{"id":3787,"date":"2012-01-01T11:12:14","date_gmt":"2012-01-01T17:12:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.fathead-movie.com\/?p=3787"},"modified":"2014-05-31T22:27:55","modified_gmt":"2014-06-01T04:27:55","slug":"happier-new-year","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.fathead-movie.com\/index.php\/2012\/01\/01\/happier-new-year\/","title":{"rendered":"Happier New Year"},"content":{"rendered":"

I used to have a love-hate relationship with New Year\u2019s. Like countless other people, I began each year with a resolution to finally lose some serious weight and keep it off. That was the \u201clove\u201d part … I loved feeling righteous and disciplined as I wrote down those all-important “action steps” to achieve my goal. By gosh, I\u2019m really going to do it this year!<\/em><\/p>\n

Unfortunately, my action steps always included sticking to some low-fat, vegetarian, or very-low-calorie diet, which led to the \u201chate\u201d part \u2026 I hated waking up each succeeding January 1st knowing I was no leaner (and often fatter) than the year before. Naturally, I attributed the sorry result to a lack of willpower. I\u2019d think back on all the times I surrendered to hunger and blame myself for caving in, instead of blaming the diet for making me feel ravenous.<\/p>\n

Then, proving myself to be what Moe Howard might describe as “an intelligent imbecile,” I’d more or less repeat the previous year’s failed action plan:\u00a0 going to the store to stock up on rice cakes, Slim-Fast, pasta, fat-free pasta sauce, whole-grain cereals, skim milk or soy milk, Garden Burgers, Egg Beaters, butter-flavored spray for the low-fat popcorn, etc.\u00a0 One year I even bought a big ol’ electric treadmill and promised to walk on it for an hour every night.\u00a0 And guess what?\u00a0 I did.\u00a0 Unfortunately, my waistline wasn’t impressed.<\/p>\n

My love-hate relationship with January 1st is long gone. After returning home from our holiday trip to Illinois, Chareva and I spent part of the weekend arranging our closets in the new house and deciding which clothes to take to Goodwill. Before hanging some dress slacks (which I almost never wear) in my closet, I figured it would be a good idea to try them on first. You can see how they fit in the picture below.<\/p>\n

\"\"I bought those slacks two years ago, after I\u2019d already lost a chunk of weight. Since I tend to store fat above the beltline \u2013 belly and love handles \u2013 I didn\u2019t need smaller pants when I first lost weight after making Fat Head.<\/em> But in the past couple of years, I\u2019ve gone from wearing a size 38 to a size 36, and now the size 36 pants are actually a bit too loose. Size 34 pants are a bit too snug, so I\u2019m probably a size 35. You won\u2019t find that size in stores, so I\u2019m putting up with the loose 36 pants for now. If I end up wearing a size 34 someday, cool. If not, that\u2019s cool too. Reaching that size might require shrinking the width of my pelvis, and no diet will accomplish that.<\/p>\n

The point is, I\u2019ve continued getting a bit leaner over these past two years without starving myself, without counting calories, and without limiting myself to tasteless foods I don\u2019t really like. I live on a meaty, high-fat diet most people would consider indulgent, and yet I no longer struggle with my weight. I no longer wake up on New Year\u2019s feeling disgusted with my body and promising to do something about it. My resolution this year is to keep doing what I\u2019ve been doing.<\/p>\n

I know I can keep that promise.<\/p>\n

Happy New Year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I used to have a love-hate relationship with New Year\u2019s. Like countless other people, I began each year with a resolution to finally lose some serious weight and keep it… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[45,46],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3787","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-random-musings","category-real-food"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fathead-movie.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3787","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fathead-movie.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fathead-movie.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fathead-movie.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fathead-movie.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3787"}],"version-history":[{"count":16,"href":"https:\/\/www.fathead-movie.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3787\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6782,"href":"https:\/\/www.fathead-movie.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3787\/revisions\/6782"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fathead-movie.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3787"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fathead-movie.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3787"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fathead-movie.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3787"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}