You Don't Eat Anymore, Anyway

What a weekend.

Sigh.

I decided before the weekend that, while I was going to keep control of my eating and obviously not binge, I was going to partake fully in the weekend. Not only was I not willing to announce "I'm on a diet," but I also didn't really want to spoil the mood. Food is important to my family. If I sat there, abstemiously picking at a salad, my parents would be some combination of offended and annoyed. So, I decided that family peace was worth a few extra calories, and hey, I'd get to eat some delicious food in the bargain.

Thursday night, I only saw my parents briefly. As reported, my Dad complimented me on how good I was looking, and my mom said nothing. On Friday, I came home for lunch, and we ate Greek food that my parents had bought at this great place called Greek Deli that I had told them about. We were eating family style, and I had a little bit of a whole bunch of things, and then some. I ate, really, a good plate of food. More than I'd normally eat these days, but certainly still less than I would have in June. It was a lot. If I had to guess, it was maybe 800 or 900 calories, but if you told me it was 1200 I would've believed you. Friday night, we took out dinner from a Southern soul food place called Oohhs and Aahhs. We again ate family style, splitting two entrees and supplementing it with a bit of leftovers from our Greek food earlier. I had about a cup (okay, maybe 1 1/2 cups) of very rich macaroni and cheese, a small bit of meat from the short ribs, and 5 seasoned shrimp. Not exactly starving myself.

As we sat watching the Yankee game (yes, this is why we did takeout), my mom commented that I looked so grown up in the jeans I was wearing. They're just a schlubby pair of size 20 gap jeans, but that wasn't really what she was saying. Essentially, when I started gaining weight for real I stopped wearing real pants. I just started wearing yoga pants and sweat pants and anything XL with a drawstring that let me avoid the fact that I should be shopping in plus size stores. I was a college kid, however, so this worked pretty okay. I picked up a pair of grey size 22 REI hiking pants at one point that I'd ordered online, but really, those were the only pants in my rotation that had the whole zipper/button thing going on. Slightly before I graduated, I did some plus size department store shopping to get an interview suit, and when I got hired for my job I bought several suits since I needed to wear one every day, but before recently I hadn't worn jeans since probably my senior year in high school. So when she said "You look so grown up in those jeans, Hadley," it felt like she meant more than she said.

Saturday we went out to brunch. I got a sandwich that came with fries, and ate half the sandwich and maybe 1/3 of the fries. My parents picked another third. Throughout the day, my mom started making comments. "Well Hadley's the one who would be hungry, she didn't eat much." Things like that. At what my parents called a late lunch but what was, in my opinion, late enough that it was dinner, I had a salami sandwich on some fresh bread we'd just bought. After the movie, my parents wanted dinner, so we went to an afghan restaurant that's an old family favorite for dinner two. (I ate maybe 1/4 cup of rice, a few tablespoons of Dal, 1/3 of a piece of a naan-like afghan bread, and 3 pieces of chicken from a kebab that had maybe 7 pieces.) That night, as my mom and I were standing around after unpacking the bounty from the day and waiting for my dad to park the car, my mom said to me "Your pants are too big." It wasn't a complimentary tone. It felt harsh.

Essentially, here's where the weekend was at this point: I'd woken up and slaved an hour in the gym each morning so I could eat pretty darn close to normally. Granted, I wasn't eating quite as much as I used to, but there was no way I was much under 2000 calories a day. I burned over 3k, so I'm guessing I did all right-ish in terms of calorie deficits, but my god, I was trying.

Sunday morning, I again woke up and went to the gym (my parents were staying at a hotel and thus unaware that I'd been hitting the gym each morning). For brunch, we went to Brasserie Beck, which is a French/Belgian place and possibly my favorite restaurant in DC. The bread basket came out, and I had a piece because, well, the bread there is oh-so-delicious and I think it's okay to have a small piece of bread when the bread's that damn good. "Have another piece of bread, Hadley," my mom said. I did. She then started going on and on about how she wanted to order the petite croissants in addition to her meal but felt too embarrassed. I said some sort of "order them if you want them." She did order them, but she seriously kept talking about how she felt embarrassed to be eating them, and insisted my father and I each have one. (Four came on the platter.) When Brunch came, I ate about 1/3 of my croque monsieur and 1/3 of my fries. About another 1/3 of the sandwich went to my parents tastings, and 1/3 of the fries to my mother. I had enough food that I had to get it wrapped up--my Dad will never let you not wrap up extra food at restaurants, it's one of his things--but my parents had both cleaned their plates.

