Day 57
September 26, 2006

MEMO
5:15pm
To: San Francisco drivers from the City of San Francisco

As it is now officially rush hour it is important that you immediately cease the following activities:

1. Using your turn signals
2. Driving at an acceptable rate of speed
3. Refusing to run over pedestrians
4. Stop being patient-Swerve recklessly and dodge other cars by mere inches
5. Coming to a full stop at all stop signs-just coast through ‘em. They’ll jump out of your way.

For the next 45 minutes, it is preferred that you:

1. Accelerate and then brake hard in the 700 feet between traffic signals

Day 56
September 25, 2006

I am doing penance for my misdeeds over this past weekend. After all the junk, I expect I will weigh more than 132.6 (my last recorded weight) at my appointment on Friday. I fear the look of disappointment in my counselor’s eyes.

But first, a musing about my body and how it has changed since being on Jenny Craig:

First of all, I was surprised to find out that I didn’t feel so hot eating all the crappy food that I ate on Saturday and Sunday. My body before the diet could have handled a realistic amount of food variety and still been pretty much okay. But now, my body seriously rejects other foods. It does not have tolerance for any slip-ups and couldn’t handle the foods I subjected it to over the weekend. I felt sick and my stomach hurt. Secondly, after eating something I probably shouldn’t have, I had an aversion to it. For example, just the thought of ice cream or cake turned my stomach. This is something that has not happened in the past. It seems my body is making its food preferences known to me even if they are quite different than my cravings. I may crave cake but my body immediately rewards me with a wave of nausea if I eat more than a few bites. Interesting.

September 21, 2006
Day 52

Thursday was not the strangest day I’ve ever had but it ranks up there in the top 20. It was my last weekend out of town and I was determined to stick to my diet. I didn’t want to let travel disruption be the consistent sabotager, the reason that everything always breaks down. I dutifully had a JC “Egg Mcmuffin” breakfast in the cab on the way to the airport. I left myself plenty of time for an anxiety free departure. One 6-hour delay later, I found myself digging into a piece of chocolate cake with cream cheese frosting with no hesitation at all. It was really good by the way, in case you should ever find yourself in SFO with time on your hands and a sugar craving. On the return trip I sampled the coconut cake and the German chocolate, alternating spoonfuls between the two of them. They are both splendid.

Day 51
September 20, 2006

I learned these two words together what seems like eons ago when I was studying for the GRE. I was hoping to get a score high enough to meet the entrance criteria for some of the “big ten” schools in clinical psychology. I rocked the verbal section but performed dismally at best in math. Stupid standardized tests (much grumbling). But that is neither here nor there.

I used these uniquely descriptive words to illustrate a uniquely unnerving experience I am having on this diet. Forget what I said about running more efficiently and having more energy. As of late, I have hardly any energy at all. Yesterday, after picking up my son from school, I fell asleep on my computer working on the very last piece of my dissertation (which I can happily say I finally finished!). It was a little sad. I had worked out, had coffee, had diet coke, and eaten my vegetables but no dice. As soon as Noah went down for his nap, Mommy went down too. Face down. I wonder if I am fighting some cold or virus that is about to launch an assault on my immune system any minute now. My son is sick, so it makes sense. The point is that I have noticed this lack of energy as more than sluggishness, beyond lethargy-it is very much like being in a stupor for days and days and never being able to quite shake it off.

Day 50
September 19, 2006

Things I am getting really sick of eating:
1. Apples and bananas
2. Food from a box
3. Salads and stir fried vegetables of any and all kinds
4. Desserts with artificial sweetener

I miss cheese. I miss fat in things like cake and bread. It’s weird, but you can actually taste the fat in foods once you have been deprived of it. Just when I think I am handling this diet ok or really getting into the swing of things, I have a day like today.

It really started very late last night. Noah and I had taken a trip to the Halloween Superstore (insert scary noises and ghostly howling here) and we were talking about candy. I am not proud to say that I instigated this conversation for the sole purpose of feeding my candy fix without actually eating any of it. Now, conversations with a three year old aren’t all that profound or complex. Then again, I sound a lot like a three year old when I talk about food and foods I want to desperately want to eat. It went something like this:

Day 49
September 18, 2006

I weighed myself this morning and my mood plummeted. I gained two pounds. Two! From where? I have followed the diet exactly. That alone put me in kind of a foul mood all day long. I worked out but concentrated on weight machines and then a good hour of fat burning on the treadmill. I really don’t understand and it totally deflated my ego. I’m stumbling a little in my confidence.

