Make a resolution to avoid dieting this year

Anyone who knows me will tell you that I spend a LOT of time at the gym. By far, January is the month I dread the most at the gym.

Every January, hordes of well-meaning resolutioners descend on my gym, with their brand-new work out clothes and enthusiasm for fat-burning.

If it were not for the fact that the resolutioner numbers inevitably drop off by the third week of January, and most of them will quit coming altogether by the second week of February, I would applaud them. Mostly, they just end up being supreme annoyances that take up gym space and make a lot of unnecessary noise for the first 4-6 weeks of the new year.

Now, I'm not writing this post so that I can rail on people who consistently ditch their resolutions (I stopped making resolutions years ago, so I'm not one to preach). I'm actually looking to give out some advice that I hope at least one or two of the resolutioners out there will find helpful.

I was inspired to write this post by two young women I noticed coming to the gym about a week ago. They are both large women; their respective gym partners are not. Each time these women work out, I can see their determination to succeed. And, I find myself really wanting them to succeed with their respective decisions to get healthy.

I was thinking the other day about what I might tell them if I were asked to give them and resolutioners like them some advice. Here it is: if you put yourself on a diet and exercise plan for the new year, the best favor you can do for yourself is to get off of the diet right now.

Let me elaborate...

Blogging burnout sucks...

When our offline lives just get busier and more complex than they already were - and in our case, were juggling more than one blog - writing new blog posts sometimes starts to feel less and less fun.

In those times, it's often a good idea to take a step back from the project for a while. Only, in our case, that step back lasted for months.

Neither Daisy nor I realized just how much time had passed since our last post until we logged into it again last weekend.

We're back again, though, refreshed and newly streamlined. No more juggling!

So, what have we been up to while our blog was sleeping?

- A job change for Daisy. That was a welcome change all around. Yes, there were some adjustments that had to be made here at home. We seem to be on track now, we're happy to say.

- We redecorated our apartment, from top to bottom. True, we never mentioned that it needed to be done in the first place. Just suffice it to say that much of our furniture was still from college, and it was time for our apartment to grow up.

- We became vegan. Sort of. Well, mostly (dairy still creeps into our diet, just much less frequently before we turned mostly-vegan).

We know - vegan gays, that's not cliche at all... Except, we like to think that as mostly-vegans, we have been able to dodge many of the stereotypes. We hope, at least. Just trust that we won't suddenly turn our blog in a podium from which we shout about how all meat-eaters should be ashamed of their habits.

It's a new year, and a refreshed blog. Enjoy.

Penn