That afternoon, we did a grocery shopping trip. One of the traditions whenever my parents visit me, is that we go on a big grocery shopping trip and they pick up the bill at the end. We'd discussed the possibility of me making dinner for the family that night, since everyone wanted to stay in again to watch the Yankee game. Normally, I love getting to go grocery shopping with my parents, and stock up on all the $12 cheeses that I rarely buy on my own, as well as staples so I just don't have to buy them down the line. This, however, was different. If I bought too little, my mother would implore me to buy more, but I also didn't want to buy food I wouldn't eat, since that would just be wasteful.

Anyway, as we were wandering around the grocery store, I asked my mom if she wanted to pick out the desert for the night. She turned to me, with this tone, this horrible, horrible tone she uses sometimes and said "what's the point?"

"Well if I'm going to be making dinner at home--"

She cut my off: "You don't eat anymore, anyway, we don't need desert."

Ouch. Ouch. Just ouch ouch ouch. The way she said it, the look in her eyes. It was horrible. I wanted to cry. We split up so she could sit down in the grocery store's cafe while I shopped, and I just wanted to break down in one of the aisles and start crying my eyes out.

I don't get it. I don't get why she's doing this. I don't get why she's being so unsupportive, why it feels like she's trying to hurt me. I was honestly eating a perfectly reasonable amount of food for a non dieting person, and I probably hit close to (or possibly even broke) the 2000 calorie mark every single day. And I'm not even asking for support. I didn't bring it up once. I didn't make any comments. I didn't ask to go to healthy restaurants. I didn't even order particularly healthy dishes. All I'd like is for my mother to not be so incredibly hostile and seemingly angry at me for losing a bit of weight.

I feel defeated. I feel emotionally drained. Not visiting my parents while I was getting my feet on this diet was absolutely the right call. I'd been planning on going home for the whole week of Thanksgiving so I could be home for my birthday as well, but now I'm less certain. I love my parents. I genuinely do. But I just can't deal with my mom being randomly mean to me because I've made the choice to take more responsibility for my health and body.

In other news, Sue (aka Mommy2Joe, who runs the excellent and extremely funny blog Did I Just Eat That Out Loud?) gave me the following:


Thank you Sue! Since I think not *too* many people have it just yet, I do want to make up a list of recipients, but I need to finish up this post before that can happen. So, thanks Sue, and I'll try to hand this one out tomorrow.

Amnesia Spell

I saw my parents last night, as well as today at lunch. The first words out of my Dad's mouth were "you look great, Hadley" and my mom, as expected, remained silent. I smiled, said thank you, and we moved to talking about other things. I missed them so much, and I really am incredibly glad to see them again.

Yesterday in the comments, S. (who by the way runs an awesome blog called Ethereal Endeavor that I'd highly encourage you to check out) said "I wish I could just have the results and then cast some sort of amnesia spell over everyone so they could just forget that I was ever fat." That sentiment, right there, captures exactly what I wanted to say.

For me (and I'd bet for her) it's not that were not willing and able to put the work in, we both are, and we both currently do. I'm okay with the occasional hunger, the workouts, and the slow and steady building of deficits over time. And I get that I spent quite a few years digging myself into this hole, and that it'll take me a reasonable while to get out. I'm okay with that: I accept that I can't get results now, no matter how much I want them. My issue is that even when I get there, the memory will remain.

Lynn (aka Actual Scale, whose eponymous and epicly good blog is here) and a few others rightfully commented that my "if she's on a diet she cares too much about her looks" sentiment evoked vanity, and I realize now that that wasn't the tone I meant to strike. Because if a fat person like me goes on a diet, they're more likely to think "about time" rather than "she must be vain."

Being on a diet doesn't say "I care excessively about my looks." It just doesn't, at least not for people who, like me, could indeed stand to lose a few pounds. But it does say something else, something intensely personal, and something that I'm not necessarily 100% comfortable shouting from the rooftops at any given moment.

