FRESH

After Thanksgiving, the new year "holiday" is my favorite, hands down. I love the feeling of new possibilities on the horizon, the idea that everyone can have a fresh start. I've been looking forward to this day for weeks now, maybe months.

If you are joining me here anew and want to know from where I come, you can visit my old (and now defunct) blog, The Forty Project to get the lowdown. I was there for almost a year and documented my first 50 pound loss, as well as my foray into running as my main physical activity.

The last few months of last year I saw myself sliding back into my old, less desirable eating habits and general sloth. Though I had lost just over 50 pound total in 2008, I ended up gaining about 20 of it back, which is a bummer but still leaves me ahead of the game -- or at least where I started last January at 350 pounds.

Today I weighed in at 321.4 pounds. I was actually pretty happy about that! The last time I had weighed myself was a couple weeks ago at 318.4. To be honest, my eating went so to the wayside that I fully expected to be back up in the neighborhood of 330, if not worse. At least where I am now I know that it won't be very long that I will see a number beginning with 31-, and even 30-. After a fast gain, I am lucky that I tend to lose it quickly, too. Therefore, my goal for January is to lose 12 pounds.

No, my goals will not always be so ambitious. Trust me.

Since this is the first real post here at Ten Percent, let me tell you about my arsenal.

• Daily weigh as prescribed by the Physics Diet folk: this is what I have done in the past year and it works really well for me

• Tracking food intake over at Fitday

• Building up an exercise regimen after the first couple weeks, either doing the C25K program again, or picking one of Hal Higdon's training programs

• Drinking at least 64 oz. of water each day

• Taking a multivitamin

• Eating a balanced diet in reasonable amounts; including vegetables and fruit whenever possible, and adequate dairy; fitting in small amounts of treat-type foods a few times a week; cooking nice meals whenever possible; eating 2000-2500 calories per day to start

• Posting in this journal every day; if not then at least 5 times a week

• This is a no-gimmick, lots of self-respect zone! Beware all diet fretters who enter!

I am super excited about 2009. I've had my sights on this day for a long time, as I said earlier, and man, my mindset couldn't be more ready for it! It's amazing how our psychology works.