This year I’m really going to do it. This is no resolution. There are no more empty promises. With the help of all the research I’ve done in 2009, I really think I can make a thinner me in 2010.

Here are some of my ideas for attacking the fat.

4Don’t stop snacking; snack better. I realize that it’s not junk food I enjoy. I just enjoy eating. It could just as easily be carrots or celery sticks. As long as I’m munching on something I’m a happy guy.

4H20 is the way to go. I love water now. I have officially given up sodas, except the occasional one with the right meal. And it’s always a diet soda now. I’ve properly conditioned my taste buds against those sugary, carbonated beasts. So, at the very least, according to my research, I’ll have much better looking skin to show for my efforts.

4Exercise. I bought an exercise bike this summer and so far the most mileage it’s seen has been from the place where I bought to my apartment. It makes a nice place to hang my clothes or towels. But no more of that. I will use it for the purpose for which it was intended.

What’s my biggest obstacle? Cravings!

It starts small like most catastrophes do. “Maybe I’ll just pull in to Wendy’s and have a small Frosty to reward myself for a day of using my allotted calories wisely.” The next thing you know there’s a new triple bacon, double something or other and, all of a sudden, there’s bacon shrapnel and the strange feeling that you’ve just committed some sort of greasy, deep-fried crime all over the inside of your car.

So in my effort to defeat those cravings, I will use those things that inspire me to put up more of a fight. I often watch the health channel that has a show that takes place in the

Brookhaven Rehabilitation and Health Care Center in New York. Their specialty is caring for the morbidly obese.

There’s one girl who suffered a heart attack while in her very early twenties because of her obesity. On the same network, there’s also a show that chronicles the story of Manuel, the world’s largest man, tipping the scales at just over 1,100 pounds at his heaviest. The daily struggle for him and his loved ones remind me that the subject that I often make light of is, no pun intended, much heavier than I let on.

These tragic cases of morbid obesity will be the mental amulets I will carry in my head to give me the strength I need to make it happen this year. No more excuses for me. Discipline is the key.

TROY COOPER is the page designer for the Suffolk News-Herald. He can be reached at troy.cooper@suffolknewsherald.com