Hot 100 Update # 10

Well, well, well. We meet again, December. Temptation and good cheer coat this month like honey on a glazed ham.

Taking heart from Steve's Hot 100 post, I am determined that December will not lure me into sticky-fingered complacency. I will not slide into that mental place that says, 'Oh, it's ok, it's the holiday season.'

It's not ok. It's not. January looms ahead -- and I do not want to greet the New Year weighing more than I did last year. Even if it is *only* a few pounds, it is something I strongly DO.NOT.WANT.TO.SEE.

Let me say again how grateful I am for the Hot 100 challenge. It got me going again before I'd really clicked in to the passage of time and how close we'd gotten to the end of the year. It's such a fantastic concept and I can't thank Steve enough for all the work he puts into it. He makes it fun too, which I really appreciate.

My Goals This Week:

1) Weight loss portions at every meal: It was a struggle to return to my more controlled eating habits after Thanksgiving, but I've been doing pretty well this week. One thing that helped: I made sure to switch back to my "small" plate this week for dinner (after a weekend of using the larger plate that we got out for Thanksgiving). I am pleased that I enforced that rule on myself again after a few days of using the big holiday plates. It really hurts my sense of portion to have a larger canvas, so to speak. Being a Jackson Pollock type eater means I'll fill every inch. Too bad I'm not an Impressionist eater -- all light and shadow and essence of eating!

In anycase, I'm sticking to my portion rules, and my no eating standing up rule and my no eating muffins from the coffee cart rule, and so on.

2) Run a 5k: oh toe, why do you hate me so? I won't bemoan this situation all over again here. Walked to work once this week, and the toe let me know that it was way too soon. Made it to the gym, however, and did the dreaded stationary bike. Hateful, but I brought my kindle and read away the hour. Would vastly prefer a long walk or a short run, but is not meant to be.

I am adjusting and accepting that this isn't going to change overnight. I must be resilient, and deal with it.

3) Lose 25 lbs: I feel that I have had a bad setback with this annoying bloody nerve injury and a week of loose eating during Thanksgiving. Still.... one must soldier on. This is how it goes, right?

My stupid skinny jeans are still not as loose as I want them to be. Now I'm starting to wonder if maybe they were never as loose as I thought they were!

Could I have dreamt it? Or maybe I just wore them so long without washing them that they felt exceptionally loose? Anything seems possible now because the damn things simply will NOT fit the way I *think* they once did!

The Advice Never Ends...

I should be working today and not fiddling on the Internets but this NYTimes article was too good not to share (and it's short).

One of my favorite pieces of diet advice came from a friend who periodically ate only lemons and sometimes would go home at night and inhale an entire bag (a big one) of unshelled peanuts. She ate the shells. That's a lot of fiber.

She would lecture me endlessly about losing weight, but saw nothing disordered in her own eating habits.

What's the funniest/weirdest bit of eating advice you ever got?