Portion sizes

I ran accross this blog post today by Amy Alkon over at Advice Goddess about how the FDA and serving sizes and it made me laugh out loud in several places.

(William Neuman in the NY Times) "Consider the humble chip: most potato or corn chip bags today show a one-ounce serving size, containing a tolerable 150 calories, or thereabouts. But only the most disciplined snacker will stop at an ounce. For some brands, like Tostitos Hint of Lime, that can be just six chips."


(Amy Alkon) "Here's a little assistance: If it says "Tostitos" anywhere on the package, it's bad for you."

So the FDA wants to, apparently, put the nutritional information on the package for the sized portion that the average American eats.

Holy fat cells Batman!  The average American fatty eats 1/3 of a BAG of crisps at a time, she cuts a 12 serving cake into only eight pieces (and sometimes eats two), he has three or four breadsticks at lunch, she eats half of the basket of nachos at the Mexican restaurant.

Sound like I'm just being mean?  Nope. I know.  I'm a former Professional Fat Person, remember? We know how to eat. The Professional Fat Person's goal is to eat herself to death and we do it just as hard as we can.

I used to buy candybars (two servings of death, each?) two and three at a time. I could eat an entire bag of Sweet Sixteen powdered sugar doughnuts - easily - in 15 minutes.

I think that the FDA's idea of adjusting the portion sizes is well-meant but will it do any good?  If Fatzilla sees that she just ate over half of the calories that she needs for an entire day out of a Cheezy Poof bag will it deter her?  Nope, IMHO.  She'll rationalize it. "I deserve it after the day I had." or "Oh, one day off the wagon won't hurt. I'll do better tomorrow." or "I didn't eat that much, I only ate half a serving".

Overeating is like alcoholism in many ways. Trust me. You tell yourself anything. You cry and rage and moan go on diet after diet and hate yourself and then keep eating.  You blame your sex, your age, your genetics.  You tell yourself that you "deserve" a treat, that you don't want to be "deprived" of bread and sugar cuz "life is short" and you want to live it!  Here's the one I hate the most: "I don't want to skip desert just so I can live a few more years an addled old fart in a rest home!"

That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard. 

Number one, I don't need dessert. I don't have to derive my pleasure from sugar and bread.  I get pleasure from newborn lambs and the early snow drops around my post box. I get pleasure from my children's drawings sent home from school. I get pleasure from the pinks and oranges in the clouds at sunset, from zoning out listening to my iPod while I sort clothes, and from, yes, eating. Eating an inch-thick steak, a slab of wild caught salmon, a new vegetable (just today I tried parsnips - nom!) steamed and doused in real butter.

Number two, skipping dessert will, I'm confident, help keep me OUT OF an old folks home!  I bloody well plan to be 80 years old and out hoeing my garden and gathering eggs. The sugar addicts who will end up sick, weak, obese, diabetic, and riddled with heart disease can have my bed. Not this kid. I plan on enjoying my grandkids and teaching them a thing or two.

So, overeating is like alcoholism. You lie to yourself, dodge the truth from friends, and keep destroying your health for your own pleasure.  The only way to overcome it is to make up your mind and just give the bad stuff up. Portion size adjustments, nutritional info on menues, etc is going to have very little impact.  We need to be going after the big boys: industrial agriculture; we need to be waging ad wars like they did with cigarettes (show the horrible effects of sugar on the body), and so on.
 
Most of all we need to STOP treating the overweight as victims. When we acknowledge that fat babies and toddlers are made fat by their mothers, that obese adults are not just people to whom some random misfortune has befallen but authors of their own fates, then we can help them help themselves.
 
Will we totally eleminate obesity?  Nope. There will always be Pro Fatties, just like there are still plenty of smokers. People can really be blind. But it would help, IMHO.
 

Article

Oh arrgh!  This dieting article made me tear my hair.  Are humans this pathetic?

"When it comes to dieting, Americans put on a good show, buying millions of diet books, watching TV programs about weight loss, obsessing over celebrities and their baby weight. But in the end, that may be all it is: a show. (snip)

"Our interest in losing weight is waning," says Harry Balzer, lead food and beverage industry analyst for The NPD Group,(snip)

Dieting was once practically a national pastime. In 1990, the same report found that 39 percent of women and 29 percent of men were on a diet. So, what's happened? Balzer, who's tracked Americans' eating habits since the 1980s, believes the answer is that dieting is simply too hard. "It's much easier to change your attitude," he said, than to sustain the willpower to eat less."

