* Day One of Forced Dietary Boot camp

Day One of Forced Dietary Boot camp was on a scale of one to ten about a three or four. I weighed first thing this morning and I've made a discovery about the digital scale. If you get off and on it several times, sometimes the weight goes down. So I had three "beginning" weights to choose from and I went with the highest number...you do see my logic here, don't you?

Had Honeynut Cheerios and a small cup of mandarin oranges with no-fat milk, some diet green tea and a cup of instant coffee with no fat creamer. I felt great and I must say slightly smaller. I made myself stay busy all morning and before I knew it, it was 12:15! For lunch I had some type of whole wheat flat bread with light Ranch, romaine lettuce, slice of Colby Jack cheese, three slices of turkey that you could see through they were so thin, 5 cherry tomatoes, 1 dill pickle slice and an orange. (I promise once I get through this beginning phase I won't bore you with every stray calorie...but I feel like an alcoholic...My name is Angela and my drug of choice is FOOD. Eating when I am happy, sad, or actually ANY ole time is my problem. Please, stay with me, this too, will pass, I promise.)

I forgot to get the diet rice pudding out of my purse and was scared I'd get salmonella or something so I put it up. Three and half minutes later, I decided salmonella would be a cake walk compared to my stomach rumblings. I ate it, too. A nice friend tried to sabotage my "diet" by bringing me a Big Texas Cinnamon Roll...I hung tough. At home, by 4:30, I began the roaming thing..you know, walk to the refrigerator, open door, stand and look longingly at the contents. I started supper and had a very large portion of brown rice, onions, bell pepper, leftover ham (oops), and corn, another diet green tea. The portion was too large, but I was going into "diet shock". It was that or something worse, like Blue Bell Homemade Vanilla ...so I opted for the brown rice concoction.

It is now 6:53 P.M. I am alone in this house. I am trying to pretend that I don't hear my name being called from the kitchen. And for the second time in as many days, I KNOW I heard the ice cream truck go by! I must be delusional. I thought if I wrote down my thoughts that my cravings would be satisfied. I DO actually feel slightly more calm. Why in the world is this so hard? Maybe because I've done it so many times before...but the last two times were not nearly as successful as the other hundred. I think I am afraid I will fail...ok, so now I've said it. In the old days if anyone would even hint at the fact that I might have put on a few pounds, I'd diet like crazy and keep the weight off for several years. Now it's much harder. And I also have convinced myself that I need to keep on a few extra pounds to "plump" out the wrinkles..oh, stop it! What an inane thing to think much less verbalize.

I am not asking for your encouragement because that will make it worse IF I fail. Just say a little extra prayer for me that I will be able to make a decent attempt at this...I know what to do, it's just getting up the energy to DO it that's so hard. But as my favorite character would say, "There's always tomorrow." Got to run, got to go check my food plans for tomorrow....laugh and the world laughs with you, cry and you cry alone!