You may or may not have noticed the “Slim Down” section of the main page and how it says “~15 lbs to lose”. Depending on your perception of my physique and what “slim” means to you, you may think I’m either (a) already thin and not needing any further slimming, (b) not setting the bar high enough, and/or (c) incredibly hot so what’s the problem? Although (a) and (c) may seem similar, this is a GRE-type question in which the subtle difference makes it or breaks it.

Anywho, back to the Slim Down. In truth, I agree that I am not overweight. My weight is at most 127 lbs on a bad year and on my best year (back in high school) I weighed 112 lbs– all muscle (and fat.) I haven’t weighed myself in about a year, which I’ve heard is good for your self esteem, but when I did weigh myself I came in at about 120. Since then it’s been hard to deny that I’ve gained weight, what with my face looking as round as the moon these days and a muffin top beginning to show. Let’s not get into the gruesome details. I apologize to those who read this around a meal time. The point is I’m probably back around 125-ish these days. At 5 foot, 3(?) inches, I’m not exactly sporting a beach body. It’s ok, this is why I have this website. Wanna know why?

From this point on, I’ll make a serious effort to either control my eating or get to sweating and in the ideal case: both. To set the record straight, I do not believe in starving your body or picking up some eating disorder to lose weight. Doesn’t work and, worse, it could lead to death. Not cool, especially when that would totally interfere with my plans.

The only option I see is sweating– and not just sitting-in-a-sauna sweating. I know this woman who decided it was time to lose weight by sweating it out (because that has been scientifically proven?) so she would drive home from work in the afternoon with her AC off and her windows up. A little side note, this woman works and lives in Miami where there are only two seasons: summer and hurricane. Anyway, I’m sure she did this a couple of times without consequences other than arriving home completely soaked, but she decided to kick things up a notch by also starving herself. Result: She passed out at home after a day of not eating and putting herself through a slow roast of about 45 minutes. Did she lose weight? As a doctor, I would say highly unlikely. As the undergrad student that I am, I say WHAT THE HECK WAS SHE THINKING!? She did end up in the hospital or something of that sort though because she was dehydrated and her body couldn’t take it anymore.

So you see, boys and girls. I’m going to try to lose weight the safe way: working out, baby. I hope to keep a record of it here from time to time so that I have cyber peer pressure to keep up my good behavior. I have about 27 28 pair of eyes that check in regularly to this site and will hold me accountable. (Probably not, but I’m going to convince myself that you will.) So as of today, I better get out there and pick up jogging and ab workouts and anything else I can be pressured into doing.

Suggestions on workout routines? I usually just start with jogging and abs, but I know the body consists of more than just legs and abs (although some may argue it only consists of T&A — tissues and antibodies, of course.) More than losing weight, toning up is important to me. Can’t be slim and flabby now, huh? So any advice for the newbie exerciser(?)?