Amazing!  And the most astounding part is that people are like this about everything these days!  Relationships, parenting, breastfeeding (yes, I went there)!

That view is echoed by Kelly D. Brownell, director of the Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity at Yale University, who says that diets are "notoriously ineffective," and posits that many overweight people may have simply given up.


Marge McMillan, 60, is one who says she's given up on diets, if not on slimming down. A veterinarian who lives in Medford, McMillan tried the low-carb Atkins diet and Weight Watchers but threw in the towel on both. Now, she's just trying to eat healthily. "Diets don't work," she said. "You lose the weight but regain more."

Not true!  I vented about this over on my Thrifty Dieters Blog.


Dr. Sasha Stiles, medical director of the Obesity Consult Center at Tufts Medical Center, offers additional reasons why dieting is on the wane: "A lot of people are saying I don't have enough money to spend on a diet, or I'm going to try surgery."

Patently absurd.  You don't need a lot of money to diet, I can testify!  As for the surgery, well that's unessessary in most cases, IMHO.  "I'll just get my insurance to pay to dramatically and dangerously and permanently alter my body because I can't be arsed to put the fork down."




There's another possible explanation: Fewer people are dieting because there's no exciting new diet on the scene. In 2004, the top-selling diet book in the country, "The South Beach Diet," sold 2.4 million copies, according to Nielsen BookScan, a data provider for the publishing industry. In 2007, the most popular book, "You: On a Diet," by Oprah Winfrey's health guru Dr. Mehmet Oz and Dr. Michael Roizen, managed only 706,000 copies. This year's top selling book, "Eat This Not That!" has sold a mere 552,000 copies so far, and is more reference than diet book.


After years of being sucked into one weight-loss phenomenon after another - low-cal, low-fat, low-carb - serial dieters seem to have fallen into a fallow period. With no miracle plan animating dinner-party and workplace conversations, it's the same old, same old. That gets boring, says Amy Kropke, 41, of Newton, who says she'd be "fabulous" if she could shed 20 pounds.


"I love that moment where you're like, 'This is it. This is definitely the one," she says, her voice tinged with nostalgia for the days when South Beach thrilled her. She wants to be seduced again, preferably by "something that was easy, that you could lose 10 pounds without having to do too much."

Well butter my broad bum and call me a jumbo bisquit.  Perhaps she'd also like to sit at home all day and veg in front of her 'stories' whilst Zachary Quinto fetched her soda and brushed the cheesy poof dust off of her ratty sweatshirt?

(oh, wait ... that was MY fantasy ...)

If only reading diet books triggered weight loss, we'd be all set. Even without a new hit title, the number of weight-loss books sold in 2007 hit 4.8 million, up from 4 million in 2006, and 3.6 million in 2005, according to Nielsen BookScan. Still, sales aren't what they were in 2004 when the "South Beach" juggernaut was in full swing. That year, 5.3 million diet books sold.
(snip)
"I keep wondering if it's market saturation," said Oliver, professor of political science at the University of Chicago. "You have people who are interested in dieting who tried South Beach and tried Atkins. Some were successful, but they may have gained the weight back. We may be in a cycle where we're waiting for the next new Scarsdale, South Beach, Atkins . . . the whole rigmarole. Someone who is a clever marketer may see this as a time to strike."


So should I begin working on my Paleo Diet book now?  Should I? :excited:

Doubtful Duds?

It was brought to my attenton that I hadn't blogged in, like, forever (*waves at Jodi*) and I realised it was true. Dang.

I guess between my being busy, my being on so many bulletin boards, including my own, plus Twitter, I can just yak all day about whatever I need to, whenever it occurs to me.



Well, I promise to pay better attention to the blog. Heck, school starts in less than two weeks. That aughta give me PLENTY of crap to bitch about, lol!



Here's something right here. What the Blue Heck is up with this?



"SEATTLE - A 6-foot-tall, 250-pound letter carrier is campaigning for the right to take off his pants. Dean Peterson wants the U.S. Postal Service to add kilts as a uniform option for men.


The idea was soundly defeated in July at a convention of his union, the 220,000-member National Letter Carriers' Association, so Peterson knows convincing management will be an uphill struggle, but at least he'll be comfortable in his kilt, or Male Unbifurcated Garment.


"In one word, it's comfort," he said.


