As we start to measure the year in hours rather than months, it’s hard not to reflect on the past year and look forward to the next one.

If you would have told me this time last year that in 2004 I would go on a diet, learn a bunch about myself, and meet hundreds of terrific people who think and feel a lot like I do, I would have asked for another piece of my mom’s coconut pie because it was obvious you couldn’t have been talking to me.

This time last year, I had no intention of becoming a dieter, never dreamed anyone would describe me as “hot,” and never imagined how powerful, wonderful and sweet it feels to make a promise to myself and stay with it.

But when 2004 was just a few days old, I grew reflective and maudlin thinking about the months of missed opportunities. I remembered the things I didn’t do because I wasn’t physically up to it, the general unhappiness I had about my life, and the fears I suffered when I thought about the damage I could be doing to my heart from all the fat I was lugging around.

Funny thing was, all the things I regretted or mourned not having were because I was unwilling to give up the rich desserts, my afternoon candy bars, the tons of junk food I ate; unwilling to put myself first, to eat a more healthful diet and to exercise.

In thinking about what is important in my life, the desserts, candy bars and junk food didn’t even make the top 1,000.

If you’re considering making a new year’s resolution to lose weight and live a more healthful life, then do it. Think about what’s really important to you and what is standing in your way of having it. I think you’ll find, as I continue to discover, that it’s not that hard to give up the “bad” stuff in order to gain the “good.”

A rose is a rose: I recently received an e-mail that posed an interesting question. “When does one stop saying she/he is on a diet and admit to permanently embracing a new lifestyle?”

I’ve been considering this question ever since I read it. The answer is not so easy and a lot of that difficulty centers around the word “diet.”

Several of you absolutely hate that word. A few folks have suggested changing the name of the Diet Club to the Times Life Plan or Times Healthy Living Club, and you may have wondered why I’ve refused so far.

I know “diet” has a negative connotation for many, but I want to reclaim the word. Diet doesn’t have to be synonymous with deprivation, punishment and despair. It is simply a word that, according to the dictionary, is the “usual food and drink of a person or animal.”

Diet, dieter, dieting. These words don’t have to hurt. I’m proud to diet, to be a dieter, to exercise the joy of dieting. If we stop hanging our heads about dieting, then maybe people will start thinking we’re doing something pretty cool. Or at the least, something good for us.

Practice with me. “I’m the luckiest person on the face of the planet.” “I am the most pampered person in the world.” “I am a dieter.”

I don’t know that I’ll ever stop being a dieter. To say otherwise might imply there was something abnormal about it in the first place. We’ve lost all the weight we care to, so now we’re going back to our regularly scheduled normal life? I don’t think so, at least not for me.

Dieting is our lifestyle and our lifestyle is dieting. I believe after all these years and pounds that I have changed how I think about food and certainly how I consume it, but I think in order to maintain it, I’ll need to keep the “D” word as an active verb.

Joan’s confession: OK, you caught me. I’m writing this column a few days ahead of schedule because I’m taking time off to spend with my family during the holidays. As such, I don’t have a thing to report weightwise. I haven’t lost since last I weighed, but since I’ve been lunching with friends and noshing at parties, I consider it a win that I haven’t gained.