SlimStacey

Good News, Bad News

Dare I say this?  I'm 160 pounds.  Already.  Only days ago I was 165 pounds, and honestly, none of my non-pregnancy clothes were fitting me anymore.  Now...despite my previous blog where I claimed I was in no rush, I was setting realistic weight-loss goals, yadda, yadda, guess what?  I dropped a pound a day so far.

Well, let's face it...it's a good thing and it's a bad thing.

The good news is, hey, I'm dropping weight, my clothes are fitting again, and hey, a pound a day is almost fun to say!  (Hey, I'm channeling Dr. Suess, too, with that ending.  Talk about fun....)  

The bad news?  This kind of weight loss just confirms that I am still currently heav-eeeeee.  Why?  Overweight people have greater mass, so they have biophysics on their side.  The more you weight, the more calories you burn during an activity.  Huh?  Put more simply, the more you weigh, the more energy it takes (and the more calories you burn) to move that increased mass around.  Your basal metabolism rate, or BMR (oh, my, we're getting fancy with the acronyms in this post) is the number of calories a day you burn maintaining the operations of your body while you're at rest.  Keep in mind, even when you're inactive, you burn calories just maintaining your brain, heart, lungs, etc.  Bigger bodies, simply put, have bigger maintenance costs.  

Oh, well, you gotta take the bad with the good.  So, I've lost 5 pounds in 5 days...but I'm still a bit of a porker, ROFL.  Hopefully, this bacon can become some Sizzlelean...and if you know what that product is (or, was), well, the good news is you remember your trivia.  The bad news is, you're old.  And if you don't know what ROFL means...well, you're even older than me.

Take Two...Million

I wish I could say that this is take two in terms of getting back in the saddle of weight loss, but it's kind of more like take two million.  That's okay.  I have great company.  Like...everyone else in the human race.  What you need to learn from today's post is to do what I've done...shake off the failure and embrace the fact that today is a new day.  

Thank the Lord, because after all, marinating in misery kind of sucks just a little.

I somehow woke up to my unconscious eating a morning or two ago, when I realized that a can of Coke and half a pint of Ben & Jerry's is NOT a healthy breakfast.  Whoa.  Then I weighed myself.  165 pounds.  What the f**k happened to me???

Oh, I know:  (a) Lyme's Disease with neurological side effects junking up the past few months, where I could barely function, let alone think straight; (b) temporary worsening of my Bell's Palsy (very common whenever there's physical and/or mental stress); (c) the revelation that bad for you food tastes pretty damn good; (d) the chaser of a revelation that exercising absolutely flat-out sucks.

There!  The truth does hurt, but, per my post ten thousand years ago, it does set you free nonetheless.

So, I haven't quit Coke completely yet (I've gone down from 4 cans a day to 1-2, and I've sworn an oath--no more crap for major meals as a gentle start back into healthy living).  BUT I am saddling up for a realistic weight loss drive.  Here are the rules...maybe you'll join me on my quest...or at least track my progress or lack thereof, just because you're nosy as all hell....

First:  no trying to go cold turkey.  Whenever I do that, I absolutely, instantaneously fail.  

Second:  Have a realistic goal to achieve.  How about a simple one, like, for now, lose a pound a week and keep the damn thing off?  And how about not freaking if I don't lose, like, 10 pounds a month, like I wish I could?  After all, stress releases cortisol, and cortisol causes you to retain your weight, not shed it any faster.  There.  You learned something new today.  You're welcome.

I mean, look, I want to get to 140 pounds ultimately.  I WAS 165 pounds just a few days ago.  Now I'm 162 pounds.  That's nice.  The old me would think, well, let's keep this aggressive weight loss pace up.  But I can't expect to lose a pound a day.  So, my realistic, achievable goal for 2011 is to hit at least 150 pounds before year's end.  NOT 140.  Just a nice, do-able, 15 pound weight loss will be a-ok by me.  Don't get me wrong.  25 pounds lost in 2011 would be nice. But 15 pounds will do.  Small, baby steps.  That's achievable AND believable.  

