Moose.

I finally figured out the name of my inner Drunk Frat Boy: Moose.

Every frat has that guy who’s a little too loud and a little too crazy. That’s my inner DFB and his name is Moose.

Yes, that’s John Belushi as Bluto in Animal House*. Bluto is the perfect personification of Moose.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Today’s New Year’s Eve – and you would think, “wow, Moose is going to wreck your shit tonight!”

You’d be wrong! Thanks to the Polar Dash tomorrow morning, I’m not going out for NYE nor am I drinking anything tonight. In fact, I will probably be in bed by 10pm surfing Pinterest on my iPad. I’m just that crazy!

As I’ve gotten older, my preference is to stay home on NYE. Too many people out getting drunk and most likely driving their asses around while drunk. No thank you. This race just gave me a fantastic reason to not go to any of the three parties I was invited to. Brilliant!

New Year’s also brings about the annual “New Year’s Resolutions” lists that people make. Those kind of lists give me hives. While I agree having a goal is good, most resolutions are unattainable because they’re not specific enough:

• Lose weight!
• Read more!
• Exercise more!

Being that vague is not a recipe for success. Well, I’m going to make my short list of specific things I want to rock in 2014.

• Lose 20lbs by May 1.
• Go alcohol-free from Jan 1 until my birthday (~3 weeks).
• Run a half marathon in June.

Each of these things is measurable and can be done within that period of time. I got my new issue of Cooking Light yesterday and they an article about the “Social Diet” members of staff took throughout 2013. They used a variety of tools and technology to help make those goals happen, which I’ll go over what I use in a upcoming post.

The editor mentioned that losing the weight was something that you could “solve for X” rather than rely on willpower to make it happen. Was a fresh perspective on the whole diet and exercise issue and it inspired me to do my own equation solving!

The biggest hurdle will be getting through the first week of the goals. I’ve heard that it takes three weeks to make a new habit stick, and that held true when I started running after I turned 30.

The losing weight thing, that will be me not eating so much and making sure I have healthy choices in the house. The alcohol thing, I’ll just need to make sure there’s no wine or beer in the house. If it’s not here, then I can’t drink it. It’s the same strategy I use for Oreo cookies** and it’s worked well over all these years. The half marathon is very doable – I’ve trained for one before and I already have the mindset of running. The other two goals will just make the third easier to achieve.

Do you have your own specific, measurable goals for 2014? Please share in the comments!

Happy New Year!
_ _ _ _ _

* – Animal House is in my top 5 list of favorite movies. Funny enough, Belushi is in two of the top 5 movies (The Blues Brothers is #1 on the list)

** – Moose loves Oreos. Alot.