The Writer's Pen

I made a New Year's resolution on Jan. 1 last year. I decided to keep it private. I didn't want anybody to know because I didn't want the added pressure of having everyone know that I wasn't keeping my New Year's resolution – that is, if I didn't keep it.

It's been a year now since I made that resolution and, well, I may as well tell you...I didn't keep it. You see, my New Year's resolution was that I was going to lose weight. I didn't have any particular amount of weight in mind; I just wanted to lose some weight.

Actually, a lot of weight. I didn't want to make a resolution like this, but I had to. None of my clothes will fit anymore. I got away with accusing my wife of shrinking my shirts and pants for a while. But I had a hard time convincing her that she had shrunk my leather belt too.

To be honest, the old diet just hasn't gone well.

To be perfectly honest, I have done absolutely rotten. I am heavier than I was when I made the stupid resolution. The sad part is, I don't understand why.

I've cut down on my sweets. I've also stopped eating a complete meal during my coffee break each morning and afternoon. I also think that I've cut down on my food intake at regular meal times by quite a bit. But I've been wrong in my thinking before.

I understand that now that since I've passed my seventh decade on this earth, my metabolism has probably slowed down and my body doesn't burn calories as fast as it did when I was younger. So I'll have to be more patient.

When I was in my twenties all I had to do if I wanted to lose 10 pounds was cut down to eating only two cheeseburgers, French fries, a chocolate shake and super-sized soft drink at every meal for a couple of weeks.

Now, I swear it seems like if I cut down to eating only one hamburger, with no fries, no shake and a small diet soft drink, after a month I should be happy if I only gain a couple of pounds!

I was complaining to my wife the other day about this lack of weight loss and she told me that I am doing it all wrong.

First she told me that it's not only how much I'm eating, it's what I'm eating, that is making things harder for my metabolism to burn the calories. Did you know that Doritos are not considered a diet food by most of the experts? Could have knocked me over with a feather when the wife informed me of that. She also claims that a Diet Coke and a Milky Way bar shouldn't be considered a light snack.

I wonder what kind of a snack it should be considered, then?

The big surprise came when the wife told me that I should be more careful about eating lettuce salads if I want to lose any weight. I've always thought lettuce was good diet food. She said it is, for most people. But I am a different case. Now I think that was terribly unfair of her to make a statement like that. If lettuce is low calorie for one person, it should be for the next, and I told her so. She told me that it wasn't the lettuce in my salad that hurt my weight loss plan. It was that pint of Ranch dressing and half pound of sunflower seeds that I dump over the lettuce that is causing the harm. Boy did that ruin my day!

She also suggested that I stop licking the excess dressing off my salad plate (especially when we're in a restaurant), and I've been directed to let the dog lick the the bottom of my ice cream bowl when we're at home instead of doing it myself.

But, I have to admit, the wife's been a lot of help. She took me into the grocery store the other day and said that she would help me buy some foods that would be conducive to weight loss.

I certainly must say that it was a nice gesture on her part, but we did have a few problems when it came to picking out some of the food that I should be eating.

For instance, she got it in her head somewhere that salted peanuts are fattening! This is when she told me about the Doritos too! She suggested that I try eating some fruit – an apple, an orange, maybe a pear – for dessert instead of a big bowl of chocolate covered ice cream.

She bought some lean meat and said she was going to broil it. She got some fish and said she would bake it.

Then she led me over to the cooler and we started going over our choices for more healthy butter. There is a veritable plethora of products that are supposed to be healthier for you than butter. There was, "I Can't Believe It's Not Butter," "Could This Be Butter?" and "Not Butter – Better." I thought any one of those may fill the bill. But we bought some other brand that I'd never heard of before. It was suppose to be lower in calories and fat than the other fake butters and it's suppose to have absolutely none in comparison to real butter.

When we got home and tried it out, I found out they should have named this stuff something more along the line of "This Sure As Hell Ain't Butter!

I know, I'm bad. Dieting does that to me.

Roger Stoner and his wife published the Peterson Patriot newspaper for more than 15 years. Since selling the newspaper in 2004 three of his books have been published. They are available on Amazon and at libraries throughout the area.