What "I'm on a diet" says, essentially, is "I was wrong." It says somehow, along the way, I messed up. Maybe I thought I enjoyed food more than the idea of being thin, maybe I was stressed and let impulse get the better of me, maybe I was just plain lazy, but what I did, was wrong. Being fat was a wrong choice. I messed up. And right now, I'm fixing my error.

That's the knife. That's what I'm afraid to say, afraid for people to notice. But the thing is, it gets much worse.

Saying "I did something bad, but now I'm redeeming myself" isn't really that terrible. Sure, not something you'd necessarily want to inadvertently share with colleagues and casual acquaintances, but it's not the worst thing in the world. You're taking the right path now, you're on the road to redemption now. Sure, you fucked up, but people do, and that's okay, you're slowly picking yourself up.

But what happens if you fail? I don't think I will, but I'm also smart and honest enough to know that it's within the realm of possibility. One commonly heard statistic is that 95% of diets fail. Other times you hear 90%. Either way, those aren't good numbers. Want to be depressed for a bit? Scroll down to the bottom of my blog list and click "show all". What do you think happened to those people who haven't updated in a while? Chances are, they're not chugging along but not posting. And I've only been writing for a bit over three months! If you look at a blog that's been around a bit longer like Learning to Be Less (another great blog that I'd recommend for your reading list), practically the bottom half of her blog list hasn't checked in in over a week. And those are probably just the non-updated ones she couldn't bear to cut. Sometimes you'll stumble on a blog that hasn't been updated in a while, and find that neither have all the blogs in the blogroll. These things happen. Diets die. Blogs fade. Things fail.

So what you're saying, if you fail, to all those people who sort of know you, who you see from time to time and smile at and say hello is "There is something deeply wrong with me. I know it. I tried to change. But I failed. I failed, and I am failing every day." And that, that is what scares me.

Part of it also is, that I don't know if I'm really at the point where I'm ready to say something was deeply wrong, or even wrong at all, when I was choosing to get (and stay) fat. I don't want to say there's something wrong with someone who is fat and chooses to stay that way. If you want to make and eat delicious foods, and eat more of them then society says you should, I'm okay with that being your choice. Right now, I am choosing to not stay fat because there are currently things I find more compelling, with a big giant flashing CAREER being the one that tips the scales in favor of thinness. There are good, logical reasons why I'm changing my body, but I certainly do realize it's a trade-off. And if someone's preferences are slightly different than mine, and if for them the extra time from not working out and the extra cheesecake for deliciousness is worth a bit more, that's okay. I don't think there's something all that wrong with someone who chooses to stay fat.

But, the girl with the cubicle by the elevator, or the guy who works the front desk, they don't know that. And the sort of friends, the cousins, the social acquaintances, all the people who will pick up on my not-so-rapidly shrinking butt, they're not going to see that. All they're going to see is "guess she finally realized how fat she was, it's a good thing she's changing it." And if, just if, my butt ends up growing bigger again, they're going to see "well, I guess she lost control again."

And that's why I, too, really, really, really wish I had an amnesia spell.

What, for you, tipped the scale that made you want to lose weight now? Do you think you've implicitly judged your past actions (and past fatness) by losing weight? What do you think losing weight says about you? And if you were to fail, what do you think that would say?

Some business:

Per request, I've added a contact email up by about me. While comments will probably get my attention more quickly, I do check that email addy every day or two. If you ever have something private and need a relatively quick reply, an email and a "I sent you an email" comment will probably get you the rapidest response.

Lynn of Actual Scale, not too many days ago, gave me an Over the Top award. Thanks Lynn! I added it to my sidebar. I also finally got around to adding my Honest Scrap award. Quite a few of you bestowed that honor upon me (for which I'm quite thankful), and I apologize for the laziness in putting it up. I'll do my best to collect the names of all the people who gave it to me and add them to the sidebar.

And, last but not least, there were a higher than usual number of new folks who commented yesterday, so welcome! If I haven't already, I'll be stopping by your blog--if you have one--shortly.

Have a great weekend, all!

Credit scores, reports, and the things we get from our parents

Weight: 248.7

So, I have a kindle. I love it. One of the things I love most about it is that you can download the first chapter for free of any book you're interested in. So, if I'm say, looking for a humor book, I can download a few chapters until I run into one that really cracks me up. Recently, I was looking for a personal finance book. I'm not in debt, but many personal finance begin with the importance of getting out of debt. One of the things that came up in several of the books was "Getting out of debt is a lot like losing weight."

