Distrust everyone who tells you dieting is easy. Everyone. For any reason. It isn’t easy at all. Diets are evil, pure and simple.
And yes, we all know that diets don’t work and that healthy eating is the ticket and all that mumbo jumbo, but there comes a time when, as my friend told me, penance must be paid for the unhealthy habits of days gone by.
Diets don’t work. It’s true. But they are sometimes necessary as a means of transitioning from here to there.
I decided that to kick-start my own diet I would go for a few days of consuming only Slim-Fast, yogurt, and cereal. Not because I’m on the high calcium plan, though I have read that extra calcium is beneficial when dieting, but because I wanted food I didn’t have to think about. I didn’t think this would work in the long term, and I wasn’t planning to do it for more than a few days. I just thought it would help me to train my body to expect fewer calories in one sitting.
Yesterday, I had two bowls of cereal, one carton of yogurt, and one can of SlimFast. If you don’t count the half an egg salad sandwich and the two bananas, I did great.
Today, so far I’ve had two cans of Slim-Fast and one bowl of cereal. That puts me right on track to finish out the day with a bowl of cereal and a yogurt for a snack. Maybe an extra banana if times get tough.
I’m doing an excellent job of sticking to this.
Except.
Except for one thing, two if you want to be picky about it.
I’ve just cooked a pot of curried rice and a pan of vegetable potstickers. Understand that I’ve had no interest in cooking for months or maybe years. The whole point of Slim-Fast is that I don’t have to cook or to even think about what I’m eating.
Except, of course, that if you aren’t eating as normal the one thing you can’t stop thinking about is what you are going to eat.
Thus, there was nothing else for it, I had to make some curried rice. The potstickers just got in the way when I was making the rice.
But this is not a loss. I’m not going to walk around with Diet Failure hanging over me.
I have a new plan. It involves meticulous measuring. I’m going to measure out exactly one cup of curried rice to eat now (or somewhere close to a reasonable dinner time), and I’m going to divide the rest into one cup portions to go into the freezer so that they become my future homemade semi-lean cuisines.
Who knows about the potstickers. I’ve told myself I’m allowed to eat one today.
Except, of course, I’ve already eaten two.
Sending filling thoughts. 🙂
BTW, if you’re missing cheese, try Laughing Cow Light on Wasa flat bread.
(If you need encouragement, just look my way!)
Thanks for the suggestion. I haven’t tried that before, but I saw it this morning on About.com’s calorie counter. It was rated as one the best cheeses for calorie to nutrition ratios.
I will definitely need encouragement. I appreciate it.
I know exactly what you mean. I completely hate the word diet, but unfortunately my weight along with my mother’s genes are going to make me have a lifestyle change. “Lifestyle change” I hate that phrase almost as much as I hate diet.
I never was one to eat a lot of sweets..Cake no, cookies no thank you, don’t like Chocolate unless that bitch PMS shows up. I would rather have another peice of fried chicken.
Except now that I’ve been diagnoise with diabetes, Sweets is the only type of food I want to eat.
So I feel your pain.
And I hate that I missed you at the reunion.
South Beach, now in its second year at my house, has killed 45 pounds (depending on the day) since June 1, 2008. But, it’s a way of life.
My sons can’t live it. They’re teens.
My wife, the lovely Ms. Andie, and I have lived it, without giving up booze or coffee. Just white stuff — white bread, white pasta, potatoes, white rice. Oh, and bacon and fatty pork. But you can make one helluva spaghetti South Beach by substituting Canadian Bacon for american bacon and using multi-grain or 7-grain pasta (which actually tastes better than the white stuff).
No proselytizing. Just saying, it works for us.
I was sorry to miss you at the reunion too, Tina. Maybe next time I’ll work up the courage to stay a little longer. It was kind of scary to go back to Vicksburg after 25 years. I’m glad I did, though.
Sorry about the diabetes. It would be a miracle if I didn’t end up diabetic as well since it runs on both sides of my family. I do sympathize.
Maybe we should form our own online support group. 🙂
I’m sure I’ll try them all before it is over, Ben. I wasn’t sure about South Beach because I’m a vegetarian, which makes it harder to cut out carbs. As it turns out, there are tons of low carb vegetarian cookbooks out there. I’m going to at least go as far as putting a few of them on my wish list today.