Well, I didn't do the New Year's resolution post but I do have some for this year... my main resolution is the same as probably 80% of all Americans: lose weight. However, I haven't made this resolution in years (which is why I'm still fat), so it's not as though I make this resolution over and over and fail to reach my goal.

No... THIS is my year to drop the tonnage and to that end I have joined the YMCA. I've already been twice and I only just joined last Friday. Saturday I went and tortured myself on the exercise bike for an hour. According to all the fancy-read outs I biked over 10 miles and burned 300 calories. Given my level of fatigue afterward I felt like I got gyped on the calorie burn. Only 300? Really? Dang. Maybe it's better not to know that.

Sunday I did not go to the Y because I had to do my shopping for the week. Many people need to stop eating sweets or drinking sodas or cut back on fat and eat healthy food, etc. None of that is my problem. I mostly drink water, I almost never drink sodas, I don't really like sweet. It's reasonably rare that I eat or drink anything sweet. For the most part, I eat pretty healthy. My problem is simply that I eat WAY too much of what I do eat.

So, instead of making life MORE difficult by trying to plan meals and being locked into cooking on nights I really don't feel like it... not to mention it's wildly difficult to cook for just one person and since I clearly cannot be trusted to know how much (or how little) I should eat, I thought it would all be so much easier if I just did a SlimFast plan where I had shakes for breakfast and lunch and then a frozen dinner from any of the five or six or seven different manufacturers who offer reduced calorie frozen meals. It's easy to buy pre-portioned snacks, too. Which is also good... I love snacks, but again, I tend to just eat way too much.

I'm not usually one to advocate the eating of pre-packaged food. I'm a firm believer that eating fresh healthy food that I make from scratch is really the best way to get nutrition. I'll get back to that after I've gotten a better handle on portion-sizes, though, because I can even eat WAY too much salad, for Pete's sakes.

I found an online nutrition and fitness goal Web site to help me, too. Fit Day. It's nice, I can enter what I've eaten (or consumed in the case of beverages) and enter what I've done in terms of activity and I can see how much calorie deficit I'm achieving. I can track my weight loss goal and make sure I'm still on target and that is heartening when you're staring down an entire YEAR of this...

Today, for example, I consumed 1,100 calories and burned 3,100. If I can sustain that much calorie deficit it may not take the entire year to lose all the weight I want to lose. I'm jazzed about that, although, I'm sure that not every day will be like today. I'm not necessarily going to work out everyday and I probably will consume more calories on weekends because I've decided that on weekends, I'll cook. Cooking is my favorite hobby, I won't be a happy person if I give it up completely. But this works out well because it's only two days out of the week and I have more time to devote to careful cooking on weekends anyway. And figuring out ways to slim down recipes is a bonus challenge for me.

And so today, the Y offers a step aerobics class at 4:30 which is perfect because that is the exact time I get off work. I don't have to wait around for the class to start and I get finished as soon as possible and get my little one and get home to start the evening routine.

The step class, though, kicked my ass hard. Which isn't difficult to do, God knows I'm WAAAAY out of shape. But, oh goodness. I'm starting to really stiffen up now, too. I'm headed for a hot shower and some Tylenol in just a little bit and intending to get to bed early.

It's been an exhausting day and is going to be an exhausting week. I'm... just... exhausted. PHEW.