Yes, I can

So here I go. I could always wait until the new year or when Bob leaves for overseas Saturday, but I'm thinking I need to make a lifestyle change and now.

The debut of "Takin' a Load Off" is to chronicle getting healthier and happier with myself -- the whys and hows of staying on or falling off. It's being accountable and being able to better track what works and what doesn't. And hopefully, it will help me track what makes me successful.

I've been pondering what help I'm going to use. The programs I'm considering are Nutrisystem, Weight Watchers and Jenny Craig.

I've used Nutrisystem once before about 21 years ago to lose my baby fat after having my darlin' daughter. It worked and I lost the about 25 pounds I had leftover, but having to eat only their food was pretty boring and awful. And I need to lose way more than 25 pounds.

The same objection goes for Jenny Craig, which I also used successfully a long, long time ago. Their food is also boring, boring, boring. And neither Nutrisystem or Jenny Craig allow for anything off their program, which would be tough for traveling.

Weight Watchers has both good things about it and other things that probably contribute to having fallen off before. The good things are that I can cook my own food and make it taste better and be more satisfying. I can travel and make good choices about what goes into my mouth. I can control my own destiny. If I bite it, I write it, is a WW phrase that comes to mind.

The hardest part is one of the other catch phrases, "If I drink it, I ink it." Although WW allows wine or other alcoholic beverages, after one or two glasses of wine, I don't particularly care about journaling and that's one of the things that makes me successful. If Bob wants to have a martini watching the sun go down, it's going to be awfully hard to sit there not imbibing a bit too. The key is having just one, or maybe two. And no mas.

So I think WW wins. I checked and there is a 5 p.m. meeting that I think I'll attend. My favorite WW leader too. One step at a time.