As another year draws to a close,
the time has come for New Year’s resolutions.
Usually this process takes on some great sense of archaic tradition, the
sense of being chained to my cosmic promises, weighing the guilt potential
should I fail. This generally causes the
decision process to stretch days into the new year, which I am sure can be
considered cheating. Other years, I try
to follow the supposed “rules” and think something up at midnight. I watched my husband start compiling his list
last night. It would be really
interesting to know which is the original procedure for making these promises
to myself, but I suppose I will never know.
This year I had intended to lose
fifteen pounds. I thought it was a nice
goal, and a bit more ambitious than if I had set out to lose ten pounds. Things seemed to be on track. I lost ten pounds, some in chunks during
allergy season or over the summer when I felt like it was too warm to eat much. I used the website http://www.myfitnesspal.com/ to track
calories by logging what I ate and how I exercised, watching the progress of my
efforts pan out on a chart. The problem
was that I was unaware that the scale I was using was nine pounds lighter than
it should have been. After I confirmed
this discrepancy, I was thrown off, to say the least. I stopped looking at the site, disgusted by
how inaccurate my little fish ticker was.
I purchased a digital scale at a church yard sale and confirmed that I
had lost less than I thought, compounded by the disappointment that I had no
way of knowing where I had even started.
I lost my focus and have probably gained some weight since then.
The bright spot in this story is
that 2012 is at its close. I want
a do-over for my goal. This year I want
to look at my scale more often, rethink behaviors that I know are destructive,
and take more of an interest in my health, both mental and physical. I would like to lose fifteen pounds this
year, but I would love to be better.