Today's post is going to be a lot more about money than it will be about weight loss, but there's a lot of overlap between the two. As we travel this journey of self betterment, building healthy bodies, I think it's worth spending a bit of time to get our financial houses in order as well.

I've always been interested in finance. Through most of college I thought I would go into investment banking. Since before I can remember, I had a "junior" bank account and my parents encouraged me to save some of my allowance and birthday money, and later baby sitting earnings and writing prize winnings. (I'm not much of a writer these days, but in High School I won some substantive prize money through Scholastic writing competitions, including one for the best nonfiction portfolio in New York City.) In my senior year of high school, my father went with me to Citibank to help me open real, regular savings and checking accounts complete with a debit card. Growing up, I was instilled with things that I didn't recognize as good habits, but just accepted as truth: you don't spend more than you have, you pay your bills off in full each month, and you always pay on time.

(This is where one could note that there are all sorts of food lessons I didn't learn from my parents, like don't eat when you're not hungry, get in fruits and vegetables, avoid processed junk, etc, but let's not be negative.)

As someone with that interest in personal finance, I sort of knew that I was mostly on the right track. I'd been paying bills on time and in full, I've started saving for retirement through a Roth IRA, and I make sure to spend less than I earn. But for a good long while, I've known that there was something else I should have done that I just hadn't yet.

For a really long time, I was scared of finding out my credit report and score. In college, I had a small medical bill that my parents insurance was supposed to pay. I sent it to my mom, who swore she sent it to her insurance, and then no one ever followed up on it. This was in maybe February or March. Spring passed and I went home for the summer. That fall, I came back to find a whole host of letters about the apparently unpaid medical bill. I was furious at my mother (she said she'd taken care of it, although in hindsight, at 19 years old I should have been responsible enough to follow up on it myself) . I paid the bill immediately, and called my mother and cried and screamed and told her she'd ruined my credit and that I'd never be able to get a mortgage or a car loan and that potential employers would see it and that it would be her fault if I didn't get a job and just all these horribly nasty things. My mother and I don't fight often, and I wasn't the type of melodramatic kid who said stuff like that on a regular basis. I was, honestly, furious, and petrified that I'd have this black mark hanging over me for 10 years all because my stupid mother hadn't made sure the insurance paid a stupid bill. I literally wouldn't return her calls for weeks. It's among the most self indulgent outbursts I've ever had (really, a 19 year old can look into these things for herself) , but it also still ranks up there as among my most terrifying experiences to this day.

So, since that happened, 4ish years ago, I'd been afraid to check my credit report.

Well guess what I just did? I checked my credit report. Each year, you're entitled by federal law to a free copy of your credit report from each of the three reporting bureaus. The only place you should go to get this score is the official government site: https://www.annualcreditreport.com. Do not go anywhere else: freecreditreport.com, freetriplescore.com, all the other ones you see advertising on TV are all scams. Don't go to them, they're not free, and they're not legit, in spite of their catchy jingles.

The missed medical bill wasn't on there. But what was, was fabulous. In about 6th grade, my parents gave me a credit card to use when I went shopping with my friends. In the spring of 9th grade, my dad decided to have me use a different one that would give him rewards, but at the time I thought nothing of it. But there both cards were: each with a decade of beautiful on time payments. My own credit cards (I have two, one I got in college and a more recent one that gives rewards) were there too, each with their on time payments. The $1000 credit line attached to my checking account (which I've never actually used) was there too, with on time payments dating back to when I was a senior in high school. It was beautiful. There was an error that I'm going to mail them about to get corrected (the birthdate's off by a few decades) but other than that everything was all correct and filled with green boxes for years of accounts in good standing.

Then I went to check my actual credit score. This is the number between 300 and 850 that most people think about when they think about credit scores. Until recently, it was impossible to get your credit score for free. However, an ad-supported site called Credit Karma (sort of like mint.com) now lets you see your TransUnion credit score. I'm pretty cautious about providing personal information on the web, and will research sites a bunch before I'll input information. I've got enough sources to consider it safe.

