Once more, with feeling

And a very happy new year to you.

I have emerged, blinking and somewhat confused, from the holiday fog. A fog that involved chocolates and bread and cheese oh my, and hardly any walking or other physical activity. So, that whole coming-out-the-other-side-of-Christmas-weighing-what-I-did-going-in thing…uh, not so much.

As far as I can tell, I’m about four, maybe five pounds up. Not fantastic, but not as bad as it could be. I can feel it though, oh lordy, can I feel it. I can feel the extra pounds jiggling when I walk around naked, which is often. I can feel them at day’s end when I take off my pants (as a prelude to walking around naked) and notice a red ring around my waist. I can feel them making me sluggish. It’s time to put the boots to those stupid bachelors*.

(* bachelors = my new favourite slang, after my middle niece mistook the word bachelor for bastard during a bed-time reading of Anne of Green Gables. Hee!)

I started today. I tracked my food for the first time in…oh god, the first time in months. Since August, maybe? And I’ve managed to drink an entire litre of water so far today, which isn’t enough, but is more than I’ve been drinking for…again, for months. Taco and I got up this morning and went for a quick walk, which I’ve decided does not count as exercise. It’s extra. Gravy, as they say, though healthier than that, to be sure. I will do some yoga this evening, because I can feel my muscles shortening by the minute.

And tomorrow, I will get out of bed, walk with Taco, eat a good breakfast and do it all over again. The tracking and the water…those are key for me. Keys that have been lost lo these many months. And the sweating, that’s key too. I look forward to sweating again. I’m about to switch gyms, something I should probably make official tomorrow, as it helps to have a place to sweat. Mean and Crazy is away right now, but they second she’s back, I will deliver myself into her hands so she can brutalise the fat right off me.

It is too easy to fall back into mindless eating. It is too easy to stop making time to work out. On the other hand, today it was perfectly easy to track my food and remember to drink water. If both are easy, then it’s a matter of which one I choose. It always comes back to that, it seems.

Well then, I choose health.

I choose whole foods, well prepared.

And I choose occasional high quality treats.

I choose at least 45 minutes worth of exercise six days a week.

I choose sweating and stretching.

I choose deep breathing.

I choose fresh water.

I choose keeping track of how much I’ve eaten and how much I’ve moved, and I choose to balance those with each other.

I choose to esteem myself at least as highly as I esteem all those I take care of.

I choose to approach it all with rather a lot more humour than is evidenced here!

I know I can do this. I’ve done it before and I am hella stubborn. And while New Year’s resolutions don’t totally resonate with me, today seems like a great day to recommit.

I’m off to hit the yoga mat. Namaste.