With his build, Peterson said, his thighs fill slacks to capacity, causing chafing and scarring.
Peterson, 48, has Finnish and Norwegian ancestry but not Scottish. He began wearing kilts a couple years ago when his wife brought one back from a trip to Scotland. (A spokeswoman for Britain's Royal Mail said kilts are not allowed as part of its letter carrier uniforms.)


Now Peterson wears them everywhere — to one son's football games, the other son's concerts, shopping and gardening."


(snip)



""Unbifurcated Garments are far more comfortable and suitable to male anatomy than trousers or shorts because they don't confine the legs or cramp the male genitals the way that trousers or shorts do," he wrote. "Please open your hearts — and inseams — for an option in mail carrier comfort!"


The union's executive committee recommended disapproval, saying there was not enough demand for kilts to be worth the bother of the resolution, and delegates agreed by a large margin.


But Peterson said there are plenty of approved uniform items that very few mail carriers wear, including a cardigan sweater, vest and pith helmet. He said many convention delegates did express support after his resolution was voted down."



WTF?! Who gives a great flying very bad word at the moon if a bloke wears a kilt? And I'm not just saying this as a proud Scottish American, here.



As long as his bits are covered and the garment is businesslike, who cares? Here's a pic of Peterson in his proposed official USPS kilt:



That looks like a perfectly acceptable form of dress to me. Can't they wear shorts? What's the difference? This has got to be some bizarre male stereotyping thing because there is no logical explaination why they would say no.

This is particularly stupid: "The union's executive committee recommended disapproval, saying there was not enough demand for kilts to be worth the bother of the resolution."

What? You're meeting right that second. Just effing approve it.

So my conclusion? National Letter Carrier's Association: FAIL!

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One last note: many of you know that after my last child was born (March '07) I lost a huge amount of weight (121lbs). Well, at the holidays I gave myself a break and stopped actively trying to lose weight. Well, since about March I have been piddling about and making NO progress jump starting my diet again (I need to lose 20 more lbs).

I was Googling along last week checking out the recommended carbs for a healthy diet and I came across this diet. I posted about it on my forums if you'd like to follow my progress (or comment!) It's pretty cool and thrifty, too.

Mrs Evil Genius - filmmaker

*whew* Busy!

Just wanted to duck in and say that I wasn't dead. :D

I've been having a ball with my new toy (actually a lovely and thoughtful xmas gift to EGH from TypeA SIL) a Flip camera.

Check out my v. first effort - an under-our-house romp by EGH - then go over to The Chi of Cheese blog/vlog and center your cheesy energy and seek the Way of the Cheese (and peruse the reviews on vid).

Making movies is so much fun! And time consuming ...

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In more mundane news I am now within 10lbs of my goal weight! I have lost just over 120lbs since mid March (2007)! I am SO CHUFFED!

In case you're interested, here's my post on my diet. I plan to do a lot more stuff on dieting, I think. Assuming I get two seconds to rub together. *rolls eyes*

I have decided one thing and it's this: You should never diet to LOOK better.

Diet to FEEL better; diet to increase your chances of being around to annoy your kids longer; heck, diet because smaller sizes cost less. But never diet so you'll look better. Cuz, y'know what? We all get old. And no amount of paste and paint, lotions and ointments, fad diets and fab fashions - and even surgery - will stop the process.

After a while everyone looks old.

The best you can do is be fit and happy. I personally want to be 85 years old and stomping determindly (if slowly) around my barnyard in my print granny dress, apron, and wellington boots whilst EGH sits in the house playing the latest incarnation of online gaming (probably brought about in virtual 3-D by an implant in ones head).

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And now, the gratuitus baby pics!

International cracker thief, The Human Crash Test Dummy (caught here on security camera), waits impatiently while technical expert, Fiver, rewires the door to the London National Bank of Bickies in an attempt to open it:

Meanwhile, weapons expert, Bitty Girl disguises black ants as bank patrons so they can sneak in unnoticed and plant tiny explosives:

Just another average day at the Secret Hidden Lair.

Blue's penultimate diet post

Alternate title: "I did come here to lose!"

(Ohhh ... that would make a great t-shirt*.)

I just wanted to pop in and report something great!

Many of you know that I have been dieting since March 14th (my last baby was born March 5th). Well, as of this morning I am two teensy pounds away from my target weight!

I have lost exactly 100lbs.

