10 Jan Have You Noticed the Increase in Weight Loss Commercials Recently?

Welcome to the New Year and to that gnawing feeling at the bottom of your stomach that you don’t think you’ll be able to keep your New Year’s Resolution.

The amount of weight loss commercials has increased on television recently in order to recruit individuals hoping to keep their New Year’s Resolution of losing weight. Pretty clever, huh?

(Also, did you know that fast food and restaurant commercials are more frequent late afternoon, right before dinner time? I learned this when I was put on bowel rest for the first time when I was 11 and wasn’t allowed to eat for 7 days. I paid very, very close attention to those commercials..)

But I digress!

I bring up New Year’s resolutions because I have been thinking about mine. Yes, it has already been over a week since the New Year began, but I needed some time to think.

After much soul-searching, deep thought, and sleeping on it- I have come up with 3 resolutions for the new year:

1 I will graduate NYU by the end of the summer and find a coveted job.

2. I will stay as happy as I was when the New Year began.

3. I will devote much more time and energy to the success of Uncover Ostomy.

My first resolution is not too much of a stretch. For those who do not know, I have already planned out the courses I will be taking in my graduate program so that I will finish the 2 year program at NYU in one calendar year. Assuming I do not fail any of my classes, (which I’ve never done before), this will be done. I knew this resolution was too simple, so I decided to add the second part of the resolution about landing a (super awesome) job. I am hoping that by graduating out of this program, I will be able to find myself a job that I actually enjoy and that will pay the bills (a girl can dream, right?) It was this time last year I was determining my future for the coming year, so it is only fitting that, now, I begin to think about the next year to come.

My second resolution may seem silly to many, but to those who know me, it is definitely not. Since my father passed away over 2 years ago, my life had sort of revolved around a cloud of unhappiness. I wasn’t overly unhappy, but I definitely wasn’t as happy as I could have been. I was, I would describe as- overwhelmingly pessimistic with a hint of sarcasm. I was suffering a loss, I was stressed with school, and people in my life were not making it easier. It is not surprising that I was unhappy, I suppose.

Slowly, over the past couple of months, that underlying unhappiness that was within every snide remark or negative comment I made has disappeared. Some have even told me that they can see the happiness exuding from my skin or from the words I type over facebook chat. You may even say that I am a pleasure to be around now (maybe.)

Much of this happiness has been attributed to the fact that stresses from school have lessened dramatically. I am learning practical and interesting things that do not require me to write 5, 15 page long essays per semester on the same, yet not the same topic. (I cannot even tell you how many different ways I wrote essays on the media’s power to disseminate messages to the masses. See the parallel with my opening statement now?) I am really enjoying my studying, making it much easier to handle.

My happiness also stems from the people around me. My family, for one, has grown stronger and happier since the sad loss of my father. While lost family members are never forgotten, they become easier to handle as time goes by. The holidays are always a hard time to deal with the loss of important people, but this year it was more of a year to celebrate memories, then morn a loss.  It was wonderful seeing my family so happy this holiday season. It brought out a happiness in myself.

The majority of my happiness, as a lot of people have pointed out that they have noticed, can be accredited to my boyfriend. Though I don’t get to see him very often, knowing that he is in my life has made me wonderfully content. During the holiday’s, I was able to spend a full 2.5 weeks with him, maximizing the time we had together. While I was in Toronto, he accompanied me to holiday dinners with my family, we spent the rest of the holiday’s together at his place in Florida with his family, and then we rang in the new year together in NYC. My New Year’s Resolution is to maintain this content feeling- this happiness- that I have gotten from him for the entire year.  As long as he remains in my life, it won’t be hard.

My third resolution is focused on this campaign. Since its launch, Uncover Ostomy has only been growing larger and stronger; successfully spreading ostomy awareness. While we’ve been doing great things together over the past little while, there is so much more I want to do.

We all know that the vast majority of the UO audience are those who have ostomies themselves.  While I am ecstatic to have so many devoted participants in this campaign, it is only half the battle. As you know, UO is a two tiered endeavor: to spread acceptance of the ostomy to those with them, and to teach those without them what they are. So far, the second tier is lagging behind.

Over the past few months, I’ve come up with ideas that I really believe could break Uncover Ostomy into the public realm. The fact that I live in NYC has given me a geographical advantage to reach a wider audience than before and I believe that what I have in mind can do that. While my location may be ideal, and my ideas pretty freakin awesome, my ability to make use of them is not quite as easy as I had hoped. I have two main obstacles stopping me: time and resources. While I worked to get over these obstacles by setting aside time to find resources, I plan to work even harder at it in the new year. Unfortunately, my endeavors so far have come up pretty unsuccessful. I have gotten many hollow promises of help, if not complete rejections. Hopefully, more by devoting more time to this search, I will come up with something.  I have great ideas for us, but it’s hard to get anything done when you do not have the money to do it.

I think the three diverse resolutions I have given myself for the 2012 year will be good for my mind, my heart, and my soul. I am going to work hard to enhance my skills and build my career; I am going to maintain the happiness that exists in my life from the people who I am surrounded by; and I am going to work even harder to find ways to spread awareness for our great cause.

As I conclude this post, I hope that my resolutions have given you some inspiration for your own. I hope for you, in the 2012 year, that you will work hard to advanced yourself in any way you can, whether it be through more school, finally quitting your job and finding one you really love, or taking up that hobby you have been dreaming of doing for a while. I hope that you will find, if not maintain a happiness that makes you wake up every morning with a smile on your face, happy to have special people in your life. I also hope for you, in the 2012 year, that you will help Uncover Ostomy continue to spread awareness. We have accomplished so much, but still have so much more to do.

Friends, let go of that gnawing feeling because, this year, you will keep your New Year’s Resolution.

Happy 2012 <3

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(Sidenote: This post started out on the topic of weight loss commercials because I was eating pickles, and noticed the pickle jar said that 1.5 pickles were 0 calories and then I thought, if I ate only pickles for an entire week, I could essentially not ingest any calories and then a weight loss commercial came on and then I remembered I needed to blog. Whoops.)