A New Year's Toast

Here we are, just hours away from yet another new year. A box of Mars bars goes to the first person who can tell me just where in the world 2010 disappeared to. It feels like it was just a couple of months ago that we were welcoming it here.

Regardless of how I feel about it, at the stroke of midnight, 2011 will be here - ready or not. I'm still working on the New Year's resolutions; there will at least be a couple of them. (More on that to come later, or as my many fans demand.) For sure, I know that Project 52 needs another reboot. If you don't know what that refers to, feel free to reference it in a post from nearly a year ago.


I like New Year's in that it is both a time to reflect on the past and a moment to make changes for the future. On that same topic, some of the words of the John Denver and The Muppets song "When the River Meets the Sea" - something I actually referred to not that long ago here on The Epistle - have been running through my head today: "Like a flower that has blossomed in the dry and barren sand / We are born and born again most gracefully / Thus, the winds of time will take us, with a sure and steady hand."

Happy New Year, friends.

Tea Time!

As Project 52 continues into February (can I get a what-what?), I am now into the herbal tea stage.

This stage involves downing herbal tea every night as the last thing I consume for the day. The purpose of this is to help cleanse my insides, which apparently have been messed up somewhat and contain remnants of Dr. Pepper, Gobstoppers, and undigested gum still in them.

At first, the herbal tea I tried was this nasty-tasting beverage, which I can compare only to having the savor of dirt, only worse. Now, I have moved on to another kind of tea that tastes somewhat like the wassail we are wont to consume in the holiday season - quite an improvement.


To satisfy your curiosity: Yes, it is really as exciting as it sounds.

Project 52 Begins

As of today, Project 52 begins.

What is Project 52? you ask? (Yes, I can read your thoughts. I have ESPN.)

I suppose it could mean a lot of things, but for me it will refer to a goal I am setting for myself for the year 2010: losing a pound a week for a total of 52 pounds for the year.

Is it unlikely to happen? Maybe. Will it be difficult? Most definitely. But I feel it is something I need to do, and there's no time like the present. My recent trip to the hospital convinced me that I need to make some major changes in the way I take care of myself if I intend to avoid going back there on a frequent - or even permanent - basis.

At different times in my life, I have struggled with my weight - perhaps not to the same degree as Oprah, but nevertheless it has been a challenge for me. I am not one of those people who never sets foot in a gym because I don't need to - and I truly envy those people who never have to think twice about it. Nevertheless, it is what it is, as people are wont to say.

This goal will also be difficult to reach knowing what I know now, which is that I have had a condition called hypothyroidism for the past five or so years. In other words, my thyroid, which regulates metabolism among its many chores, is essentially shot to h-e-double hockey sticks, and I have to take medication daily to supplement it. Additionally, my current problems were compounded when I had to take a series of steroids and cortisone supplements for health reasons a few years ago. For those who are not familiar with these things, they boost your weight quite a bit in a very short time.


This is a topic that is tough for me to talk about, but I feel that if I get it out there in the open, to some degree, and enlist the aid and moral support of family and friends in accomplishing this somewhat ambitious task, then I will have tools to assist me throughout the process: gym buddies, encouragement, Jiminy Cricket-like consciences when I'm surrounded by junk food at parties, and what-have-you.

Project 52 began today, as I previously stated, with a 24-hour juice cleanse under the direction of my good and nutritionally informed mother. The idea of this juice-a-thon is to wash out impurities and other yucky things in my insides, which admittedly have been through a lot over the years, including two years' worth of South American food and having also once digested a sampling of poi.

This juice cleanse began with downing essentially a half-liter's worth of prune juice - that thing that you always thought people 50 years older than me habitually consume, and you would be right - to start this morning. If you guessed that it tasted quite awful - almost as bad as Diet Coke (I said almost, Jill) - then you would, likewise, be correct.

It's a good thing I work mostly from home. If I had been at the office today, I would have assuredly been sent home - if you catch my drift. That one glass of prune juice, I feel, satisfied my prune juice needs for, well, forever.

Fortunately, the worst was over after that. I have gone on to spend the rest of the day alternating between glasses of water and pure apple juice (freshly squeezed and brewed) every half-hour until I write these very words.

I will periodically be undergoing similar juice and distilled water cleanses in the process of trying to reach my Project 52 goal. Here's a toast of l'chaim to life.