Pound Foolish

All right, girls and boys, today is the day I kick butt and take control. I am heretofore With It. I am On The Ball. I am no longer a lazy glutton, but a health-conscious fit...ton. Or something. The point is, my waistline can't afford to expand even a fraction of an inch further, and a birthday is as good a time as any to start over with a clean slate and resolve to be better. Especially a birthday that sees one teetering on the brink of middle-agedom, starting that final push up to get up and over that hill. Okay, maybe not my actual natal day, because, truly, a birthday that falls on the first day of a long holiday weekend is never the best time to start new healthy habits; especially not THIS holiday, which is all about candy. ...Well, okay, so it's actually all about the Resurrection of Our Savior, but what better way to celebrate that than by gorging oneself on egg-shaped chocolates and jellybeans? Yes, I admit, my religion can be a strange one. But that's beside the point.

The point is, now it's Monday, and all of the birthday cake and special dinners are behind me, and all of the remaining chocolates have been rationed out into reasonable daily portions, and I'm thirty-frickin'-four years old--old enough, technically, to be the mother of a fully grown person, and ain't THAT a kick in the head--and my metabolism is only going to get slower from here, and if I don't change something RIGHT THE HELL NOW, I might as well just go ahead and renew my old Lane Bryant account.

So as of right now I'm back in the Zone, which I know works so long as I, y'know, stick to it; and I'm resolved to go to the gym every weekday, no exceptions, even if I'm so tired/crappy-feeling/sore that all I can bring myself to do is sit in the hottub for half an hour, on the theory that if I can just get myself there, exercise will follow. I'm also considering a couple of things. I'm considering Weight Watchers, except that I don't want to go to meetings, and their online fee is too rich for my budget. Although it looks like right now they're offering a free trial, so I might sign up long enough to get the points plan info. I'm also considering going vegetarian. Yeah, I know. But it's working for her, and it's recommended for diabetics, and maybe if I go veg and am able to stick to it, that will encourage Matt to try it. His habits haven't been any healthier than mine lately, and he's got a lot more at stake. I think that knowing it's a health thing and not a life-philosophy thing, and knowing I can have the occasional meatitarian lapse, and still be allowed to, say, eat real hot dogs and hamburgers on patriotic holidays, will make it easier for me to stick to it the rest of the time. For now I'm just looking into it. Seeing as how it would probably require a lot of planning and food preparation, this might be one of those things that has to wait until we have our own kitchen.

In the meantime, I'm going to see how the regular exercise and Zone combo work for me, provided I can stick to it. It's always worked before, so, y'know, I think it's mainly a matter of getting some gorram discipline.

So, yes. This is me, another year older, resolving to stop screwing around and get in shape already. And this time I REALLY mean it.