And I did check it. The result: 766. High enough that I could actually qualify for the best mortgage rates at 23.

So right now, I'm just feeling thankful to my parents. For all the good habits they taught me growing up, and for the decade long record of on-time bill payments they gave me. I called them to thank them, and though I didn't apologize to my Mom (I possibly should have) , I did tell her that the medical bill did not show up.

Today, my financial house is much cleaner than it used to be. I'm glad I faced my fears and looked at the report. Knowing that I do have my finances under control makes me feel a lot closer to having my waist under control. Mostly, I feel like I'm getting closer each day to being the person I really want to be.

How closely do you think money and weight loss are related? Do you feel better than one than at the other? And the question I'm most curious about: do you check in on your credit report and/or score, and why or why not?

I also just want to quickly reiterate: please don't don't don't use a scam site. The only place to get the three annual reports you're entitled to by the government is https://www.annualcreditreport.com. The only reputable site for getting your credit score for free that I know of is https://www.creditkarma.com. Be extremely careful anywhere else, and avoid the credit sites that advertise on TV like the devil.

To train or not to train

Weight: 260.8
BMI: 44.76

The weigh in is happy (17.2 lbs lost! 6.19% of starting bodyweight and 2.95 points of BMI gone!) but not what I want to talk about today.

So, when I started losing weight, I started comparing gyms to figure out which would be a good fit for me. I sort of centered on Results because it was close and came up pretty often when I googled "Best Gym in DC." Still, at over $100 a month plus a $100 joining fee, I wasn't really certain if I was willing to spend that much.

Then, essentially the day after I'd settled on trying to go to Results for a one day free pass, I got a company wide email that we were considering a corporate membership there and that anyone who was interested should write back. I did, and I got 4 free passes to check it out.

I used them before San Diego. While I was there, the corporate membership deal got finalized. The Saturday after I got back, I went in and signed up for my reduced corporate $65 a month (and no joining fee!) membership. Since then I've used the gym every day but Monday, putting in a solid 40-60 minutes on the elliptical machine. I've been too scared to do any of the classes yet, but I'm on the edge of trying the spinning class or yoga fundamentals. They've got a Zumba class, too, which I kind of want to try solely on the basis of the praise I've read over at Learning to Be Less.

The point I'm trying to get to is that, as a new member, I'm entitled to a free personal training session. I've got mine scheduled for next Saturday (the 15th). I want to sort of dedicate the session to figuring out what I should be doing in terms of weight lifting, since I know it's important and I should be doing it, I just don't really know how. (There are also "floor trainers" whom I'm told I can ask how any of the machines work, but I'd rather just wait till the training session.)

The question is, should I invest in a personal trainer beyond the free session?

As of this point, I'm rather torn on if it's worth the money. (It would be $625 for 10 sessions, $1200 for 20. If I did get a trainer I think I'd set it up so I only met with him once a week, maybe twice.)

I recently opened up a Roth IRA for the first time. I put $3000 in, the minimum over at Vanguard where I opened my account. (Side note: if you're not saving for retirement, you should be! The younger you are the easier it is. I particularly like Roth IRA's because you can always withdraw your contributions at any time, no penalty, and can withdraw up to $10,000 in earnings for a first house or in case of hardship. You use after tax money to open the account, and then it grows tax free and you pay no taxes when you use it down the road. For more on why Roth IRAs are the awesomest awesome that ever was awesome, check out this blog post.) I'd saved up a bit particularly for this, but I did dip a bit into my general savings/emergency fund. There's a maximum contribution of $5000/year for people below the age of 50, and I'd like to put that much in before the end of the year. I think the market is cheaper than it will be for a long time, plus compounding generally favors investing as soon as you can. So, one thing I'd like to do this year is max out my retirement account.

Since the end of high school, I've always had this wild dream of becoming a Foreign Service Officer. The spring of my sophomore year in college, I took the written exam while I was studying abroad in Paris. (It's offered in tons of places in the US, too, but because I was out of the country I got to take it at the US Embassy there, which was gorgeous.) I passed it and got invited to the Oral Assessment, which I failed. And we're not talking a close failure either: I bombed. It was a mess. I hadn't been able to sleep the night before, and I just stumbled over everything and it was all kinds of terrible. I've been thinking of trying again. As part of that, I've been thinking of learning Arabic. While you don't need to know a foreign language to join, knowing a "super critical needs language" (their words, not mine) like Arabic helps a lot. So I've been thinking of taking Arabic classes. They'd be about $800 for the fall semester.

