This year my New Year’s resolutions include some very specific fitness goals.

Some background: About three years ago I finally had the time to get in really good shape. My youngest child was in school full time and I had not yet transitioned back to work. This reflective time was conducive to transformations.

The ten-year hiatus from the workforce were busy times for me. Although joy was marked in most milestones, the daily routine was hectic and our lives seemed complicated. This left me barely able to maintain my own health at times, let alone think about fitness.

Although there were false starts and nagging thyroid issues, things began to definitively change when I found time to bike ride on a regular basis. Encouraged by my progress, I began to eat better too, following a loose approximation of the Zone diet that I learned many years ago.

Eventually I lost 50 pounds, which is over 25% of my body weight. Then I lost a few more. Knowing that muscle weighs more than fat, my plan is to go slightly under what I should weigh and then replace some of the fat I lost with lean muscle.