Annual Cliche Blog Post

I know. It's so cliche. But if I am to be held accountable, it must be shared: I have a New Year's Resolution. I've put on a couple of pounds since we moved to the Arctic. And by a couple, I mean several. Something must be done.

Now, before I start getting hate mail about how, even with several added pounds, I am not that fat, let me explain. After all of the hats, gloves, scarves, coats, jackets, mittens, long underwear, socks, snow boots, and regular boots we have purchased for Life in the Arctic, quite honestly, there is not enough left in the clothes budget for me to buy larger-sized britches. And larger-sized britches are where I'm headed if I don't do something.

In so doing, I do not intend to toss the D word about. That would just add cliche to cliche. So I am going to stick with the word lifestyle. Better, right? I am going to follow Dr. Connie Guttersen's The Sonoma Diet Lifestyle. I have loosely followed this book before because I like it. I like all of the science behind the food she offers. I like the foods she uses. There are no avocado (blech!) and tofu (double blech!) smoothies I have to make to start the day. Instead, her recipes are sensible and use ingredients any picky eater would like.

The only thing that is kind of odd/funny/comical is the snacks. On Day 1, my snack allowance is "11 almonds". I am not sure what would happen if I ingested 13. Perhaps I would bloat up like a beached whale (there's another cliche for you) and finally bust right out of my Levis. I'm not going to chance it; I'll stick with 11.

The d-, I mean, lifestyle is divided into 3 waves. The first wave is the hardest because it does not include even a teaspoonful of sugar. Even fruits are forbidden. This phase lasts for 10 days. Without chocolate and Starbucks, this phase will be the H word for me.

Wave 2 technically lasts only until you reach your target weight, but there are 14 days of menus provided. I intend to follow the 14 days. Wave 3 has no menus; it is the phase where lifestyle truly takes over. I haven't figured out yet what I want that to look like for me, but I do know I want us to be healthier as a family, so I'll give it some serious thought while I am enduring Sugar De-Tox.

So that is it. Now that it's out here, I have to stick to it. I'm not starting 'til Monday, though. In the meantime, I will be grieving the departure of many of my best friends: Betty Crocker brownie mixes, Christmas chocolate, baking chocolate, everyday chocolate, Starbucks. And I'll be shopping for things that don't contain chocolate.

And since I haven't started yet, I'm afraid I'm going to have to eat some more of my Christmas chocolate. It's for my own psychological health because good-byes are simply too difficult.