And if for some reason I manage to overshoot my goal?

You could bet the farm that I'd hardly bitch about it, friends!

Reload

Well, I'm going to have to start again with a new six days on Monday to give The Michael Thurmond Six Day Mini Makeover a fair shot.  I mean, listen, even with some cheating (which of course he TOTALLY doesn't want you to do, especially during these first six days) I've done INCREDIBLY well.  I've lost and kept off 2 pounds.  Probably would have been more, even with the cheating, but....

I...well...er...um...received a monthly gift, shall we say, that includes bloating and water weight gain that really would probably skew the results of the six days for the mini makeover.  (TMI, you cry!  So do I!  Sorry!)  I mean, you should still be impressed, given that despite said water weight gain, I managed to pare off and keep off two pounds, again, with cheating.  But still, I should be fair to Mr. Thurmond and all, even though this is NOT a paid plug at all, so...let's reload and try again next Monday.  But so far, I am pretty impressed.  I'm eating up a storm and certainly never hungry.  I must also state, while we're at it, that my appetite, especially when I stick to the eating program 100% is absolutely MIA.  As in gone.  Completely non-existent.  There's no cravings or anything.  Which is a little spooky.  But I bet you when I start counting next week, I'll drop, like, 5 pounds.  Because guess what?  It's not as though I've thrown the eating plan out the door. I'm still following it; but knowing my body, the results will be blunted.  What's more exciting for you to read about (and for me to live, let's be honest) is a large weight loss in a small amount of time.  So I'll intensely blog about this over the six day period starting Monday, March 21st through Thursday March 27.  Let's see what this eating program can really do (especially if I, oh, don't cheat and have no other biological issues rearing their ugly heads at me).  

Unbelievable 24 Hour Time Period

"The things you say/Your purple prose gives you away/The things you say/You're unbelievable." EMF  --"You're Unbelievable

Unbelievable is right.  Listen, this is NOT a paid plug or anything.  And I have another 5 days to go before I can give you an overall view of what being on the "Michael Thurmond Six Day Mini Makeover" is like. But after Blueprinting myself (part of Mr. Thurmond's process) and saying a big ol' "Yeah, whatever," I was told what my eating plan would be.  (I'm a C person, so I get a C menu to follow during the first six days and a separate C menu for, like, forever after).   

So as to avoid a legal scuffle with the folks over at Provida Life Sciences, I will not disclose every little detail here.  But suffice it to say, I looked at all of the food I was supposed to ingest and thought, "There is no possible way I am going to lose weight shoveling all of that chow down my throat.  No way at all."  We're talking SIX meals. I swear!  And for the evening snack, it says "Optional."  Ok, no offense, but I thought for sure there was no option involved here.  Fat old ME pass up a snack?  

Fast forward to last night.  I was unable to even consider the evening snack.  I went to bed and that was that.  And I was not feeling hungry.  At all.  

Then I woke up this morning and really didn't even want to eat breakfast.  YES, it's totally true!  I was shocked out of my socks.  Of course, here's Mr. Thurmond warning you that you HAVE to keep eating, or else, and I just took the minimal amount of food to get by.  I feel like someone flipped a switch...I don't even crave food now. Like, at all.  

Like, it's a little disturbing in my opinion, that this can happen so damn quickly, but hey, wait a minute, here comes my scale and what does it say?  A whopping pound was dropped in one day.  I've dropped already from 164 pounds to 163.  Stuffing my face all the day, no less.  Whoa!

So it's totally unbelievable, I know.  We'll see what tomorrow brings.  In the name of honesty, I will say that today I'm splitting a small fry with my son at Joe's Dairy Bar in Hopewell Junction, New York (check out the site:  www.joesdairybar.com).  So, you know, I will be cheating a tad bit, but then I'm going right back to my schedule.  Maybe it will affect my metabolic rate and I won't lose any weight tomorrow.  I'm curious...aren't you?  So tune in tomorrow for more details!

