Drop and give me twenty...

'Tis the season once again for those pesky start of the year diets. Yes, even though I don't make resolutions, I do tend to have visions of grandeur this time of year when it comes to the art and science of losing weight, eating better and exercising more.

This year I have set what I believe is a modest and achievable goal which centers mostly around not eating so much sugar. I'm a cookie monster - I can't help it and my plan this year is to learn how to cut down. If I can substitute unsweetened green tea with lemon as my beverage of choice for soda and manage to survive, then I can drop the cookie and brownie habit. Wish me luck.

That, however, is not really the subject of today's blog. My topic today is really a mini-rant about weight-losing celebrities who are so on my nerves I can't tell you. I'm so tired of hearing about celebrities going on diets, losing weight then crying when they gain it all back. [cough, cough Oprah, cough cough, et al].

First of all, these famous faces all go on the typical fad diets - why? Because they need to lose weight fast to make it look miraculous. If they drop 40 pounds in 6 months on the 'Flab buster*' system [for which they sign a contract and get paid to be the spokesperson] they look like superheroes - not to mention super models. How do they do this? Well, it's easy when you have a personal trainer, someone to help prepare your meals and shop for you...and it's actually part of your job to lose weight. Let's face it - when they're posing for a spread in national magazines touting their weight loss regime - do they really want us to believe no money has changed hands? If someone paid me to do a diet, I'd probably stick to it better myself.

Now, it's not so much the fact that these celebrities sign contracts and get money and publicity as an incentive to lose weight and look fabulous that bothers me. It's the language they use that really ticks me off. I'm tired of hearing celebrities [whom we are all supposed to look up to as inspirations] saying things like how 'ashamed' they were of being fat, or asking 'how did I let this happen?' Seriously - it's insulting to those of us who live in the real world for a celebrity to come along and express her utter mortification at waking up weighing 180 or 200 pounds one day. What they're saying, essentially, is the rest of us should be ashamed to be alive and that stinks.

I would have great respect for a weight-losing celebrity who could have the guts [no pun intended] to stand up and say, "I gained weight like every other American woman does, by being too busy attending to every other aspect of my life to pay constant attention to my diet, not by being a lazy, good for nothing layabout." Overweight celebrities need to stop with the 'I'm so ashamed of myself' BS and really be inspirations to the rest of us instead of just trying to make us all feel even worse about 'tipping the scales.'

And don't even get me started on the media. That will a rant for another day.

My point is, everyone out there who has decided the New Year is a good time to start a diet, hold your head up and be proud of yourself, no mater what you weigh. The only shame in all this is being a celebrity who thinks we will be inspired by their 'shame.'

* not an actual weight loss program