... I guess it must be fate... *ducks at the rotten tomato being thrown at her because she lapsed into singing a bad Peter Cetera duet with Cher* Oh, yes, right... Here we are again... at the start of another year. But isn't that fate too? *ducks another rotten tomato*

Ok Ok. Enough with the bad 80s music.

It's that wondrous time of year that reality slaps us in the face and most humans make silly resolutions in the middle of hangover recoveries that they probably won't remember in 6 weeks. Unless you're like an acquaintance of mine who puts hers into her calendar as weekly reminders. She's an interesting study - she'll keep half and feel guilty about the rest, but she never changes that calendar entry.

I'm not sure whether I envy that discipline or think that she's cracked. Maybe a little of both.

So, why is it that we are so focused on creating resolutions for ourselves that many never end up keeping - even after a week? The diets, the giving up drinking/smoking/bad foods, the exercise plans.... Is it just an illusion of reality? Something for us to grab onto in the hopes that we can be better than we are?

I'm not trying to debunk those who have goals (like myself) and are trying to execute them in a realistic manner (like my mandate that I'll make it to Curves 4x weekly, as I have been actually doing for the last three months), but what about those 40-something guys who have a beer belly bigger than my 6 year old who say they're going to be gym gods by the end of the year and then immediately pull open a beer and some pork rinds? Or the 300 pound woman who says she wants to exercise more and lose at least half her weight, and then orders a pizza with everything on it and then eats half of it within 15 minutes of it's arrival?

These aren't realistic goals that anyone can take seriously except the people who make the goals - and somehow, I think, *they* don't even take them seriously. They just make them either because they're goaded into it by family, or they're feeling guilty about the excesses in their lives.

Now, those two examples - I exaggerated them, of course, but used them to make my point. Why can't we be happy with the person that we are, without making unrealistic or unachievable goals? That's not to say that anyone reading this who may fit the above descriptions couldn't do it - I know of someone who has worked very VERY hard to trim her weight down considerably, and she has done an amazing job in a short amount of time. She has a long-term goal and fully intends to realize it. And I think she can.

Let's use me as an example: 5' 7"... 137 pounds... medium build. Now before any of you start throwing things at me again and telling me I don't need to lose weight, I'm not after losing weight... I'll cover my real goal further down the page. The problem is, I'm not FIT. And I don't get any exercise at work anymore, other than making sure I get up and walk around at least once an hour, so I don't spend the entire day on my rear end. I want to be FIT - have more energy, have my metabolism be sparked up a little.... and... well, we'll cover that at the end.

I've been floating between a size 8 and size 10 for a long time. I was floating between a size 6 and 8 all through high school, college and pre-kids. Personally, I would love to be a size 4. Realistically - it will never happen. I don't have the build for it and I'd probably waste away to nothing doing it. Now... a solid size 8 I can do, with a goal to float back down to a size 6. That, too, might be doable. When? I can't say. It all depends on how I do with another goal that precedes that - to go work out 4x weekly. Which I've been doing since mid-September.

But I couldn't have gotten there without making the goal of working out 3x weekly. I started down that path in August. And I couldn't have started down that path unless I made another goal - which was to join a gym. I did that in early August - but I made that goal/promise to myself way back in January, and it took me 8 months to actually do something about it.

8 months! That's a long time to decide to go sign up at the nearest Curves - because you knew that that's the place that you wanted to go to. I started getting serious about signing up in May - that's still 3 months prior to me actually going ahead and signing up.

Since doing so and working out, I've lost 11 1/2 inches off various measurements. That's not too darn bad for 4 months worth of work (I'd say 5 months, but I don't get measured for December's progress until tomorrow). But I only achieved that through taking it one slow step at a time.

So here's to a few more small steps toward dropping 4 percentage points off my body fat percentage. That's right. I've given up caring about my weight in favor of caring about body density. I want to be more dense ....

....wait a second. That's not quite right ...