THE PARTY'S OVER ...

... and it's time for the post-holiday confession booth & the dreaded 1st weigh-in of the year:

The holiday season is over and it's time to work on our new year's resolutions. Did you make one? If it had anything to do with your health or weight, would you like to share it with us? LOL...do you need help sticking to it? We can support each other along the way :)

It seems to me that at some point your body says " okay lady, this is as far as I'm going, I am happy right here, no more weight loss for me". I've noticed this for the past several months...the pounds just aren't going to fall off as quickly as they did for the first half of last year. So I'm joining my body with being happy at the weight I am now. Good grief, I had started out thinking I'd just lose 5 lbs. to make my doctor happy. LOL...don't get me wrong though, if a few more pounds here and there decide to trickle off by the wayside, I'm not going to be upset!

So with that said, my new year's resolution shouldn't be too hard to maintain, in fact, it should be so much easier than last year's since all I have to do is continue the rhythm of life I've become familiar with :)

MY OWN PERSONAL OBSERVATIONS ABOUT THE HOLIDAY SEASON:

 Being on a strict diet for the whole year and then telling yourself you are free to eat whatever you want for the last 2 weeks of the year is opening up a whole can of worms lol...

Everything in the store looks sooo good, especially if it's chocolate confections or spicy appetizers. So you overbuy!! Even with having the 4 kids here for 3 days (and taking care packages back with them) we figure we've got enough goodies left to last us until next Christmas!

Even though you have your heart set on pigging out, your stomach just isn't big enough to handle it all (if you've been eating smaller portions, it will rebel when given larger ones).

Who knew that enjoying rich chocolate/caramel desserts, salty nuts/popcorn/chips, posh sparkling cocktails would result in gas pains, bloating, heart burn...not a fair trade at all, lol.

POST-HOLIDAY CONFESSIONS:

Does anyone have anything they'd like to get off their chest, lol, or off their waistline?

I didn't pig out as much as I thought I would. Sadly there are some boxes of chocolates that didn't even get opened. But I did try at least one piece of each baking selection. My two fave new treats this year were Desiree's chocolate covered strawberries and a huge chocolate covered, nut sprinkled caramel apple from Independent Grocers. Just a coincidence that both were "healthy" fruits :)

But I must confess that I drank elf cocktails every evening for about a week or so until the bottles of vodka and melon liqueur were empty. LOL...it's a wonder I didn't end up with pointy ears!

FIRST WEIGH-IN OF 2013:

Stepping on the scales is our first weekly challenge.

Does that scare you, lol? I hope not and that you'll be brave enough to join in on our monthly weigh-ins. You can share your weight in the comment area or you can keep it to yourself, the choice is yours.

Do you know your weight from before the holidays? Did you gain any weight? Would you like to share with us whether your weight stayed the same, went up or went down? (No need to mention pounds if you're not comfortable doing that)

If you didn't gain any, I congratulate you! You've got more will power than I do when the Christmas holidays come along. It's the one time of the year that I must enjoy myself fully :)

I gained a couple of pounds...but luckily my new clothes still fit or I'd have been having a hissy fit...even if it was my own fault, lol! That weight gain was discovered at new years but at today's weigh-in the 2 lbs. are gone. I give the credit for that to Anthony who gave me 3 lb. hand weights for Christmas...they are killers and really amped up my workouts!

Don't feel bad if you have gained weight...you aren't the only one...and as this chart shows, you are in the majority. And if you lost weight, wow, that's amazing, there is only a slim portion of you (haha pun intended)!

Looking forward to reading & replying to your comments :)

Next week's blog: The #1 key to success in achieving a healthy lifestyle (according to me)

      ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

DISCLAIMER: Whenever I use the word DIET in my blog posts I am in no way suggesting that I have invented/discovered some miracle system to lose weight. Whenever I use the word DIET, I am simply substituting a single word to replace the longer phrase EATING HEALTHIER THAN IN THE PAST.