Hold on to your hats, folks, I've got a system

Pizza is magic.

Pizza and diet coke helped me recover from my New Year's, champagne induced hangover. Pizza made it possible to channel surf without barfing. With pizza, I could hold my head up again. Pizza is magic.

So I was flipping through the channels and noticed that the home shopping networks were selling exercise equipment to cater to all those sad sacks who ate too much and are trying to pump themselves up to take off the excess.

I am one of those sad sacks. I had to lose a couple of pounds before November and just never got around to it. The situation deepened around November 14 when I began consuming large amounts of cake. Thanskgiving introduced pie and stuffing to the mix, then two birthdays around the beginning of December (equals more cake and eating out) plus various Christmas goodies plus increased drinking. Yeesh, I've successfully increased the original number of poundage to lose by twofold, necessitating a wardrobe realignment and the purchase of transition pants. Transition fucking pants.

Good news is that I bought a system, an exerise system called The Step. The program included fitness ball, exercise band, 3 lb weights, a step-dealie, and three workout dvds. The workouts are led by Cathe (yep, with an e--more fitness instructor-y, don't you think?), who, to my enormous relief, is genuinely cheerful and pleasant and completely unlike other fitness instructors (Leslie Sansone, I'm thinking of you).

I am so ready to throw off this vacation-induced laziness and holiday binge-o-rama. Yet I also have to remind myself to keep things in perspective, focus on the health benefits and not so much the scale, and not to lose the humor in life. Ah, yes, humor.

Experts report that the majority of people who make the resolution to lose weight/exercise don't keep it up, but I have faith in the possibility and promise of resolutions. Maybe I won't get to learning portuguese, but I can do this! I will do this! I must do this!

Best of luck from the bottom of my heart to anybody else who bought transition pants and systems this New Year's.