I tried to continue on with my day without thinking about it, but it kept popping up and souring my mood. I met a friend later to brainstorm some story ideas (we’re both writers) and told her about my defeat over a delicious meal of ice water and coffee. Yee-haw. As always she was the voice of reason. First of all she expressed shock and horror at the fact that I weigh myself every day. Her eyebrows flew up and she shook her head vigorously, “No, no you cannot weigh yourself everyday. Once a week. That’s it. Otherwise you’ll drive yourself crazy.”

Day 48
September 17, 2006

Today, no matter what I did to alleviate the misery, my son found ways to drive me crazy pretty much all day. When people try my patience, I go for food. Didn’t used to. But things change. In my old age I have become quite the little stress eater.

Today started off well enough. My son and I got up around 8:30. I had stayed up the night before putting a million photos into newly purchased photo albums (yet another project I had wanted to do for years). When I looked at the clock before bed I was totally shocked to find out it was 1:45 am. Oops. So much for lots of sleep before spending the day with a, shall we say, rambunctious toddler. When we got up, both in our respective pajamas (which looked unnervingly similar), Mommy had loads of coffee and turned on “super ninja warrior monkey robot team” or whatever they are calling cartoons these days. I needed some quiet before starting my day or I would have crashed and burned before it really ever got going. So after coffee and convincing Noah to dress, we went for a long walk in the neighborhood and got him a haircut along the way. Ingenious bastards, the hair cut people. They put all these cheapo toys right in the salon so your kid will freak out if they get their hair cut and have to leave the store empty handed. So after the world’s fastest haircut, (bless this woman’s ability to distract children), we purchased a gaudy looking blue sword (yes, the only toy he wanted) and headed out to walk around the neighborhood again. I think I was pretty lucky. In all of our travels that morning, I only had to carry Noah one block. That’s a record. I try to make him walk the whole way in order to tire him out.

Day 46
September 15

I got weighed today and lost .9, almost a pound! At least I am still going down. I am somewhere around 132.8 or something. I’m just glad I didn’t go up after last weekend’s Mexican standoff as I refer to the battle between my colon and the spicy salsa I ate on Friday night. As much as I try to stay strictly on the diet, I fall off the wagon every two weeks whenever I have to leave town for the weekend or when some special event occurs. But I failed to mention this to my JC consultant. I didn’t want to incur her wrath. It’s funny, right before my appointment I arrived to find my consultant finishing up with another JC member. Since I had a minute or two, I ran into the weight room, stripped off my clothes and weighed myself before I had to do it with her in the room. I don’t think I could take the disappointment in myself or the punitive remarks from my Jenny Craig “coach” if I had gained weight. Thank God I lost something.

Day 45
September 14, 2006

A few weeks ago I heard an older woman, probably in her 70’s, chatting up another young woman at the locker near me. At first I didn’t pay much attention, but then I noticed she kept firing questions at her and I guess the younger woman felt obliged to answer. The usual questions, “What’s your name? What do you do? Have you ever been to Germany?” Anyhow, when I got curious enough to glance over I saw that the old woman was completely naked except for two huge cotton balls she had stuffed into her ears. It made her look ever so slightly like a rabbit with white tufts of fur poking out of her head. The conversation went on for a while. I hoped at some point she would make an attempt to put on something, anything. But naked woman was steadfast in her determination to remain (insert witty quip here-naked as a jaybird, as the day she was born, yadda yadda) unclothed.

Day 44
September 13, 2006

Did I actually write “2007” as the date for my last blog entry?!?!

Ok, wishful thinking perhaps. At least by 2007 I would be finished with this godforsaken diet. Who knows, by next year I might be a svelte 120 pounds! Maybe I will be the Aikido/Jujitsu/Kung Fu master I have always dreamed of being, have six pack abs and crack heads without sweating like Uma Thurman in Kill Bill (Vols. I or II, your choice. They both rock). After a hard day of cracking heads (for I will be compelled, nigh, duty bound, to use my powers to fight evil bad guys) I will drop by a bookstore to admire a display of my latest best selling novel and then fly home with my Supersonic MAC 12 Turbo booster Jet Pack. Yeah, maybe that’s what I was thinking.