I also want to replenish my emergency fund. While I'm probably pretty secure at my job, and if anything did happen my parents would take care of me (in some future post I'll go into my parents and finances), I like having a bit of savings. I think it's important to save. And I want to get those numbers back up.

So, if I want to add personal training, it means cutting either Arabic, retirement savings, or replenishing my emergency fund. If personal training seems like it's worth it, adding to my emergency fund will probably be the thing to go: it's still got a few thousand dollars in it now, and I can build it up to a level I'm more comfortable with eventually. I'm still not 100% certain though.

So, question for anyone who's ever had a personal trainer: do you think it's worth it? What do you get from your trainer that you couldn't get on your own? How do you think s/he helps you?

And, for everyone, trainer or no, base instinct, what would you do? Pick three: trainer, Arabic, retirement, emergency fund.

A Quick Catch All Post

Weigh in for yesterday, 7/18:
Weight: 267.0
BMI: 45.83

Weigh in for today:
Weight: 266.8
BMI: 45.79

Not only have I not gained with my parents here, I've actually managed to keep losing. Not only did I hit the -10lbs mark, I flew past it. As of this very moment, I am 11.2 pounds lighter than when I started this journey. How awesome is that?

I promise a full gym story at some later date, but for now I just want to share that I did, in fact, go to a gym yesterday. I worked my ass off too. It was all around excellent. What's important is that I went (despite being really, really scared to) and I feel all right going again.

11.2 pounds down, many, many pounds to go. Progress!

A new low and food choices

Weight: 268.2
BMI: 46.03

Wowza. 268.2! I actually feel, for the first time, like I belong in the 260s. I'm incredibly, incredibly happy with that number. It means I've now lost 9.8 pounds in total. That's 3.53% of my bodyweight and 1.68 points of BMI. And that is pretty damn awesome. I honestly was smiling all the way to work. I'm so, so happy about it.

Yesterday I did very well foodwise, albeit making one slight mistake at dinner. I had a very light breakfast and lunch, and snacked on baby carrots at work. Friends and I were going to see the new Harry Potter immediately after work (it's excellent, you should see it), and it was decided to go to Subway for a quick dinner before the movie. Yesterday afternoon I spent a good bit of time on the Subway site, pouring over the nutritional information trying to make an ideal choice. I debated between going for the extravagant 380 calorie Subway melt, going with a turkey sandwich with light mayo (280 for the sandwich plus 50 for the mayo for 330), or, what I decided would be my choice, a 290 cal mayo-less ham and turkey. I knew I wouldn't be able to enjoy a turkey sandwich with neither cheese nor mayonnaise, so I'd ruled that out early on, but I thought maybe, just maybe, having two different types of meat on the sandwich might make up for the lack of delicious, delicious cheese and condiments.

So, when we got there, I ordered the ham and turkey. And then, in that second when he asked me if I wanted any sauces, I said yeah, just a little bit of light mayo. I stopped him to make sure it was just a bit, but it was still, in the end, either 50 or 10 calories more than I really needed (depending on how you count). Lyn, over at Escape from Obesity, had this great post about how you need just a split second of determination to do the right thing. And where she passed her test, I failed mine.

But the damage wasn't bad, I was still under my limit for the day, and I'm not going to beat myself up over it. I did the right thing for the rest of the night, refusing the many offers from my friends to have a few pieces of candy or a handful of popcorn. I did, overall, a really great job resisting temptation last night.

As I write this, I'm about an hour away from going out to a colleague's going away lunch. It will be challenging, to say the least. We're going to this pizza place called Ella's, which of course has no calorie stuff listed online. I've spent probably more time looking at the menu then I'd like to confess, and still haven't decided what I'm going to get. I know it might sound crazy to those of you who are used to being healthy, but I really don't want to call attention to the fact that I'm on a diet just yet, especially not to my colleagues. I know, I know, telling people is great and will help build you a support system and you'll be less likely to fall back and whatever else, but I'm honestly just still too embarrassed to at this point. I think ordering a salad would do just that, so I don't think I'm going to do so.

