Some years ago, I had heard Oprah talking about the old adage – “diet starts Monday!” After years of yo-yo dieting, she had decided that perhaps Tuesdays would be better. Since the New Year, people have been resolving to uphold their resolutions. My gym feels swollen with new members, but the kitchen table at my office continues to find sweets piling up – and somebody is eating them! I’m just glad it’s not me.

I have been on a bit of a roll to try and lose my roll – a spare tire that no one ever needs. The 18 years of abuse toward my body have left their marks – stretch and otherwise. No matter how hard I train at the gym, or how thin I have been, the extra skin feels like a deformation with which I cannot find comfort. All the same, I’d rather wear a little extra skin than an extra 100+ pounds.

To this end, I have felt a rejuvenated motivation in the people around me. My partner, Matthew, is committed to improving his health and form through working out incessantly. My mother has recently lost a lot of weight. In fact, on this last trip to Montreal , I realized that I had never seen her so ‘small’! I am so proud of her commitment and resolve. Her joints seem improved, evident in her ability to master the treadmill, and the sweaters I bought her at Banana Republic are now verging on too big.  Her diet has changed, and it seems that with each pound lost, something within her is uncovered. In her fifties, she seems more resilient than I can ever recall– fortified by her own inner strength. This is quite a feat in February; quite a feat for anyone at all!

I worked out at the gym today amidst South Beach ’s array of perfect bodies that never are. I’m tired of dangling carrots; I work out with a different goal. I know that getting six pack abs or buns of steel will not make me any happier. It is also not my reality. I had once said that I wanted a t-shirt to read “under construction to serve you better.” Today, I’m not sure who I would be serving.

And then I am reminded of a sense of purpose for which we are all searching…

Ta’Shara, a young woman with whom I attended class last semester was inspired to lose weight as well. Maybe it was something I said - or nothing at all - but in the past 5 weeks, she is down 20 pounds through proper diet and exercise. In our keeping in touch and supporting one another’s struggles in life, we create a network of two. Ta’Shara reminds me of my purpose.

So much of it is about inner strength… and realizing that it is there. It always has been!

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