Nina In New York: I'm Exempt From January

 By Nina Pajak

It's that time of year again. That glorious, magical, deeply distressing time when the avalanche of shopping emails ebbs and is replaced by a new influx of emails offering you a hundred different ways to stop being so fat and lazy, already.

Subscribe to this magazine and learn the secrets of celebrity weight loss!

Join Weight Watchers! Jessica Simpson momentarily lost a bunch of weight in between a quick succession of pregnancies! But look: Jennifer Hudson!

Join this gym!

Try our yoga classes!

Eat more sushi!

Order healthy meals!

Follow this diet!

You. Are. So. Fat.

To this I say: Ha. Ha ha. Ha ha ha ha!

Due to my pregnancy, I can, for once, happily hit delete.

Normally, I feel compelled to save these emails, promise myself I will read them and seriously consider each offer. I mean, I'll have to choose at least one or two. Even I, hater of resolutions, cannot help but feel the pressure to try to lose weight and get in shape and drink more smoothies and eat more spelt or whatever beginning on January 2nd. I'm a woman from New York. I am powerless against this sort of relentless attack. And though I rarely follow through on any one plan or workout or diet, I am racked with guilt. Delete an email containing vital and previously unknown information about how to look more like Jennifer Aniston? What kind of a degenerate slob would toss that in the trash without even a glance? Not I!

Until now. Now, now that my growing tummy is a point of pride and not of shame, now I'm not even allowed to consider any of this crap. I can't lose weight! I can't diet! Are you kidding me? Why, that would be downright irresponsible, selfish, and certainly pointless. I'm such a good mother already, I would never dream of endangering my child's health for my own vanity. Do me a favor, pass the chocolate milk.

What's particularly fun is reading some of these health-focused articles purely from an academic perspective. I find myself perusing diet plans and workout ideas the same way I might read an article about space exploration or mountain climbing. It's like, armchair weight loss. And it is terrific. Oh, by the way, can you make me some scrambled eggs, while you're up?

In a short four or five months, all of this information will be painfully relevant to my life. But by then, the "countdown to swimsuit season" emails will have begun flooding my inbox. I'll deal with it then. In the meantime, I've never enjoyed January with quite so much gusto.

Are you going to finish that slice of pizza? Didn't think so.