Hello, my name is Christopher Joel and I’m a sodaholic.

2008 was a great year for the battle. I started at 200 pounds and got down to 185 by September. The pudge was the smallest it’s been since my freshman year of college. I’d never felt better. I got a job at Belmont University, which gave me a free gym to work out in. I had gotten my meals sizes down to a reasonable level and couldn’t finish most meals out without taking half of it home for my lunch the next day.

Then the holiday season began. It started with stuffing myself at pre-Thanksgiving meals. Then, I started drinking sodas at Christmas Eve rehearsals. Sodas are my pudge’s worst enemy. Then the Christmas sweets started coming in and I haven’t been able to stop. As of October, I had a crazy amount of discipline with my eating. I hadn’t had sodas often (maybe one per month), I rarely had sweets, and was doing well to avoid wheat, dairy, and yeast (I react badly to those).

My lack of control with food has spread to my discipline’s worst enemy: TV. Get this, we don’t have cable, we have a two-at-a-time Netflix account, and only watch shows online. I’ve now started watching stupid shows like when we had cable (Legend of the Seeker…come on!). Dang it!

This will end. I will change. 2009 will the be the year I get back down to 175 and loose the pudge permanently! I will stop watching stupid shows. I will practice. I will read my Bible. I will work out three times a week. This is my year!