Resolutions

Over the break, I had a little bit of downtime in which I reviewed some of my posts from last year vs. the posts this year. I concluded that I am lucky to have as many visits per day as I do. This blog used to be frequent, rarely depressing, and not always dog-focused. So in that spirit, I've resolved to try to write more often, to keep the dog updates to every other post at most, and to only have good things happen this year.

So instead of telling you about his new winter jacket, I'll tell you about the strange thing that happened to me last semester. Due to stress and my greatly scaled back social life, I lost about 15 pounds last semester. Granted, this still only puts me down about five from my pre-business school weight, but it's still fairly significant. It's also very strange. First, I have only lost weight twice in my whole life: when I had pneumonia my senior year of high school, and when I had an assignment at my first job that so completely consumed my life that I couldn't finish a meal or sleep or do anything much at all. Both of these times, it was clear that I was losing weight based on the fact that I wasn't eating anything and everyone could see how skinny I got.

In this case, I had no idea it was happening. I don't own a scale and only know what I weighed before this phenomenon because my gym this summer weighed me when I enrolled. I wasn't really aware I was eating less, nor did I notice that I was getting smaller. Some of the loss no doubt has to do with the fact that I somewhat stealthily went out a lot less last semester. I'm pretty much coasting on my first year reputation as a social butterfly, but I'm home with an-animal-not-to-be-named or working on the show or classes or recruiting or marketing conferences or, frankly, a bit more excited about dinner than parties. Basically, my social life is becoming more like my real social life instead of the social life of a fraternity pledge. Anyhow, not going to bars removes both the calories from drinking and, more importantly, the obligatory late night cheesesteak from the equation.

The weirder thing is that almost no one has noticed. 15 pounds represents more than 10% of my total body weight (I'm at Wharton, we do math). My parents noticed. A girl I've never met but knows a few of my friends noticed and commented to them. I guy I would kindly call an aquaintance noticed. His was the first comment, which spurred me to go try the scale at the gym, which I was then convinced had to be broken. But other than that, not a soul has said anything.

Anyhow, we'll see what happens next. I have no interest in returning to my Argentinian beef/Malbec summer-high, but I might go to Pub this week, so maybe beer will return to my life, if only for an evening.