on dieting of late

As many of you know, I love food. Sometimes I love food much too much. With the blasted yellow dress looming in my future, and pairs of too-tight jeans piled in my closet, I knew the time was here. The time has come for me to actually watch what I eat.

When I first started working at The Company, I was obsessive about bringing my lunch. Vegetables, yogurt, sometimes a cookie or two, and a Coke. Hardly anything. Then I started actually talking to my coworkers, then going out to lunch with my coworkers and that's when I fell off the lunch wagon. By the time I moved to the second floor, a good week was one when I brought my lunch once a week, and I'd gotten used to eating more than just two or three things. Meatloaf! Burrito! Fries! Chips and salsa! So good! It was a calorie fest every day, and who cared? I still fit in my size 8s, in some stores a 6.

Trying to regulate my own diet didn't work either. "Only one burrito a week," while a noble goal, does not a weight-loss plan make. Neither "Give up 7&7s!"

At the beginning of 2007, I "started" my healthy eating habits. A vegetable at every meal! I decided. I did pretty well for a while.

So, the Lovely Anna P. has hooked me up with her diet plan. Let's face it, who doesn't want to look like Anna P?

2 Proteins
4 Vegetables
3 Fruits
2 Starches
1 (!!!) Dairy
1 Fat
2 LA Lites.

And the book gives you the portions of each.

I don't eat the LA Lites, so I try to supplement with an extra bit of veggies. The first two days I did this I was starving by the time I got home from work. I didn't know how to spread the servings out. I've learned. Seriously, I don't think I can describe this hunger.

But I've learned alot about my eating habits and my food weaknesses.

Weaknesses:

1. Carbs (to include sugar)
2. Dairy

I've always had a sweet tooth, and you may have read about my love of cheese and carbs. The great discovery of Friday, which I told Hotcop and P-har about excitedly, is that one wedge of Laughing Cow cheese is less than half of the amount of cheese I should have in one day-- that leaves enough for me to have milk in my coffee!

Right now, my fridge is packed with veggies. Two kinds of lettuce, carrots in three forms, celery, bean sprouts. I actually busted out the diet book at Farm Fresh on Sunday and at Trader Joe's today to see if certain foods were included in the plan. FIGS! 2 medium! Sugar snap peas! 1 cup!

The saddest part of this is that I have given up Coca-cola. It was like saying goodbye to an old friend. I've had a Coke every day (except for the last week) for... something like the last 10 years. Even when I was in Italy I still drank it. Instead, I drink water (atleast 64 oz, which I've always done), decaf herbal tea (as much as I want!), regular tea (up to 2c a day) and coffee (up to 2c a day). No sugar in the tea, 1 tsp of sugar total in the coffee.

I bought a salad spinner (which I wanted anyway) and those little 1/2 cup Gladware. I keep the measuring cups out so it's convenient to measure out portions. HotCop bought me the weight loss tea (we call it the poo tea).

All things in moderation, they say. I don't do well with moderation. I'm an all or nothing kind of girl, as much as I may hate that aspect of myself.

It sucks. It really does. I miss food because food has been good company in the past. There are Girl Scout Cookies in the house! But I do feel better, I guess. I've learned how to spread out my portions and to not feel so hungry. I don't have the caffeine withdrawal in the middle of the day anymore. I'm getting used to it, I think. I'm cautiously optimistic.