The Ugly Truth

"I've been a bad, bad girl/I've been careless with a delicate [body]/And it's a sad, sad world"  Fiona Apple--"Criminal"

Well, if blogs aren't for busting out the folk lyrics of truth, then what is? I'd show you my diary, but, well, I've been too lazy to keep one...you know, the old school kind with a hardbound cover and the lined pages you write on?  Yeah, I used to keep those.  Now, not so much.  How's that for honesty?

If that didn't turn you on, then this one will.  I've regained five pounds.

Yup, no kidding, damn it all.  But how dare I be surprised?  The last 48 hours I've been eating like it's my job.  And we all know that it's far easier to GAIN the weight than it is to LOSE it.  It could take me a month to lose the five pounds at the rate I was going.

Because, as long as we're being honest here, I let my workouts go by the wayside. I started drinking less water and more juice, thinking, "At least it's not soda."  (Okay, kudos to me for kicking soda, but it's only ONE step in the right direction and not the whole journey).  I also treated myself to some alcohol (gee, that Mike's Hard Lemonade Dark Cherry is super sweet, literally and figuratively) and to, granted, an annual treat, but nothing that's going to help me lose weight--a/k/a the Shamrock Shake from McDonald's.

Oh, yes, truth-teller that I am today, I will 'fess up that I went to Mickey D's.  Sure.  Did I just have the Shamrock Shake?

You're frigging kidding, right?  

Try adding an angus burger with cheddar and bacon on it.  Because that has the word "diet" plastered all over it.  Of course, you gotta add fries, so yeah, I ate the largest size they carry.  

Sure, I was sick a lot the past few days.  Yeah, I felt beat to crap by my body aches and head cold, PLUS I had a two year old running circles around me, dumping out sock drawers (his, mine, his father's...what's the obsession with socks???) and climbing furniture like he's a granola muncher scaling Mount Everest.  He's thin as a rail.  Of COURSE he's thin...every damn minute of the day it's a workout for him.  He never stops.  And until my in-laws took him a day ago for an overnight, I hadn't had a break from my beloved Steven Ames for three weeks!  Nor any time for a workout.  Not one single, solitary minute.  And...oh, YEAH, I have to run a law practice without a legal assistant either.  Spare time to work out?  Where is that?

But, this blog entry is about the ugly truth. So, to be entirely truthful, I may have been sick, sleep-deprived and depleted, but I was also managing my time badly, not asking my husband for more help, and eating greasy, grimy, nutrient-devoid food like it was my job, which of course just hampers my efforts to regain the Slim Stacey in my life.

So, honest girl that I am, I am honestly NOT shocked that I gained five pounds, putting me back at 164 instead of the 159 pounds I was only a short while ago.  But if you look at your own reflection in the mirror, can you be honest with yourself, same as I am being right now?  Do you hit the drive-throughs on the way to work, buying those calorically overburdened breakfasts and coffee drinks?  Do you snack on crap that is totally an embarrassment if you had to admit it aloud to people who would judge you?  Do you raid the candy machine at work?  Stash bags of chips in your glove compartment, your desk drawer, your junk drawer at home?  Do you hang out on the internet for far too long, trolling around looking at cute kitty cat pictures or clips of Jackass Part III on You Tube, or porn, or whatever particular video voodoo you're into...instead of perhaps popping in a workout DVD or at least riding a stationary bike or treadmill if you're going to treat your brain to the dubious pleasures of Teen Mom, Jersey Shore or Hoarders?  In fact, if you're actually going to be as honest with yourself as I am being with myself right now, could you just perhaps admit that maybe, just maybe, you even watch such banal nonsense because it makes you feel better about your chubby, unruly self?

