musings.

I’m not keeping up with the diet, as promised. But that’s okay, because I have no readers and/or no one who really gives a shit about anything I have to say. No big deal. I’m losing weight anyway because being without full mobility of both feet, I am not snacking as much during the day. Take that.

I’m sitting here, listening to Steely Dan and waiting for my friends to get here so they can attempt to get me out of this house. “Get you out of the house? What?” You see, kids, the house I live in is up on a hill. It is accessible only by A)walking up the front yard and going through the front door or B)walking up the 90-degree-angle driveway and then up the set of spiral, wrought-iron stairs into the house. Being on crutches, neither of these options is a good idea. I had a job interview on Wednesday, and to get there, I had to have my father pull my car into the garage, and I scooted down the spiral stairs on my ass. He drove me to my interview (I was not about to drive my new car in the rain while under the influence of narcotic painkillers) and then brought me home. I then scooted back up the spiral stairs on my ass into the house. And that was my exercise for the whole week.

So my friends have two options. They can either pull up on the less-steep side of the front yard, in my neighbor’s driveway, and help me hobble across the front yard to the car, or they can pull into the garage and I can scoot downstairs on my ass again. It might be easier the second time around.

I’m looking forward to today, though. I haven’t seen them in at least six months (though it’s probably been longer than that, my memory is foggy) and it’s nice out today. And I need out of this house.

I haven’t really been paying attention to the news, mostly because it depresses me. Bomb threats at UTC, freak stingray accidents in Florida, and the mudslinging continues between the Democrats. I’m tired of it all.

Ramble. I wonder where my friends are – they’re 30 minutes late. Ending this now. I have to hobble down to the bathroom – and I can almost guarantee that this is when they will call me to tell me they’re outside. Until next time…

Or, “how to keep yourself occupied when you’re trapped in the house all day.” Either one works. I will probably keep adding things to this list after my foot surgery next week, as I will be largely immobile and trapped in bed until I’m used to using crutches.

I was trapped in the house today because my car is pretty much a piece of crap. Both the starter and the engine are acting up, so I haven’t driven it since yesterday. Tomorrow I will be driving my father’s truck to my job interview and to run errands, and if all goes well I should be the proud owner of a new used car this weekend.

So what do I do when I have no means of leaving the house and there is nothing on television?

• I clean.
• I rearrange the furniture in my bedroom.
• I bake evil pastries and such for the other members of my family (who are also trying to lose weight – evil!) to eat.
• I surf the internet and try to shock my writer’s block into submission.
• I sign up for free trials of things like Netflix and then cancel before the trial ends so that my debit card is not charged.
• I make up phony cover letters for jobs I don’t want and send them to see if I get a response. So far, it’s been 50/50.
• I take full advantage of the On Demand feature of the digital cable and watch reruns of shows on HBO and Showtime.
• I write up character descriptions for the novel I’ve been working on for four years – and then throw them out because they are crap.  This is why only a paragraph has been written for this novel. And by paragraph, I mean two (constantly-changing) sentences.
• And as a last resort, I play The Sims and amuse myself by either locking the Sims in a box until they go crazy and die, or I make households out of one man and three women and I let them fight to see which of the women stays.

I need a job, kiddos. So hopefully the interview with Olan Mills will go well tomorrow. That said, I’m off to bed. I have to get up at 7:00. More will be added to this list later.

Talk about “not sticking to the plan.” Originally, I had planned to get up early, weigh myself so that I knew what I was working with, and eat breakfast. The alarm went off at 8:00; I got up at 11:00. I did not weigh myself and ended up having a bowl of Special K around 11:30. 160 calories, including milk. I then laid on the couch until around 12:30 (as I was really groggy for some reason) before I got up and got in the shower. Got dressed, made the bed, and fought with my cable modem for about 30 minutes because it simply would not connect. I currently do not have a car that works and am not in the right state of mind to focus on a novel so the thought of me not having internet access all day was enough for me to freak out a little bit.

Thankfully, after some tinkering (and cursing) on my part, I got the modem to work and all was right with the world again.

Lunch at 2:30. Leftover roasted vegetables and polish sausage. A recipe I made up myself, and very filling. That and a yogurt, because I always crave something sweet after a meal, and my yogurt was only 100 calories. Now I’m up to 450 for the day. I’m doing good.

Had a snack around 5:00, some Ritz crackers with PB & J. Collectively, 368 calories. I shouldn’t have eaten dinner, but I did. Dinner was at 7:30 and was a Stouffer’s lasagne and some garlic toast. I only ate it because Mom cooked it and I am sick of my Lean Cuisines.  I ended up mostly pushing the lasagne around on my plate and eating about half of it – it was a tiny piece anyway – and the entire piece of toast. And, just now, I had one of those crunchy oat & honey granola bars – 200 calories.

I estimate my total intake for the day to be at 1338 – 316 over my “allowed” daily intake if I plan to lose 19 pounds in 8 weeks.

I will do better tomorrow. I have to get up early for a job interview and will likely be in the mood to exercise until I drop when I get home. Keeping my fingers crossed.

March 5, 2008: FAILURE.

There are millions of diets out there. Just walk down the Diet and Nutrition aisle at Books-A-Million and you’ll see everything from the regulars (Atkins, South Beach, The Zone) to the irregulars (Skinny Bitch, YOU on a Diet) to the just plain bizzare (The Self-Hypnosis Diet). How are we to know which ones work and which ones are complete crap?

I have asked myself that question many times, and after several failed attempts at dieting, I’ve decided that there’s only one fool-proof way to lose weight: Portion control.  By doing this (and counting calories along the way), I plan to lose a total of 19 pounds by May 1st. My trip to the doctor’s office today freaked me out and while I am convinced that the scales at the doctor’s office are calibrated to be wrong just so that I freak out, I realize that I may have let myself go a little bit over the last six months. I want to be able to go to the pool or walk down the beach this summer and not scare small children and pets.

I will also be incorporating daily exercise into the mix, and will be keeping track of my activities on here as well as in a notebook. This is to ensure that I don’t miss anything when I’m typing it up.

What I want from you, my readers, includes the following:

• Names of diets and personal diet plans that you’ve gone on, and what has and hasn’t worked for you;
• Any advice you may have so that I may be successful in my endeavours; and
• Any diets you’ve heard of that either sound too good to be true, or sound like complete bull.

My goal, at the end of all of this, is to have enough research, evidence and personal experience (not just my own, but yours as well) so that I may write an article to be submitted to a magazine of some sort. The writing bug has bitten me again, and I’m excited, but I will need help. Especially if I plan to make any kind of money off of this thing – and I do.

That’s my project. It begins tomorrow. I already have a list of my planned activities for the day written down; the real challenge is whether or not I do them.

Thanks in advance for all your help and support.