Today I will make better choices.

Around Thanksgiving, as I was bitching about being fat, being out of breath, having flabby arms and a jiggly bum, too many chins and obese earlobes - and probably making a batch Extra Chocolaty Chocolate Chip Cookies while I was doing it - Uriah finally got fed up and told me to "shit or get off the pot."  We have an open relationship like that, so I didn't throw the mixing bowl of cookie dough at his head and run into another room crying.  Instead, I listened to what he had to say, and if we're being honest, what he'd been saying for awhile: I could either do something about my weight or I could just shut-up about it.  Because talking, talking, talking - and I'm very good at talking - was getting me nowhere.

I find it sort of amusing that I use pictures to track how big Finn is getting because I don't really realize how much he changes until I put two pictures side by side.  The same could be said of me - I didn't realize how big I was getting until I put two pictures side by side.  Some day, I'll show you a picture of me right before we moved from Kansas City, when I was at my heaviest, and a current picture.  When I work up the nerve.  It's not pretty and it's causing me to dig deeper into why I eat.  I can't blame my weight on being "big boned" or being "ill-proportioned."  There are clearly other reasons.  So when we came back from Thanksgiving I started to control my portions, I eat off of a small plate whenever possible, I eat more salads and most importantly,  I track what I eat.  Every. Single. Thing.  And let me tell you, all those Christmas cookies that I baked did not get eaten by me because I didn't want to write down: Lunch: 5 sugar cookies, 2 gingerbread men and 3 chocolate drops.  Did I have a couple of Christmas cookies this year?  Of course, just not as a meal and not every day.  Is this tracking working for me?  Slowly, but the scale goes down every week, so something must be going right.

Today, I made some not so great food choices; what I thought was a decent breakfast turned out to be a death-trap in disguise.  I logged what I ate and it started back at me in huge bold letters: POOR CHOICE, HEATHER.  My heart beat a little faster, my palms were a little sweaty and I thought about quitting.  Tossing in the towel and saying, "Mother eff it.  I'm done.  Cause that breakfast was delicious!"

But I didn't.

Instead, I looked at the choices that I'd made and thought about what I can do different next time.  And that's key for me; that's a big step.  I didn't focus on what I should have done differently, because I'd already made those choices and I know that I can't go back and undo them.  But I can learn from them and I can make better choices next time.

And then I showed myself a little grace.  We all stumble sometimes.  The question is, are we going to lay in the middle of the road and continue to let cars run over us?  Or are we going to pick ourselves up, brush off the dust and continue forward?  I chose to move forward 4 miles with Finn in the stroller and by the time I got back home, I'd forgiven myself an indulgent morning and vowed to do better at dinner.

With that in mind, I really only have 3 New Year's Resolutions for 2012:

1. Make good choices, be it food, exercise, or words; but be kind to myself if I teeter a little (as I surely will). 
2. Loose weight.  Not necessarily to get to a magic number, although I do have one, but more to get to a magic feeling.
3. Run a 5k.

Do you make New Years Resolutions?  I'd love to hear what your goals are for the coming year.

Here's to tomorrow...a new day to start fresh.