I mean, as long as veracity is today's buzzword, why don't you just go for it like me?  Not to beat yourself up, mind you...but to wake yourself up.  Because if you couldn't tell the nastiest people in the world that you eat a candy bar an hour, drink a 1,000 calorie Coffee Coolatta or a fast-food meal whose caloric content equals that of your entire daily alottment (with sometimes just the damn sandwich alone), then how in the world are you going to be real with yourself?  You can lie to yourself; it's so easy and we do it all the time.  I want to be able to look the bitchiest person in the eye and say, "Look at how healthy and thin I am.  I do (mostly) everything right, and while I may not be perfect, I kick the crap out of your evil body."  

It's an ugly truth, admittedly, to say I've been backsliding.  But how many of you have been doing it, too, one way or another in your life?  So as ugly as it is to admit that I'm now back to 164 pounds and 40 inches around the waist at the thickest part, well, if I don't do it, I'm not going to shock myself into facing reality.  Maybe you need to do the same thing.  It requires bravery, but I bet you're up to the task. If I am, anyone is, trust me.

This is NOT a paid plug, but to jumpstart my weight loss and return to healthy living, I am going to do the "Michael Thurmond's Six Day Mini Makeover" and see if it works out for me.  If you've been eyeing this informercial and wondering if it's all hype, I'm about to debunk the myth or support the truth, whatever the end result is...and if it works for me, maybe it will work for you.  I don't accept money for discussing programs, vitamins, etc. (and hey, the way I've been as of late, I'm no respectable spokesperson).  I never will.  This blog is about the truth...and it's time I go to that headspace and stay there.  Want to join me?  You really aught to.  Lying to yourself and others has gotten you nowhere....

Getting Unstuck

"Sometimes love comes around/And it knocks you down/Just get back up/When it knocks you down"  --Keri Hilson feat. Kanye West

Why, why, why did I say I would start posting more regularly to this blog, indicating that nothing would stop me?  I mean, I should have painted a bullseye on my forehead for yet another slamming bug to infest me.  Great.  So, after even more fun with a raging head cold, I've come back to attempt...gingerly...to regularly post to my blogs once more. 

I apologize, but it's tough enough to run a solo law practice AND have a toddler underfoot AND assist my husband in terms of getting not one, but two restaurants up and running for a busy season.  (Check it out at http://www.joesdairybar.com)

So of course, without exercising, I've plateaued, but that's only temporary.  Those pounds are coming off, I promise!  In the meantime, please allow me to bust out a public service message to you, that may explain why I'm getting sick all the time.  If you learn from my mistakes, I'm happy to have made them in the first place:

GET SUFFICIENT SLEEP.  I know this is easier said than done in our frenetic culture, but if something has to be deep-sixed or placed on a major back burner in order to afford you extra shut-eye, then so be it.  The average human being requires 7-8 hours of sleep a night.  My 3-5 hours of sleep might have had something to do with my body running on empty, I'll wager. 

But how did I gain more time in the sack with a life like mine (no daycare, no legal assistant, no housekeeper, no NOTHING)?  Guess what?  I decided only recently that housework will have to suffer.  I mean, I'm not slapping a magnet on my fridge that reads "Welcome to My Mess," and we're not going to have a call from CPS because my house is a raging pig sty.  Hello, I'm still civilized!  But I'm not going to mop the floor every day, dust every two days and so on...once a week and that is it!  I do laundry when we're running out of underwear now, not a load or two every day.  I have had ENOUGH with getting sick!  My body is depleted and, putting aside my quest for weight loss momentarily, I need to be healthy in an overall sense.  So, if your schedule is as jam-packed as mine and you're fighting off bouts of insomnia, take my advice...find out what you can eliminate from your schedule (or at least put aside for awhile) and SLEEP!!!!

This way, when love/life knocks you down, you're not too exhausted to get up immediately...like I used to be!  Have a great day--and an even greater night's sleep tonight!

