At the beginning of the year, I came to the startling realization that my youngest will be starting school this fall. Obviously, I knew this was coming, but the reality of the situation chose to sink in right about New Year’s Day. Other than the obvious emotional issues I have with this, I realized that my perfect excuse for carrying around about 35 pounds of extra weight was now bordering on ridiculous.

My husband waited until about 2 seconds after I was pregnant to break the news to me that he was a 12 pound baby. Nine insane months later, I gave birth (via c-section, obviously!) to Oldest, who was 10 pounds and 22 inches….That’s right, he looked three months old the day he was born. Two years later, I gave birth to Youngest, who tipped the scales at 9 pounds, 2 ounces, and THAT was because he was delivered early…to avoid the 10 pound repeat.

So, you see, I had the perfect excuse to be a little plump. “I gave birth to two 10 pound children,” was my standard justification for everything, including my crippling diet coke addiction, gallons of margaritas, and my tendency eat enough junk for 3 people in a given day.

Alas, my New Year’s wake up call came, and I decided to do something about this situation. How does the laziest, most unfit person in the world go about getting fit? Since I have never been able to stick to a diet or exercise program in my life (excerise….now that’s just funny…), I instead decided to commit to one small change at a time, and focus on staying committed to that change until it really became a lifestyle. I would set the bar so low every week that even a flake like me couldn’t fail.

So, for my first week, I dusted off the WiiFit and committed to 30 minutes of activity on it a day, even if it was just the Free Step while I watched Battlestar Galactica.

This was perfect for me, since I couldn’t walk up a flight of stairs without panting like a sissy-girl. I was starting from literally zero level of activity.

Once I actually managed to keep up for two weeks, I then adjusted my diet just a tad. I can’t really change up dinner too much, because I have three beanpole males in this house who would riot, but I did start watching what I ate during the day. I also replaced some of my diet coke with water. Not all, mind you, I am not a masochist.

I then decided to challenge myself , so I bought this game for the Wii:

As someone who has never been able to follow a workout DVD (you should have seen the disaster that was Tae Bo), I was skeptical. However, this game is interactive, and can adjust to your fitness level, how you feel on any given day, and it continuously adjusts itself based on how you are doing. Furthermore, you can pause during a specific exercise and see a tutorial until you think you’ve got it right, then jump right back to where you were in the workout. It is literally perfect for fitness dunces like me.

Using this game, and walking 30 minutes on the days I was too sore from the previous workout, I’ve lost 22 pounds since the New Year. Not too shabby, considering I did have a week or two with no working out because of illness.

So far, I have kept up with these changes longer than any other attempts at diet and exercise, and I am continuing to add tiny challenges as I go. On 30 minute walk days, I’ve started to add some jogging. Sure, it is only about 40 seconds at a time…downhill, but that is 30 seconds longer than I could four months ago. For me the key has not been a “program.” I don’t think drastic diets or fitness plans would work for me, because I am a too resistant to change. I simply started with one tiny goal, and mastered that change before I added another.

We’ll see how the rest of the year goes, but if I can drop 10 more pounds, I dare say I will have one less reason to have emotional breakdown come August.