First, I have to do the mental preparation. This usually involves clicking "refresh" over and over on my email page, having random IM conversations, eating peanuts and drinking water, and saying to myself: It's a beautiful day! You haven't been biking in a while! You will get to listen to happy songs! You love bike riding! You are excited to go bike riding!

Next, I have to do the physical preparation. I put on my bike riding outfit: overall shorts and a tank top. I fill my water bottle. I check the batteries on my CD player, which I tuck into the front pocket of my overalls. I pick out an appropriately energetic CD. I walk into the garage and stare at my bike for a while. I go back to my room and click "refresh" on my email again, calculating how much time I have left before I absolutely must leave the house.

This is when the second pep talk happens, and it's usually a lot harsher than the first. It's more like: You have no excuse not to go, you lazy, lazy person! If you don't go now, you'll never go! If you don't keep bike riding, you will lose those sexy thigh muscles and gain large fat lumps instead! And what about that little box in your sidebar, which mocks you with its mileage!

Thank god for the accountability of the sidebar; it gets me every time. Visualizing a new number in the sidebar and a new pink circled number in my planner-- that's what gets my ass out of the desk chair and Britney out the door.

Once I'm outside, I turn the CD player on, crank up the tunes, and coast down the hill. And from then on, it's cake. The bike ride itself is nothing compared with convincing myself to get out there in the first place.

I don't know why this is, either. Bike riding is one of my favorite things, I swear. If I am stuck at work on a beautiful day, I am filled with bike-riding itchies. I ride with a grin on my face half the time. I come home feeling sweaty and perfectly satisfied, which is a feeling you get from only a very limited set of activities. But it's still so hard to get myself out the door!

Okay, so that's 15 minutes of actual preparation, and a 45 minute series of increasingly stern pep talks. The bike ride itself lasts between 45 and 90 minutes, depending on my level of ambition and energy. Then I come home and collapse on my bed in a sweaty heap, thinking, "Oh Britney, baby, you rock my world. Was it good for you?"

At this point my bosom is heaving and my heart is pounding. The endorphins haven't worn off yet, and I smile with inward satisfaction, knowing that I have earned the right to put the miles in the sidebar, to write a number in my planner and circle it in pink. It's a very satisfying feeling.

But first I have to work up the energy to stand up, and that takes 20 minutes in and of itself. Then comes a shower-- which usually takes me at least an hour, but which I can fit into 40 minutes if I absolutely have to. And there you go. Three hours, start to finish. It's no wonder I can't fit in a quick bike ride here and there.

And somehow, with all this, I've managed to bike over 400 miles in the past nine months. How have I, the laziest girl in the world, done this? Honestly, I haven't the foggiest.

I established a new regime today. It's the end of the candy regime, and the beginning of the calorie-counting regime.

I have been eating so poorly recently. I can feel my weight creeping ever-so-slightly upward. I need to give myself some damn. structure. I want to fit comfortably into my jeans. And I need to eliminate certain problem patches of flab. Curve = good. Flab = bad. There's my philosophy in a nutshell. ("Help! I'm in a nutshell!")

I want to start counting Weight Watchers oints. (Oh, yes. Oints. Another word in that selfsame dictionary.) I have friends who count oints, and a mother who counts oints, and I like any excuse to use the word oints. Ain't I precious. But I don't have the thingie to tell you how many oints are in different things, so today I counted calories instead. 1535 was today's magic number. I was aiming for 1500, so that's not bad.

For lunch I went and grabbed some sushi-- always a healthful choice-- and while perusing the veggie aisle, I picked up a red bell pepper. I love red bell pepper, and I figured it would be one of those weird health foods with a million calories, because if I love it, it must have a million calories. Well it doesn't! It has like, 25. Remind me to snack on bell pepper more often.

I saved up my calories so I could get In N' Out for dinner. I know french fries should not have a place in the new regime-- no, not even if they're made with fresh potatoes-- but I saved up calories for them. And god, they tasted good.

Anyway, that's my deal. Since I don't have time to bike ride as frequently, I have to be a little more careful in my eating habits. I still have love and respect for my old body, but that doesn't mean I want to live inside it again. I like the healthier, more bootylicious one better.