What's the 411?

"What's the 411, hun?/Yo, I got it goin' on...."  Mary J. Blige, "What's the 411?"

I know, I know.  Some blogger I am.  I haven't blogged in, like, 7 days and that's a no-no.  But I took a one week vacation, and that included from blogging.  I stayed unplugged as much as possible and communed with my spouse and son, so...oh, yeah, I know...aw, that's sweet!

Wanna know what's sweeter?  I may not have lost another pound yet, but I have been getting, well...tighter.  And there's nothing wrong with that!  My workouts have not been on a daily basis, I'll admit, but I've still been doing them...and trust me, shoveling out my deck from two feet of snow so it wouldn't collapse...that counted as an hour's workout for certain!  Seriously, people have heart attacks cleaning off driveways, decks and porches...and there I am, sweating and panting out steam as though I were in competition with a freight train running by.  My face was beet red, my pulse was through the roof, and yet, like a good little Energizer Bunny I kept going and going and going....

But, hey, I kept hydrated with water and kept to the task until it was done.  And that, combined with other aerobic/anaerobic workouts have been whittling away the hidden Jell-O hidden in my thighs and belly.  Has it sucked?  Oh my good sweet God in Heaven, YES!  But do I enjoy seeing my waistline again?  YES! 

The proof is in the pudding:  somehow, even though I'm stuck between 158 and 159 on the scale, my size 12 pants and XL tops are too big...but, unfortunately, my size 10s and L tops are kinda still a bit small. 

I went to the mall the other day to meet up with a friend, and my voluminous sweater and silk shell underneath were sagging and bagging; I looked like a burlap sack with hair.  But the other way to go was to wear one size almost-too-small and a shirt that hugged one two many fleshy waves, as though I were trying to channel a stuffed sausage.  Nope.  I do honestly believe I selected the lesser of two evils, there.  Still, I felt ludicrous.  

And speaking of the mall, I suppose I should celebrate eating out and not pigging out.  I mean, I wasn't a perfect angel...I had guacamole, chips and water.  That's it.  No salsa.  No sour cream.  No soda...gosh, I haven't had a soda in freaking a long, long time (and I've kept that five pounds I dropped off the first week I cut it out of my diet for a long, long time, so I should just be grateful, now that I think of it).  Did I want dessert?  Oh, please!  You betcha!  Did I get any?  Nope. 

So, do I like what's going on with my body?  So far, so good.  I got a long way to get to diesel, but I'm chipping off the goop from my frame one day at a time.  It's not like it's bikini season tomorrow.  So I can just settle on down and work out...and see if I dare sport a bikini at the next fire department annual picnic.  (Although, so as not to stun/blind onlookers, I do solemnly swear that should I do so, I will be at my goal weight or no more than 5 pounds over, and toned...or else). 

So...that's the 411.  Don't worry.  I should be back to posting on a daily to near-daily basis starting today.

 

 

Another New Milestone

"We've come a long long way together/Through the hard times and the good/I have to have to celebrate you baby/I have to praise you like I should"  Fatboy Slim--"Praise You"

Well, I've finally drug my chubby butt to the unfinished basement to complete an hour's worth of workout.  I worked out to one of the zillion "The Firm" DVDs (note:  this is NOT a paid plug).  There's no point to me joining a club...money's kinda tight these days.  I simply dusted off the DVD cover (sighing at the thickness of said dust) and put it in the player. 

During the warmup, I thought, Well, gee, this is totally do-able.  I don't know why I didn't try to graduate from 10 minutes to 60 sooner.  Really, I was just kind of babying myself, wasn't I?

And then...

Jesus, Mary and Joseph, this is getting hard! 

My face turned cherry red and one point, and I was huffing and puffing like a steam engine traveling uphill in Fodor. 

I'm not going to be able to finish!

