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Joe Brady

So, here's the new year and it's resolution time.

Unlike Valerie Bertinelli who brags that weight is not at the top of her resolution list, it is mine and has been for as long as I care to remember.

Along with weight loss is also to allow more time for my family, complete that afghan I've been working on for five years and to clean out the guest room closet.

I have all of these written down just so I will remember them. And I even went as far as taping them to the refrigerator so they would be "in my face" every time I opened the fridge.

The first resolution was to loose weight so I went out to the garage and rummaged around for that ab lounger I had purchased several years ago, with cleaning rag in hand I set out to polish it as if it were new once again.

It's amazing how much dust can accumulate on something that sits idle in a garage isn't it?

Once I had the piece of equipment spit shined I tried it out. Now, because it had been years since I had used it I first had to read the directions. Safety first don't you know?

Whom ever said with knowledge comes power never met me because with the instruction fresh in my mind I jumped on the contraption and began doing my excercises.

I felt like I was rearing to go as I passed the number ten mark and continued to ab crunch my way to six pack abs and a slimmer waistline.

I envisioned myself at 150 pounds, looking like I was twenty once again with a body to die for.

I passed the fifty mark and finally decided at sixty of the ab crunches to call it quits for the day. No sense in rushing a good thing and I didn't wish to overdo on my first workout.

I was excited about my ability to complete as many crunches as I had and wiped the sweat from my perspiring brow. As I spied my water across the room I sat up to retrieve it. And then the agony started.

Pain in places I never knew I had pierced my body as my abominal muscles tightened up and contracted in protest. Lying on that ablounger for thirty minutes in excruciating pain was enough to bring an average person to their knees.

If having babies feels as bad as that then it's a good thing I was born a male. I writhed, screamed, and contorted myself in waysÊyou wouldn't imagine possible. I thought I was dying.

After thirty minutes of sheer agony I eased myself off the contraption and promptly threw it back in the garage. I am convinced the thing was a torture device used back in the middle ages.

I hobbled over to the refrigerator where my list of resolutions mocked me taped to the door and tore them off angrily. I scratched through the plans I had made for 2009 and wrote a new one, "Allow myself more rest."

With that I walked back to the couch, grabbed the remote control and watched movies for the rest of the day.