I saw some friends on Facebook choosing words to mark the new year and I thought "Why not?" It's better than making some resolution that I make year after year that probably most of the planet makes -- you know, "lose weight."

I thought about it a bit and came up with the word better. All I want is to keep getting better -- like at everything. 

And, of course, I needed an exclamation point, because, duh!

Today is the perfect day to unveil my word because I started out the day feeling like absolute crap. I was jolted awake in the middle of the night by the need to puke. I actually wished I could have but I didn't, so I spent the rest of the night sleeping on two big pillows, coughing down, um, stuff.

Because I slept on the pillows I awoke with a raging neck tension headache. And after a couple Aleve, a can of regular Coke for breakfast (it works wonders) and some bland food (plain Greek yogurt, banana, ginger tea, etc.) I finally feel better enough to use my eyeballs and my computer.

My plan to wake up bright eyed and bushy tailed and hit the gym has to wait until tomorrow but now that I'm functioning again, I'm making a shopping list and a meal plan so I can have healthy meals and snacks at the ready. 

And the "out of sight out of mind" box of snack food strategy is working wonderfully -- I haven't wanted to touch that at all (BECAUSE IT'S NOT MY FOOD). 

I'm also starting the Fit Bottomed Girls' Fit Bottomed Challenge, which started today, so head on over there, print out the calendar and join up! Today's task is to choose a food resolution. Mine is to only eat real food -- and right now, I'm off to Whole Foods for supplies.

Are you ready to do better, eat better, feel better, be better? Join me!

Let's recap this week:

The good: I kicked off 2015 with the third annual Commitment Day 5k up in Boca Raton. The night before, as we were hosting a New Year's Eve party for a gaggle of teenagers, I started talking myself out of waking up the next morning and driving up to Boca. But then I remembered the name of the 5k: Commitment Day. 

So I laid out my clothes for the morning and made sure I got to sleep at a fairly decent hour. Thankfully, the 5k didn't start until 10 a.m. so I didn't have to get up at the crack of dawn. I wore my Enell gear -- sports bra, tech shirt and cap -- to let the world know that I'm Kind of a Big Deal (and that Enell makes great sports bras). And when I crossed that finish line I felt like a big deal, just for showing up.

The bad: My inability to ignore the piles and piles of party leftovers. There were chips, dips, cookies, crackers, taquitos, candy and other assorted things. 

The "Oh, my gahhh, what happened?": This is me in the parking lot of the Weight Watchers meeting, knowing that the number on the scale wouldn't be great (because Doritos, leftover party food, et al):

So, yeah. Super bad. Like 7 pounds of garbage bad. (Awesome Under Armour shirt I found at Dick's Sporting Goods.)

Interesting -- I didn't know I could gain that much in one week. I took a river barge trip down Denial this past week with a chip here, a cookie there. Play it again, Batman ...

I got over the shock and awe of the scale and got some fantastic advice from the Weight Watchers leader, who told me to take all the snacky stuff and mark it with my kid's name then hide it in a cabinet somewhere.

So on the way back from WW, I stopped at Target and bought a storage container, got back home and put all the offenders in it, closed it up and taped a sign on the lid:

Out of sight, out of mind, right? 

The stuff is in bags and boxes, in a sealed container with a big ol' "caution" sign on it, on the floor of the pantry. I'd definitely have to make a concerted effort to eat that stuff.

I'm so glad I stayed for the meeting -- I always do, but I easily could have weighed in and slunk away. And if I did that I wouldn't have figured out a solution to my snack food dilemma.

My teenager looked at me quizzically as I packed up the food and stuck the sign on the lid. He really doesn't get it, and for that I am thrilled.

As far as he's concerned, you eat some stuff until you don't want any more stuff and you put the stuff away and go on with your life. That's all he has known all his life. His brain and his stomach are still properly wired and chances are he will never know the disfunction that I know.

This is a short week for me, weigh-in wise, because I'm going back to my regular Wednesday meetings, so I have four full days to see how quickly I can turn this garbage barge around.