NOW I just need to get in gear and lose another 30lbs down to my goal weight. *whew*

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This is actually the second time I've lost a large amount of weight. I lost 180 lbs in 18 months after I got rid of my ex-arsehole.

Afterwards, I had no trouble maintaining my weight - I kept it steady without much thought for a couple of years - then I got pregnant and set off on a personal quest to keep the local chinese takeaways and Krispy Kreme in business, lol!

Anyway, over the years many people have asked me for the details on my diet. I'd like to do a webpage on it one day, but for right now here's the quick and dirty version:

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I call it the Denis Leary Diet after his bit where he says: "Big boned? You're big assed, OK? Dinosaurs are big boned ... put the fork down!"

Lol, anyway, the whole point is that you have to do it. You have to put the fork down. If you cheat on any diet it just fails to work. There are no magic beans. In order to lose weight you must burn more calories than you consume. Full stop.

If you whinge on about 'feeling deprived' or 'feeling hungry' or having 'no willpower', don't bother with this diet. It's bloody tough. It is NOT fun or easy. It is definitely not for everyone. But it works. :)

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The rules:

1) No fast food of any size shape or description. None. Not even a chip nicked from your kid's happy meal. Don't even drive through the drive-through for a diet coke. Seriously. All that grease in the air can probably be absorbed by osmosis, LOL.

2) No fried foods of any size, shape or description. No fried okra, no chips (f. fries), crisps (potato chips, doritos, cheetos, et al). Breading or no doesn't matter. No fried turkey at thanksgiving. Nothing that is deep fried or fried in oil. If it takes more than a squirt of no-stick spray to pan-fry then it is a no-no.

3) No sugared soft drinks or sports drinks. Either switch entirely to artificial sweeteners, or go to water. This means juice must go as well. Don't forget your tea and coffee, too.

4) No mayonnaise and no butter. This seems small but is quite difficult! Replace the mayo on all sandwiches with mustard (this got me because I eat certain sarnies with ONLY mayo), no frying with butter, no butter on toast, grilled cheese are out *big sad face*. I discovered that the low cal powder designed to go on popcorn is not only good for that, but works for jacket potatoes, steam veg like broccoli and cauliflower, etc. I also found out that many recipes that call for a Tbs or two of butter, tasted just fine with none at all.

5) No added oils and no peanut butter. I avoided any greasy foods like chili (LOVE) and BBQ (love, love, LOVE).

6) No sweets. Duh. No sweet drinks; no candy bars; no ice cream; no cakes, pies, puddings; no candy of any sort. Many folks have told me that this is the deal-breaker for them. "I just have to have chocolate!" Well, then this diet won't work for you. To me, personally, I had no trouble giving up sweets. I mean, you don't need sweets. It's like television (and you all know how I feel about that, LOL). Most of it is just crap. It's something one indulges in that one doesn't require. My thing was: do I want to lose weight or what? Can I live without Maurice's BBQ or Snickers bars for the time it takes me to do it? Answer: yup. Because I want it that badly.

7) Drink eight 8 oz glasses of water per day. I have no idea if this helps you or not but it kept me hydrated, regular, and made me feel more full. *shrug*

8) Exercise. The no brainer. If you are able, get out and do something intense every week-day. Run, cycle, go to the gym, row. If you are like me and not willing/able/don't bloody have time/lazy, then try just walking every week-day. Walk around the block 3 times at lunch. Walk down your street to some landmark and back. If you're like I am NOW and virtually cloistered in your home then get some hand weights and do exercises. Set a certain time (at 10:30 when the kids go down for naps) and make yourself do X amount of reps of 10 different exercises.
The point is NOT to make you buff - the goal is to burn calories and build muscle which will burn calories for you.


I had two friends who just did the above things and otherwise ate normally and both lost 20lbs (their goals) easily. One girl said she felt so much better not eating fast food that she never at it again.

There's a full spectrum of obsession possible with this diet. You can just follow The Rules and otherwise not worry about stuff (as my friends did), or you can write down everything you eat and carefully plan when to take meals and drink your water (done it!). Adapt it to your own use. Just follow The Rules. If you start saying: "well, I'll just stop at Burger King and get a plain hamburger and a salad," then you're on a slippery slope (the burger has almost 300 calories and a plain salad with croutons and dressing ONLY has almost as much as the burger! If you're on a 1400 cal per day diet you just ate almost HALF of what you get for the DAY).