So, pizza it will be. The question between plain and veggie is up in the air. Plain pizza is my standard, and it's my favorite. Getting one of the varieties with vegetables on it�of those options I've been leaning towards wild mushroom�would be healthier and get more nutrients in. I'd also like it substantially less, and thus probably eat less of it. On the other hand, if I'm going out spending money and calories on pizza, it seems kind of silly to not get pizza I'd like. I'm not saying I should go crazy and order the four cheese one, or eat the whole thing, but �

I don't know. I'm possibly making excuses. I'm going to have a tough night (and a tough weekend) in terms of food since my parents are going to be here. I think I'll be able to at least somewhat minimize my food exposure by telling them I have lots of work, but there's no way around the fact that I'm simply going to be eating more than I've been eating since this diet began.

I know, I know, this is why you should tell people. I just don't quite feel ready to.

The worst part about this may be that I'm so damn close to 268, and with that the accomplishment of having dropped a full 10 pounds. It would be a big achievement, and I want to get there. Since at this point I'm just hoping not to gain up to the 270s while they're here, it's going to be tricky.

Hopefully I'll be strong, and even if I can't hit 268 this weekend, I'll hit it next week. And then, hopefully, I'll be able to not gain massive amounts of weight in San Diego.

It could happen, right?

I've got a long, long road ahead.

Turbulence expected ahead

Thinking about it more, this was, really, a terrible time to decide to lose weight. I say that not as a way of turning back, or to indicate any plan to do so, but just to acknowledge the fact that, if I tried to come up with a list of suboptimal times to lose weight, this would probably be up there with the Wednesday before Thanksgiving.

I've got a few specific schedule challenges ahead, which I'll talk about below:

Policy forum lunch on 7/15: Tomorrow, we're hosting a policy forum. I have to go to it. In some ways, this is good. The chairs in the auditorium are a little on the tight side, and sitting in them always reminds me that I want to shed some pounds. However, after the forum there's going to be lunch, and I'm going to have to eat it. The lunch will be calorific sandwiches. I'm just going to have to suck it up and eat one.

Coworker going away lunch on 7/17: One of my coworkers is leaving soon to move to another state and another job. I like her bunches, and it�s very sad to see her go. On Friday, a few people have scheduled a going away lunch for her. I'm going to have to go�I want to go�and I'm going to have to eat food. I'll skip breakfast, eat something light, etc, but it'll certainly be more calories than I planned.

Parents in town 7/17-7/20: My parents are going to be in town this weekend. This will make things extremely challenging, to say the least. A visit from them means lots of my favorite foods from New York, lots of meals out, and a gigantic trip to the grocery store. I'm not looking forward to it. On Sunday, when I decided this diet was something I really wanted to stick with, I asked if they could maybe reschedule for some point later on the pretext of having massive amounts of work. They couldn't change their hotel reservation, so here they will be. It'll be difficult, and I might even gain a few, but I can aim to be way better than I'd previously been.

Conference in San Diego 7/26-7/31: I'm going to a conference out in San Diego for the last week of July, and I'm expecting it to be a very, very challenging week. I won't be able to weigh myself at all. I'll have no idea of the calorie content of any of the food. And oh, the temptation that awaits. Every morning, a croissant and pastry laden continental breakfast. Then an hour and a half later, temptation again as far as the eye can see. Then an hour and half after that, I'll be served an extravagant lunch. A mere two hours later, there will be cookies and brownies and other snack food. And a few hours after that, a reception with wine and hors d'oeuvres. Then, a two hour dinner, with probably three or four courses. A ton, ton, ton of food. And it's going to be like that, every day, for five days. Yeep. I'll need all the strength in the world. The inability to weigh myself combined with the massive amounts of temptation is just going to be all sorts of trouble.

San Diego will be the worst, but it's luckily still a bit away. I have time to get some momentum going. The conference is at a very nice resort, and I'm sure they'll have a fitness club that I'll be able to patronize if I so choose. There will also be, at the very least, lots of space for me to go on walks in. And walks I can and will do.

Anyway, those are the challenges I've got in the upcoming days. Will I be able to meet them? To thrive even with them? Will I just muddle through with not too many gains? Or will I be blown horribly off course ne'er to recover? Only time and strength of will shall tell.