First Time

Hello world: So...you'll have noticed that I am blogging (since you're here). After years of resistance, why am I doing this now, you ask? And why should you take a blogging walk with me, when there are thousands (if not hundreds of thousands) of people out there doing it better, faster, more proficiently than I can?

Well, you can check in with me from time to time if you're interested in my struggle to drop some weight -- a lot of weight -- while holding down a hectic, stressful job in NYC. And if you want to hear hilarious (also maddening, frustrating and gall-inducing) tales of life in Gotham. As for the timing of all this, I guess I finally felt like adding my voice to the chorus. I enjoy the blogs of so many other people who are on weight loss journeys (see list on upper right), and I find them very inspiring and motivational. Seems only fair that I try to share something back.

I can't promise that I'll be a particularly witty or inspiring -- sometimes after a long day of running around (I'm a reporter), the last thing I want to do is write. My only desire then is to throw myself on the sofa and veg out with a hefty glass of wine. Red, usually, and whatever I can see that tempts me at my rather underwhelming corner wine store (and when money is tight I have been known to pick up a $3.99 bottle of Gato Negro -- but I pay for it with a stomachache the next day).

I really enjoy drinking wine -- all sorts -- and not just for the buzz, although I suspect that its relaxing effect is a big part of why I crave wine all the time, given my insanely stressful job. My challenge is how to balance those cravings with weight loss.

The good news is that wine, at 100 calories a 4 oz glass, isn't a real diet buster.

IF...you drink one glass. And IF that glass is 4 ounces.

Let me be honest right up front: I am rarely able to have one glass. And they are NEVER just 4 ounces. So....you see my problem here.

Am now off to bike around the city a bit, despite a lingering cold that continues to hold my nasal passages in phlegmy bondage. After two days out of the city in Boston, covering you-know-who's massive funeral/burial, I need to get back on track.