Tips:

1) Eat breakfast. Better yet, eat 5 or six small meals per day. I have done this diet eating only one meal per day (I'm not a breakfast person and it was just more convenient), but eventually my metabolism slows down to the point where I'm starving myself and still not losing weight. (You regular readers have had to listen to me whinge about this, lol.)

2) Avoid refined sugars and flours. Buy whole wheat bread and buns and pasta. Refined flour (as in white bread) converts straight into sugars in your digestive system. Whole grains are also just better for you, your digestion, and have more nutrients.

3) Eat more veg. No, not potatoes, and corn. They don't count, lol! Steam (or order steamed) broccoli, cauliflower, squash, carrots, etc. Eat 'em raw. Keep them plus celery and cukes in the fridge for munching. Get some light salad dressing, cut it with water, and dip 'em if you don't like them plain.
If you must eat corn and potatoes try to keep them as simple as possible: jacket potatoes with a squirt of no stick spray and a dash of fake butter powder sounds icky but doesn't taste half bad. Try your 'tater with that light, watered down, salad dressing I mentioned. Boil corn on the cob and eat with just salt rather than whipping up a corn casserole.

4) Go 'light'. Get light creamer; light salad dressing; lo-fat milk; light yoghurt, cottage cheese, sour cream, and cream cheese and so on. Ruthlessly trim every scrap of fat off of beef and pork, strip the skin off of chicken and fish, and remove all visible fat (from the chicken). Every little bit counts!

5) Avoid snacky/crackery foods. You've purged cookies and candy and crisps, what about crackers? Fiddle Faddle, chex mix, ritz bitz, cheezits, trail mixes, etc need to go as well. Full of fat, calories and refined everything. I also dumped nuts. They really are good for you, but they have TONNES of calories and are too easy to eat in passing.

6) Go easy on cheese. It's made from the fat of milk and has gobs of fat and calories. I just tried to avoid it altogether. I took it off my sandwiches and salads, for example.

7) Plan your eating. Don't just leave for work thinking: "Oh, I'll just pick something up for lunch." Pack a lovely turkey with mustard and lettuce sarnie and thermos of light chicken noodle soup. Pack yourself some raw carrots, celery, etc. Don't forget to check and see if your office has diet soda if you're going that route and artificial sweetener for the coffee!
Don't just wander into the grocery store and stroll around. Decide what you are looking for. Make a list - even if it's just suggestions. Don't shop hungry. Don't even go down the crisps/cookies/candy aisle!

So after all this you're asking: "So what the heck do you eat on this oh-so-fab diet, Blue?"

-Steamed veg
-Raw veg
-Broiled or baked fish, chicken, pork, or beef with every trace of fat and skin removed
-Whole wheat bread and crackers
-Raw fruit
-Microwaved jacket potatoes (butter powder, or fat free sour cream on)

So I might have a small potato, a broiled chicken breast, and steamed broccoli for supper.

I adapted my usual things, too. I still ate burgers made at home on my George Forman, but cut it back to one with about 10 oven baked chips, lost the cheese, lost the mayo, still pile on mustard, lettuce, pickles, and tomatoes.

I continued to make my beloved tuna salad sandwiches. I use 1 serving water-packed tuna (I'm the only one who eats 'em), 1 boiled egg, celery,dill cubes, and i replace the mayo with light ranch dressing. Warning; this is an acquired taste! All this on whole wheat bread, natch.

If you normally make a roast with oven-baked potatoes, broccoli and cheese, crusty bread with butter, then make a well-trimmed roast, leave the butter off the 'taters, separate your portion of broccoli out and eat with just salt and butter powder, and skip the bread or have a slice of whole wheat with no butter to soak up the juices. Easy peasy.

If you love tuna casserole, use light cheese, halve the amount of cheese, leave out any butter (I never used any), use whole wheat noodles and light cream soups.

You get the idea.

Bear in mind that some of my suggestions are for extreme weight loss. If you want to start slow or only have 20lbs to lose then eat your normal stuff ... just follow The Rules and The Tips.

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NOTE: This diet is much more difficult if you have a family. Especially if you are like me and cook their meals. It's tough. What I did was adapt all of my regular meals as much as i could without EGH noticing (half of the cheese, for example, or light soups and whole wheat pasta in recipes), then I will separate out certain things for myself (steamed broccoli before the cheesy sauce goes on), or cook his differently (I leave the skin on his broiled chicken), and so on.

