of cakey muffins. I scoff at the sight of chips. I can decide to never be fat again. And so it will be done."

Nothing tastes as good as thin feels. Repeat 47 trillion times.