And, yes, I did finish.  I also felt like I had to be hauled by my chubby ass to the emergency room for a steady supply of oxygen.  I felt drained, was slippery with sweat, and just flat-out nasty. 

But hey, it's the first hourlong workout I've completed in a year.

Forget the fact that I felt like a moron because I didn't have the routine memorized, I dropped barbells from slippery fingers and practically tripped over my two feet.  You can also forget the fact that I certainly couldn't do any of the advanced moves that some of the way-too-perfect chicks were doing...or the fact that I thought I'd pass out and collapse from climbing up two steps, one sitting on top of the next, a foot in the air total, with a barbell on one shoulder and an exercise stability pole in the other.

Because personally, I just want to bask in the goodness.  And that's what you should do, too, when you finally face down that first workout in a long time...or ever.  Did you finish the workout?  Who cares if you were daggone ugly by the time you completed it...the question is, did you finish it?  I DID!  Do you feel, after the wave of exhaustion passes, the exhileration of the endorphin high kicking in?  I DID!  Yes, it's true, I'm still as bumpy and lumpy as I've been over the past few years.

But it's also true that this is one major step in the right direction of burning all that goo off and letting Slim Stacey out of the overglorified foam rubber layer that's currently obscuring her!  So I'll give myself the praise that I so well deserve...and steel myself for facing down that DVD player tomorrow, and the million excuses that will flood my brain, begging and pleading for me to do anything other than suffer and sweat again.  If you haven't joined me yet, now's the time!  :)

 

A New Milestone

"Still looking for that blue jean, baby queen/Prettiest girl I ever seen/See her shake on the movie screen Jimmy Dean"  --Def Leppard, "Rock On"

Not to be a spoilsport or anything but it totally ROCKS to look down at the scale today and realize that, despite my not eating the very, very best during the last 24 hours snowed in like, oh, everyone else in the Northeast, I have gotten out of the goddamn 160's!  Friggin YEAH, baby!  159...I'll take it!  Exercising 10 minutes a day certainly helps (and yes, I count digging out my back deck and front porch as exercise, especially when you add in the ice factor).  Drinking mostly water helps, too.  Have I done too much more?  Nope, not yet.

But trust me, in order to get to the 140's (i.e., ditching the next ten pounds) calls for drastic effort on my part.  I've just turned 40 last October, so my body is going to not exactly snap to attention like it used to.  That's okay.  I'm going to have to snap it harder, that's all....

Enter more exercise!

Yep, I'm going to have to turn up the heat on the caloric burn.  No choice, really.  I'm tired of looking all bumpy and lumpy, like someone aught to spray some yellow lines on my body a la speed bumps.  I'm tired of looking lumpier than the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man or as creepy looking as Zuul (hello, Ghostbusters).  I still have more waves than a damn ocean...and reducing my caloric intake will certainly help, but it ain't gonna be like...POOF!  Slim and trim. Dude, there's more cakes going on in my frame than Dunkin' Hines.  You get the picture. 

Oh, don't worry.  I'm going to bitch and moan and tell you the real truth as I start to really up the ante.  If you want comic relief, I'm guaranteeing you, you'll get it.  No one can poke fun at themselves like me.  But there's another reason why you might want to continue following my journey back to 140 or maybe less (I don't even care if it's less at that point; at 140 pounds I actually fit into some size 6 stuff, but mostly size 8, and if size 8 was good enough for Marilyn Monroe, well hot DAMN it's good enough for moi).

If I can whittle off 5 pounds at a time by getting rid of soda/coffee/frappes/mochas, and another 5 pounds just by dropping snacks and exercising an embarassing 10 minutes a day, what the heck about yourselves?  Are we talking a lot of effort to drop 10 pounds?  NOPE.  So I'm living proof that you can be lazy as all get out and still make progress.  So put me to shame and join in on the quest for Slim You.

