I remember my father calling my brother Dan a ‘lard bucket’. Dan wasn’t fat by any stretch of the word (He was over 6 foot tall and wore a 32” waist jeans). My father was referring to what he perceived as my brother’s laziness. He was a teenager. We were all that way then.

But what reminded me of that phrase, lard bucket, was a look in the mirror this morning. Not just a normal ‘do I look ok’ look, but an ‘holyfucklookatthatfat’ look.

Ok, I know what you people are thinking: She’s not fat. Perhaps that’s a bit off, like the ‘lard bucket’ comment my father used to make. Nonetheless, I have fat in places I don’t want fat and you can see it.

So here’s the deal. My birthday is at the end of September… 16 weeks from now. I don’t really like stepping on scales because I think weight is relative and shouldn’t be used as a marker, however, for argument’s sake, I should probably lose 25 lbs. Not a lot but enough. A more accurate measurement would be that I want to lose two ‘dress sizes’. Again, not a lot, but enough. I am right now, today, a size 12. An accurate size 12 in that I could go to a rack in most any store and pick a 12 and it would probably fit just fine. (I say probably because we all know that different clothing manufacturers cut their clothing differently and slap a size on them at their whim). I want to be an 8. I could be an 8 and look fine: not too skinny and not plump.

I’m pretty active now… I walk dogs everyday for three hours and I workout most every day now, but mostly to keep my heart healthy (I didn’t take very good care of myself there for a while..I smoked for many, many years). I eat pretty healthy now and really don’t think I need to change my diet much, I just need to change my focus.

So there it is. I give myself 16 weeks to size 8. I figure if I step up my workouts and mix it up a bit, I can pull it off.

I’m horrible at goal-setting, btw… which is why I’m posting this here so you people can ask me how I’m doing: keep me honest. We will call it ‘Operation Lard Bucket’ and that will be the post titles if you want to keep up. If not, then ignore those posts. I don’t know why you people come here anyway.

Operation Lard Bucket begins….. now.