Six months after the last camping trip of  '08, I visited the doctor for a checkup.  When I stepped on the super-accurate-highly-digitalized-to-the-tenth-of-a-pound-scale, I saw a number I hadn't seen since the second trimester of pregnancy nearly eighteen years ago.  As a former dancer (of the ballet persuasion, not the other kind of 'dancer') and a 22 year vegetarian, weight has never been an issue for me.  Somewhere along the way, I apparently danced less and ate more because good grief! I seemed to have gained ten pounds in half a year!  That's a growth rate of over 8% for the time period.  I would be super excited if, say, my 401(k) or real estate holdings saw a lift like that.  My butt, not so much.

Long story short-SparkPeople.com saved my ass.  Literally.  Their tools, calculators, reports and (my personal favorite) six minute workout videos are so simple and easy to fit into any schedule, even a very busy monkey could create and adhere to a diet and fitness plan.  (Although monkeys probably don't take a lot of business trips and can't operate frialators  or remote controls, and thus don't need to work off their winter weight.)   

I've been at it for four weeks, and have lost five of those ten pounds already.  All I have done is to add six to sixty minutes of exercise to my daily routine and plug the foods I eat into my personalized nutrition calculator. So, all you snappy campers out there, don't you worry.  I won't adding a muffin top when I update the top ten camping essentials list this year.  Because it is so not snappy to be out of shape, out of breath and out of clothes that fit!