Slim Stacey was a former local model at age 16.  Slim Stacey knows that there's about 10 to 15 more pounds to go and a whole lotta tightening to get anywhere near where she used to be.  But Slim Stacey's inside this Big Ol' Stacey waiting to get out and shine again.  Slim Stacey can be sophisticated at 40+.  Not like, wearing all granny clothes and orthotics like some people do when they hit the big four-oh.  No, Slim Stacey will be Sophisticated Slim Stacey, who doesn't mind that she can still rock a bikini at 40.  (I mean, at least I won't cause people to spontaneously upchuck lunch at the pool or anything). 

So, Slim Stacey's got her work cut out for her.  Won't you join me? 

Come on...we can bitch about how much it hurts together!

Weight Loss and McDonald's...and Miley Cyrus?

"I can almost see it/That dream I am dreaming/But there's a voice in my head saying/You'll never reach it."  --Miley Cyrus, "The Climb"

"Oh you can tell my eyes to watch out for my mind/It might be walking out on me today."  --Billy Rae Cyrus, "Achy, Breaky Heart"

You know, as an opening aside, child of the Eighties I am, I NEVER EVER expected any child of "Achy Breaky Heart" artist Billy Rae Cyrus was going to explode into a gazillionaire the way she has.  I mean, good for her, and all, but...whoah!

Last week just sucked.  Every single day, from Monday through Sunday.  Work got complicated...not every case, but many of them.  I woke up Monday in sheer agony from a tooth infection that apparently may involve a root that escaped a root canal done...wait for it...years ago.  Talk about infected!   By Tuesday I was full-blown sick again (never mind that I'd been sick with bronchitis only a short time before) and by Saturday and Sunday I was running a fever between 100 and 101 degrees. Nearly anything that could go wrong, did.  Yep, it was one of those weeks.

Forget exercising. 

Forget eating great. 

Forget vitamins, minerals and herbal regimen.

Forget sleep. 

So, obviously, I'm still at 160 pounds and at a deficit today in terms of strength and health.  I do applaud myself for not falling off the wagon and going back to Coffee Coolattas at Dunkin Donuts (can you say 1,000 calories for the large I normally would drink?) or soda of any kind.  I can also pat myself on the back in terms of sticking to wheat pastas and bread, and I have to say, I did eat some vegetables and fruit.  Not much. 

But what stunk was that sack of Wise Honey Barbecue chips...because they're normally not even in my house, much less in my stomach.  But hello, I picked up a bag and promptly emptied it, like the food addict I am.  Worse yet, I ate McDonald's.

Oh, yes, things were bad!

I mean, my marriage is great, my family's health is good.  I have to count my blessings.  But I haven't had McDonald's in a dog's age and yet, there I was, driving my ashamed self through the driveway last week, picking up my bag of food whose bottom was already thoroughly grease-stained by the time I completed the 5 minute drive home. 

I can only imagine my arteries.

Oh, Chicken McNuggets and fries tasted pretty nifty.  I actually missed them.

But what I didn't miss was the gross, icky, nasty feeling I got after I had eaten them all and, hmmm, like an hour passed by.  An entire vat of Tums would never have fixed my sad digestive tract from the caloric trainwreck it had experienced.

I have no choice but to look back on last week and say it was just a lost cause and press on.  As in, onward and upward.  I mean, well, I have a choice but that other choice would involve giving up and running out to the grocery store to stock up on crap.  It's infinitely easier to throw in the towel and just be content to tell everyone filthy lies--you know, my hormones make me fat, my lazy thyroid makes me fat, I have special fat chromesomes that were genetically passed down to me.  That kind of cop-out nonsense.

Nope.  I'll call a spade a spade and say I was a loser caught up in a tidal wave of nonsense, that led to me giving in and eating like a pig on parade.  I blame me.  The good news is, all the power lies with me, and I plan on praising little old me next week. 

As Miley Cyrus would say:  "Keep on moving/Keep climbing/Keep the faith baby/It's all about the climb."