The hardest part is saying "NO!" when offered food, candy, sweets, more helpings, etc. The holidays are really tough for some. I just adopt a slightly superior air when I repeatedly refuse food from married-into-the-family persons who are, I suspect, a bit jealous and hound me. *ahem* I just repeat to myself: "Put the fork down! Put the fork down!"

Eating after children is particularly tough for me. I cannot abide waste, as well you know, and it was affecting my waist. I would pick at each of my 5 children's plates without thinking as I conveyed them (the plates, lol) to the sink. Watch yourself. I used to stop for petrol and buy a candy bar and eat it without even realising I was doing so.

Anyone who can lose weight while cooking every day for folks who are NOT dieting is definately One Tough Mother.

I hope all this helps someone. I know it's a bit extreme (and I'm sure I'll attract some extreme comments) and I'd never publish it except it's worked so well for me twice.

Good luck!

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Fast food is defined as: burger joints (Mc Ds, Wendy's etc), chicken joints (KFC, Zaxby's,chick-fil-a), Italian including any pizza, Arby's, any chinese, etc. If it exists in drive through form, it's fast food. I do NOT count the sandwich chains like Sub Station II which rocks IMHO. You can get a good dinner of , say, a turkey half sub with mustard and vinegar, pickles, olives, peppers, lettuce, tomato (so no mayo or oil) on whole wheat.

*obligatory pimpage of my store although I'm seriously considering having a whole section on weight loss, for real. That would be cool!

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An appropriate post title this time!

LOL, I just realised that the title for the last post made no sense! I had started a post, then changed it, and never changed the title. Did you wonder where all the monologue-y stuff was? Or just figure I was being a spaz as usual?

I wanted to clarify something about my last post (aside from the apropos-of-nothing title); I am NOT opposed to organized play in any form. Not at all. I am opposed to it in the absence of unfettered running, jumping, kicking, climbing, colouring, pretending, reading, etc. (Many of you already echoed this sentiment in the comments.)

I have a problem with parents deciding to sign their kids up (esp. wee kids) for things because "everyone else's kid is in soccer", or "it'll teach him to be competitive", or "she'll love it after a while, you'll see! I loved dance!" then failing to see the signs of their child not really wanting to be there but doing to please them or because they think they have to.

If my kids want to play organised sports (later) that's cool. Play in the band? FAB idea! Take acting lessons? I won't stop 'em.

I even intend to insist that my children participate in certain things. How's that for parent initiated, lol? One is formal swimming lessons. I feel that that is a necessary skill.

I just object to the poor kids who are scheduled to death with too many activities and/or guilted (sometimes unintentionally) by their parents into competition at something. Parents fighting at t-ball fields? Kids who don't have time for homework because of schedule conflicts? Children as young as four with repetitive motion sports injuries? Kids who are stressed, eat poorly, and do badly in school because they spend so many hours on the road between activities and coming home late because of them?

No. Bad. Sorry. V. v. bad.

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Well, i am prepared to maybe, kinda, sort of, tentatively say that perhaps I might be losing weight again. I'm a bit mystified as to why. I tried eating (as you all said) and my weight didn;t budge one iota. So I went back to NOT eating but increased my water intake to five 20oz bottles per day of plain water (in addition to the approximately 23 Diet Cokes I drink per day and the occasional flavoured water). I also started some v. light weight training - seriously, I'm using 5lb hand weights and doing a TEENSY bit of upper body stuff. (I'm not strong enough to do more than a few sets of 10 reps.)

I hesitate to try floor exercises because, as funny as it seems afterward, it's almost impossible for me to get down on the floor - or, indeed, back up - with my knee. I can't physically bend it more than 90 degrees and I can't kneel on it. Ouchie! Makes me hurt to think about it.

At any rate I'm down 11lbs since the last plateau and now hovering here. Trying to think of what to do to jump-start myself again because I'm only 40lbs from my target weight (not to be confused with my goal weight (180lbs - the weight at which I look good) or my 'ideal' weight - the weight that all the books say I should be - a laughable 140lbs.

Sorry experts, I'm a big, strong type of girl with huge boobs. I look FAB at 180lbs. If that's 40lbs overweight then too effin' bad.

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Last thing, just a teensy wee geekgasm: did you check out my favicon next to the URL for my blog? How cool is that? Can you tell what it is?

It's a dumpster.

Aahahahahahahahahahahah!

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