AUTHOR’s NOTE: Wrote this a couple years ago, think you’ll like it. Hugs for the New Year from me to all of you!

The first thing I was going to do this morning was go work out at the gym. Then I noticed the date. January 2. I quickly abandoned my plans. The second of January is the biggest gym day ever. This is the day when hundreds of thousands of people wake up and realize that they are fat. They realize that January 2 is the first official day of their New Year’s Resolution when they aren’t too hungover to do something about it. So they grab the phone book, look up the address for their local fitness club and head off towards their future of buff skinniness. Poor deluded fools.

I, for one, hate New Year’s and all the dumb resolutions that go along with it. I think it’s appropriate that we call them New Year’s Resolutions because they don’t last past New Year’s Day. All those tubby repenters will be at my gym today and today only. The very dedicated will be there until about January 15. That’s when most people forget about all their resolutions and go back to normal. It’s also when Krispy Kreme feels free to ramp up their production schedule.

I am hereby calling for the revoking of the New Year’s Resolution. Let’s abolish this sucker. Because it’s really the New Year’s Lie. All we’re doing is setting ourselves up for failure. When we’re at a party with a lampshade on our heads—making out with some guy who looks just like Antonio Banderas—it’s easy to make a bunch of fantastical plans. We promise ourselves that in the New Year we’ll lose weight, work out, quit smoking, drink less, see our parents more. Because in that moment, it’s not the next year. It’s the moment when you’re throwing caution to the wind. Your last hurrah before the cold light of January dawns. You’re shoving finger foods in your mouth, having a grand old time with Antonio, drinking magnums upon magnums of champagne, and in that moment, sure, losing weight sounds easy. Antonio might even stick around after New Year’s if you’re skinnier. Then comes January 1. You wake up and try to move your head, but it weighs a hundred pounds. You try to speak but your tongue feels like a huge wad of sandpaper. You try to move off the bed, but it’s spinning so fast you feel like you’re on a merry-go-round. Then you realize that you’re not alone. You vaguely remember sleeping with Antonio Banderas the night before. You finally manage to move your head to see if Tony is still there. You scream. Somehow during the night, Antonio transformed into Pauly Shore. On the way home, you remember your resolution. You also realize that you need to add “giving up champagne and New Year’s altogether” to your other resolutions. And then you kick yourself for making the stupid promise in the first place. Then on January 2nd, you wake up guilt-ridden and drag yourself to the gym with the secret hope that the real Antonio will leave Melanie for you if you lose that fat pad around your tummy.

I think what we need to do is get rid of the entire holiday season. It’s Christmas that prompts this whole resolution cycle of sinning and repenting. We pig out on Grandma’s fudge, Mom’s cookies and Dad’s turkey stuffing because we’re so stressed out about the holidays, food is our only source of pleasure. We consume massive amounts of alcohol to combat the urges to strangle nasty family members that we’re forced to visit. We spend money we don’t have buying stuff for people that they don’t need. Then for all our hard work, we reward ourselves by overindulging yet again on New Year’s Eve. Five, four, three, two, one—all the top buttons of our collective pants burst at once. And then, on January 2, we dutifully file to the gym and sign up for a whole year—when in actuality we’ll be done with this gym nonsense before the membership fees show up on our credit card bill. It’s amazing what effect tight clothes and a couple bottles of booze has on the human brain.

I have to say, however, that its very entertaining watching the unbridled enthusiasm of the fledgling gym attendees on their first (and usually last) day at the gym. They arrive in their new workout clothes feeling great about themselves. They already feel thinner because they’ve put on track pants which have elastic waistbands. Then with all this wonderful motivation, they set about their workout. They are so excited that they’ve finally forced themselves to a gym that they’re going to make up for an entire year of sitting on the couch and stuffing their faces with Big Macs. All at once. They attack all the new machines; the Pec Deck, the Thigh Killer, the Ab Murderer, the Butt Terminator. They sweat and grunt and by the end of their two-hour workout, they are feeling omnipotent. They walk out of the gym feeling invincible. They are the new Superpeople. The next morning the Superpeople wake up feeling like they overdosed on Kryptonite. First, they can’t get out of bed unassisted. They discover muscles they didn’t even know they had. And all of them hurt. None of them will be able to lift their arms high enough to grab their latte off the counter at Starbucks. Walking will be agony, sitting even worse. Finally, they give up moving entirely and settle in on the couch. Because they’re stuck on the couch, they have to order out for food. Because they started working out, they feel entitled to eating a bit more, so they order Domino’s special two-for-one deal on large pepperoni pizzas. And thus the cycle of sinning and repentance continues.

What we all seem to forget is that last year’s New Year is this year’s Old Year. We all made and promptly abandoned the same stupid resolutions last year. So, here’s my advice: Skip the gym. If you want to feel thinner, keep the workout clothes. Not only will you feel thin, you will present the image of someone athletic. And if you continue to gain weight, you won’t notice and neither will anyone else—track pants have become the new muu-muu. If you’re serious about losing weight and exercising, don’t wait until you’re drunk and desperate to make the decision. Drunk desperation is best left to more important decisions, like at which party you have the best chance of meeting Antonio Banderas.

