My New Year’s resolution -The iPINIONS Journal

New Year’s Day. . . now is the accepted time to make your regular annual good resolutions. Next week you can begin paving hell with them as usual. – Mark Twain

I have always been blessed with good health – especially since I began swimming competitively at age 9. Therefore, I’ve never felt the need to join the madding crowd of yo-yo dieters making New Year’s resolutions to lose weight; which, incidentally, is by far the most popular resolution, and the only one anyone ever really tries to honor.

But that all changed recently when my doctor summoned me for a consultation on the results of my latest physical exam. In short, I’m fat, and I need to lose weight…40lbs to be exact.

But you’d never know it looking at me. At least that’s what my family and friends, all of whom are overweight, tell me. Although, I suspect there was always an unspoken conspiracy among them (as there probably is among all fat people) to do and say anything to get fit people like me to end up looking like them….

Far more troubling, however, is the self-delusion that allowed me to gain 40lbs (up to 210) and still think that I was every bit as fit as when I weighed 170…. Oh, “it’s all muscle, and muscle weighs more than fat.” What bullshit!

Meanwhile, my cholesterol is over 300 and I’m presenting all of the early-stage symptoms of kidney and heart problems that took my Mummy’s life at the unforgivably young age of 64.

Never mind all of the nagging middle-age pains this extra weight has caused, but which I kept chalking up to after-workout burn. And to top it all off, I’m going blind….

Therefore, I have resolved to lose all 40lbs by this time next year. And I shall do it the old-fashioned way: with moderate exercise and controlling the type and amount of food I stuff in my mouth.

In fact, I’m so confident that I have the discipline to succeed where so many others have failed that I dare anyone to wager against my success.

By the way, I had my first prostate exam. And I don’t know about other men, but I don’t think having my prostate checked every year is such a good idea. Because even though my doctor promised she was going to be gentle, I was so traumatized that I can’t even imagine being checked again for at least another 10 years! (But seriously, if you’re over 40, I urge you to discuss prostate exams and PSA blood tests with your doctor.)