Don’t Hate January, It’s December’s Fault

Welcome to January, the month of guilt, regret and deprivation.  I swear that December is so naughty just to make you hate January.  In December you are practically encouraged to live it up like there will never be another chocolate peppermint stick cheesecake on earth so you better get as much of it as you can in December.  Nothing about December encourages health.  Go hog wild because January is coming and you know what is going to happen in January, lonely, cold, suffering, withdrawal and denial.

If you lived December as if it were your last then it is time to pay the price for actually staying alive.  Every magazine, TV commercial, talk show and the like are now telling you to face the music your wrote in December; the you-ate-too-much-drank-too-much-exercised-too-little song that your hips are now singing.  It stinks.

It took me fifty-two year of living to learn not to be seduced by December.  Yes, Christmas is still my favorite time of year, but not because of the food, I have learned to love the decorating more because it has no calories, as long as I don’t lick the gingerbread house.

I took on the last two months of the year with great gusto to not gain weight during the “eating season.”  Please don’t hate me when I tell you that I woke up this morning and got on the scale and weighed less on the first day in 2014 than I did on any day in 2013, except for the morning I went for my colonoscopy.   Now I am still twenty pounds away from a weight I would really like to get to and stay, and stay and stay, but I am thrilled that I did not ramp up in December just so I could jump into January with the rest of the diet resolution population.  I actually don’t think I have ever had a year where my resolution was not about losing weight and it still is.

If you are in the majority and are looking to drop those holiday pounds and any others you found this year or in previous years it is never too late to start.  There are many ways to lose weight and almost all of them work if you just stick to it.  There is one bit of wisdom I learned at Weight Watchers so many years ago that holds true to any diet plan, “Show up, pay attention, ask questions, don’t quit.”

I would like to add something that really helps me, “Make it public.”  If you tell people you are trying to lose weight you are more likely to stick with it or get back to it if you veer off than if you keep it a secret.  It is rarely a secret that you need to lose weight, if you really do, everyone can see it.

If you want to join me in my twenty-pound push to the goal line send me a message, either privately or publically.  I will keep it quiet if that is what you wish, but even just sharing the burden with one person lightens the load.

So Happy New Year!  I hope that December did not add to your troubles and that January is the start to your best year yet.