©2006, Janet Periat

I am at war with my fat roll. I put out a contract on it, but so far, my fat roll has cunningly been able to avoid termination. I’m convinced the damn thing is sentient.

A friend of mine recently began competing in triathlons. She trained for a few months and whammo, just completed her first mini-triathlon. A half-mile swim, a fifteen-mile bike ride followed by a four-mile run. She’s dropped twenty-five pounds in three months. I was so impressed with her and so excited when she told me about her plans, I thought, hey, what a great idea. Get some endorphins, sunshine and kill the fat roll all at the same time.

But my fat roll had other plans. Much more sinister plans.

When I started training, I took it slowly. Especially the running part. I walked a brisk ten minutes, then ran for about a block. One block on, one block off. Not too much, right?

Well, somehow my fat roll traveled down to my right knee and pulled hard, my knee went out and there went the running for… a month now and counting. Thankfully, my fat roll didn’t damage me enough to stop my daily walks. But FR made the walks much more difficult.

I told my fat roll that I’d caught on to its little ploy and that it wouldn’t work. I haven’t given up the triathlon idea, just postponed it. I told it there was no way it was winning. I was in charge. Fat Roll’s days were numbered.

Taunting my fat roll turned out to be a bad idea. I pissed it off.

I was innocently grocery shopping the other day and sometime when I wasn’t looking, my fat roll threw some delicious chocolate cookies into my shopping cart. And when I got home, I found a box of ice cream sandwiches in the grocery bag. Foul beast! I cursed. Devilish fiend of blubber! I know I heard the damn thing snickering as I put the ice cream sandwiches into the freezer.

However, my fat roll did not stop at this slight. It launched an all out assault on me.

While I was gardening the other day, I bent over to pull a particularly tenacious weed and Fat Roll pushed down hard on my pants and nearly pushed them off. With both hands full, I told it to back off, I couldn’t stop and pull up my sweats right then. With a great burst of energy, Fat Roll ruthlessly shoved down on my waistband until my crack showed.

Angry, but helpless, I sighed and decided what the hell, who was looking anyway and finally got the weed out of the ground. After tossing away the weed, I pulled up my pants and gave a quick look around to make sure no one had seen my White Cliffs of (Ben) Dover. What I forgot to take into account during my assessment of butt visibility was the new building across the street. As I stared, horrified, four people looked back at me from a balcony of a condo that was for sale. It was clear they had been witnesses to my humiliation. It was also clear that the real estate agent had just lost a sale.

My fat roll loved this. Chortling gleefully, it led me to the fridge and handed me a beer. Without thinking, I drank it and several others. Again, my fat roll won the round.

Now, when I least expect it, my fat roll playfully escapes from my waistband and taunts me. “Ha, ha, here I am, you can’t kill me, no you can’t!!!” Right when I think I’m back in control, I find myself at the doughnut shop. I take my mind off my weight for one second and there’s a piece of chocolate in my mouth.

Fat Roll didn’t even exist fifteen years ago. It snuck up on me, attached itself to my middle and now, like some science fiction movie monster, it seems to grow more powerful the more I try to annihilate it. It is evil.

I know I’m supposed to love every part of myself. That I need to make friends with Fat Roll. I should nurture it and love it to death. Mother my fat roll. But I just hate it. I watch all those skinny people on TV and I yell at my fat roll. “You’re ugly, you make me look old. You say to the world, this woman is WEAK. This woman is OVERFED.”

My fat roll, however, is used to this. It has many replies for my Skinny People Are Happier diatribe. Fat Roll says, “Ignore those anorexic little morons, they’re idiots. They deny themselves the pleasure of food. They are so skinny that when the Apocalypse comes they’ll die first, you can live on your blubber for months. Besides, Frank will sleep with you no matter how fat you get.”

Since these arguments seem somewhat plausible, I listen a bit more openly to my fat roll. And that’s when FR goes in for the kill. “You are much healthier with a little extra weight on you. That third beer won’t make you fat. How could one little cookie hurt? So what if you had three beers and an ice cream sandwich, what could this bowl of cheese popcorn possibly do to you? Eat it, no worries, just eat it.” As I stuff my face, my Fat Roll bursts into maniacal laughter. “I have you now! Muahahahahaha!”

Still, I have not given up the fight. I will win. I’m not going to let some stupid chunk of blubber run roughshod over me. I’m going train for that damn triathlon, I’m going to heal my knee and I will run again. And swim. And bicycle. And my damn fat roll just better get used to it. In fact, I’m going for a walk right now. Take that, Fat Roll!

Wait. Where did this half of a beer and empty bag of barbecue potato chips come from? Damn it!

©2008, Janet Periat