It?s January 4th and the holiday season is over. I had lots of great family time and have lots of great memories to carry with me until the next holiday season.

Oh yeah, and I have one more thing to carry with me, well actually six more things, the six pounds I didn?t have before Thanksgiving.

I am fifty seven, and therefore I don?t worry too much about the fact I don?t look like RG III, but I don?t consider myself in bad shape for my age. Though I have been as high as 172 lbs, my doc thinks 155 is a good weight for me but I will admit that has been a struggle. I have, however been able to maintain 160 pounds for the last couple of years.

That is until Thanksgiving 2013 and the five weeks that followed. My wife?s family is from the Laurel Highlands of western Pennsylvania. They are farmers. It?s a wonderful place to go to and relax. It?s usually cold and snowing. Cell phone and Wi-Fi service is poor so you are forced to put work down for a short time. We always spend Thanksgiving there.

And we eat.

And then we eat some more.

And then, when the Thanksgiving meal is behind us, we eat some more.

Then we come home, have a post-Thanksgiving ?Thanksgiving? dinner with the kids back here in Northern Virginia, and we eat some more.

But that was just the start of it.

This year we cooked for two days to feed 13 people at my house on Christmas Eve; then Christmas; then I didn?t go in to work for a few days after Christmas and we had lots of leftovers so I ate some more; then a brief overnight visit with my parents on the Eastern Shore where we ate all day and night; all this culminating with a New Year?s Eve dinner, this year at a restaurant on Tilghman Island on Maryland?s Eastern Shore.

What did I expect right? I am lucky it?s not 12 pounds.

Though I am a runner, I typically lie off in the Fall and start again after the New Year. My wife and I took a two hour walk on New Year?s Day to start the year off right and to begin that journey back to 160 or maybe if I am lucky this year, 155 pounds.

Coincidently, for Sport and Spine Rehab, January?s theme is ?A Happier, Healthier You: Weight Loss Awareness.? With weight loss challenges going on, healthy foods in the clinics, reminders of the benefits of exercise and eating right, and my jeans a lot snugger, I don?t think I am going to quietly get away with dragging this out.

But that is a good thing! Bring it on!

So that?s my testimony?..if you have a similar one you want to share, email it to me and I will post it on our website. So good luck if you have something to work at like I do, Happy New Year, and thanks for being a friend of Sport and Spine Rehab!

Curt Christiansen
Chief Operating Officer
Sport and Spine Rehab
[email protected]