It’s beginning already. I still haven’t fully digested my Christmas dinner and yet the New Year’s Conspiracy of Weight Loss and Fitness is rearing its ugly head and baring its shapely fangs.

Have you seen the commericals for Balley’s Total Fitness? What about the newspaper inserts for workout equipment? Have you noticed that Slim Fast is running more than the usual number of commericals?

I, for one, will not take this assault standing up. I prefer to sit. With a Starbucks.

Back in the day I used to try “getting in shape” by working out to some exercise show with the gorgeous woman doing aerobics on the shore of the ocean in Hawaii. She had her exercise mat and designer workout clothes not to mention the ability to talk through the entire program. My children used to gather around me and tell me how I was doing it all wrong. It became the highlight of their day to correct my deep knee lunges knowing full well that I could not argue back since I spent the entire 30 minutes gasping for air like a fish out of water.

That kind of crap changes a person forever, you know? So I vowed that my knees would never lunge in the name of “exercise” again. It is the only New Year’s resolution I’ve ever been able to keep.

Instead I took the less sweaty approach of “eat only when physically hungry and stop when satisfied, not full.” I have managed to lose over 100 lbs since the birth of my last child, no thanks to Thigh Master or BowFlex. I just exercised self control.

I suppose the argument could be made that people who exercise are healthier and live longer lives but I don’t care to impress the coroner and who wants to spend their life in 30 minute periods of intentional, self-inflicted pain and torture?

My exercise philosophy is no pain, no pain. I have the glutes to prove it.