I know what you're thinking, not another diet blog. You'd rather poke a fork in your eye than poke another fork-load of broccoli into your pie-hole ... and we all know that's what the mouth was originally made for ... consuming yummy pies. So I promise, no broccoli proselytizing here.
A Million Monkeys
But really, why is it that Sharing 2.0 now makes us think we need to blog about every boring detail of the boring minutia that makes up our boring lives (not YOU of course, the trivial details of YOUR life are fascinating ... just fascinating, I tell you). But yes, sharing private details of our our private lives with our virtual network of "friends" we may or may not have ever met has become, shall we say, a bit too easy and perhaps a bit too commonplace. We somehow turn off the natural filters that have helped us interact socially all these years IRL and instead turn into both exhibitionists and voyeurs at the same time (admit it, you're cyberstalking your ex on Facebook as we speak). But let's face it, that picture of you in your bra drunk on NYE was just too cute NOT to post.
Maybe we've become the proverbial million monkeys pecking away at a million keyboards, yet we can't help craving validation for every micro-thought spewed out into this weird wired jungle as if every tweet held such profound importance that surely the hand of the bard himself must have reached from the grave to help us write it. Do we secretly (or perhaps sometimes not so secretly) seek an audience for our mental masturbation?
Dieting 2.0
Then why am I doing this, subjecting you (and possibly even the potential unsuspecting lost visitor) to my dietary diary. Well, I'm doing this for me, not for you. Because, I'm really serious about changing my relationship with food and fitness, and if I post everything I eat (yes, you heard me ... everything ... every tiny morsel), then surely I'll at least be shamed into sticking with it. And we all know how emotionally healthy and beneficial it is to reflect on (ahem ... cough ... obsess over) every microscopic aspect of relationships ... even relationships with food (can't help it ... I'm a broad ... and that's what we broads do ... obsess over things ... and if we're a broad broad ... well, you see where this is going).
But truly, it is healthy to think about what and how much we eat. In fact, I feel terribly guilty for worrying over eating too much when so many in the world worry over not having enough to eat. Multitudes would give anything to share in the abundant access to food many of us in America enjoy and take for granted. When your mother told you to clean your plate because there are starving children in the world, what she should have said is, don't put more on your plate than you need because there are starving children in the world. Through this diet and through rethinking my relationship with food, I'm trying to change the old adage of "waste not, want not" to "want not, waste not."
5 Pounds and Counting
So, even though I'm doing this for me, you're welcome to visit, peruse my recipes, peek at my progress, even contribute should the mood strike you. Now mind you, I'm not a nutritionist, but I have been on every diet under the sun. Those of you who knew me when I ballooned up to a couple of hundred pounds and then dropped back down quickly by losing about 60 pounds in 6 months must have muttered under your breath "she'll never keep that weight off." Guess what, you were probably right. I lost the weight too fast and in the wrong way (eating way too little and fanatically over-exercising). Over the last year, I have indeed gained back 20 pounds (take a couple of personal disappointments, add in the holidays, multiply by furloughs, and you get binge eating), so I'm trying to lose the weight back a little bit slower with a more healthy long-term approach. I'm now in a fitness program that incorporates a daily boot-camp type workout combined with nutrition guidance, and it seems to be working (five pounds a counting). And I hope to share some of the tips of what I'm learning. Who knows, maybe my success will help inspire your success. If nothing else, there might be a few easy adjustments you can incorporate into your usual eating habits that might help you cut back on a few calories here and there.
So, if you visit, I hope you find some helpful hints and maybe a fun recipe to try. It won't even cost you a pound of flesh, but maybe you'll lose that pound of flab instead.
