Dear Resolutioners

Dear Queen City Resolutioners,

Well, it's Day 6 of 2009, which means it's Day 6 of the majority of the world's new diet and exercise plans. I know who you are. I saw you last year. Then I never saw you again. I really hope this year is different for you. I truly, truly do - endorphins and a healthy lifestyle are amazing things that I would love everyone to experience; however, I also hope that those of you who are going to quit will go ahead and do it. Save yourselves a couple weeks of sore muscles and hunger pains and just stop. You are crowding my space, and I am not your fan.

January 1 means that suddenly my gym (the one I have belonged to and faithfully attended for 8 years now) is swarming with people like you. You have taken my favorite treadmill whose belt is calibrated correctly. You have claimed that one elliptical not beside that guy who smells really, really awful. You have besieged the only Step-Mill whose stairs do not ka-thunk while I climb. You have even decided that the recumbent-bike-that-I-only-use-when-it's-really-crowded-whose-TV-is- always-set-to-Paula-Deen now belongs to you. The entire YMCA now lies in your sweaty clutches.

The parking lot is swarmed by the masses of the non-gym-going public, like you, who have decided that this is your year. Those of us who have paid homage to the workout gods are now left circling, searching for spaces and fuming that we have been displaced. My New Year's resolution every year is to avoid you, and every year I fail. I have held my tongue for six days now, and I have even tried altering my schedule - going to the gym at lunch or before work rather than after, but you are everywhere.

As I stated previously, I want the best for you this year. I hope your resolution becomes a lifestyle. I hope these changes are permanent and for the better. But let's be honest with ourselves. If this is your fifth, sixth, seventh year trying this routine, it probably won't work any better in 2009 than it did in 2008/7/6/5. It's just the way resolutions work. I'm sorry I don't believe in you anymore, but I don't; you've left me no choice. Please go back to your December 31, 2008 life and let me get back to mine. I will see you in 2010.

XOXO,
Polka Dots & Protein Bars