The breakfast, lunch, and dinner of dieting champions. Feh.
Last week, when the weather was gloriously warm, I brought the summer clothes up from the basement. This is actually an exercise in torture, because I get to try on my tight white hootchie-mama jeans and see how much weight I gained over the winter. Have you ever heard seams scream? Not a pretty sound. It’s almost as un-pretty as the sight of someone spilling out of unzippable hootchie mama jeans. White ones, no less.
So I came up with this really great plan: For a week, I’d go back on a well-known diet that I’ve used (and abused) in the past. Then, today, I’d return in defeat to the diet center. But not before I skipped breakfast, tea, water, and anything else that might show up on the scale. I was going to flounce in wearing my lightest dress–even though it’s forty-freakin’-three degrees and raining outside–and weigh in.
Doesn’t that sound like a rockin’ way to waste spend a morning? And talk about success; this plan just reeks of it. Yep, some self-flagellation, a carb-free week, a morning of fasting and dehydrating, and then paying fourteen bucks for someone to tell me I’m over my goal weight. Arrest me, Fun Police: I’m over-indulging.
Okay, let me put on my stretchy disclaimer pants for a sec. I’m not knocking the well-known diet plan; it seems to be working for Jennifer Hudson, and it worked really well for me, too. I lost about 16 pounds (the white hootchie mama jeans period), which sounds great until I mention that people asked me if I was losing so much weight because I was seriously ill, and a coworker called me “Lollipop Head.” Eventually, I started eating real food again–and by that I mean bread and some dressing on my salad–and gained the weight back.
Thank God and Nana in heaven, I am not currently starving, denying myself water, and dragging my barely-clad butt to the diet center. I have a better plan. It started with the revelation I experienced in the post before this one, and I incorporated some of Nana’s wisdom that I mentioned briefly (perhaps too briefly) in Cherries in Winter. I’m still road-testing it before I spring it on those of you who are kind enough to visit this blog. But early results are good: One week later, I’m down three pounds. That would be three pounds’ worth of negative thinking, “but”s, “should”s, and a few ounces of whining.
Apparently, the white jeans aren’t the only things that don’t fit me anymore.
