I'm Back... sort of

The holidays are usually pretty tough for people who are trying to watch their weight. In fact, most people I know end up throwing their hands in the air after the third Christmas party they attend and just start hoping that they won't gain more than about 5 lbs by the first Monday after New Year's Day.

You know, that should be a holiday. We could call it "resolution day" because nobody actually starts trying to lose weight/get in shape until after they start work again, anyway. The logic rationalization goes like this:

Thanksgiving, 10:00 AM: "I'm only going to have one small plate of food, and most of that will be raw vegetables. I have willpower!"
Thanksgiving, 5:00 PM: "Pecan pie is OK. Look at all the protein from the nuts!"
Day-after-Thanksgiving, 12:00 PM: "I'm exhausted from standing in line at Best Buy all day. I'm sure my glycogen stores are pretty much wiped out. I wonder if we have any more chocolate mousse pie?"
December 15, after Christmas party #3: "Screw it. Maybe I just won't gain any more weight."
December 26, after standing on scale: "Honey, I think we need new batteries. This can't be right. Why does it say I gained 15 lbs this week?"
December 31: "Okay, this is my last hurrah! No more onion dip! EVER!"
January 1 (Thursday): "I heard that pretzels are good for hangovers. I can't do this yet. Besides, who starts a diet on Thursday? Sunday morning, it's on."

The strange thing is that it sort-of-almost worked for me this year. Actually, I can't really claim any impressive stores of willpower. Any weight that I've lost since my last entry has pretty much been beyond my control. We had a family reunion over Christmas, and stayed with my in-laws for nearly two weeks.

Now, before I go any further, let me make this caveat, and let me make it clear that I am not saying this just because I can't sleep on the couch. This is the honest truth: I really like MB's family. My sister-in-law (who we stayed with) was such a gracious host that as MB and I pulled into our driveway, we looked around and honestly felt like it was not our home. So, Sarah did a great job, as did MB's mom. If you are reading this, I really thank you sincerely.

Here's the problem, though. I don't like being a house guest. I always feel like I'm imposing, so I don't let people know what I really want, even though I know they would give it to me instantly. But since I don't let them know what I want, I never get what I want, so I end up feeling sort of mildly irritated. I know it's my fault, and I'm trying to deal with it. Two cases in point (that relate to this blog perfectly): Breakfast and lunch.

Like many (if not most) Americans, breakfast with my in-laws was usually cold cereal. This was a problem for me for two reasons. First, I was still trying to at least pretend that I was on South Beach, so cold cereal should have been pretty much out -- even for phase 3. Second, I'm not that big of a cold cereal fan to begin with. So on about 7 of the 10 days we were in MD, I skipped breakfast altogether.

Lunch entailed a different problem altogether. Lunchtime was usually spent not at my sister-in-law's house, but at my mother-in-law's. Not a big deal, you think? This is the part where I point out that for many of those days, there were no fewer than 34 people at said house. If you didn't move fast, everything would be gone before you even realized that anyone was even hungry. Translation: Get in there and throw some elbows, or you get cold cereal for lunch, too. If you're lucky.

So for the majority of my vacation, I only ate dinner and a few snacks. (Dinner could be sparse as well, with 34 people. But it always tasted great! Thanks, Mom!) The days I ventured into the District I made up in calories for the days I lost, though, so at the end of the trip I came away with no gain or loss, according to Sara's scale. (I don't know how it compares with my own, so all I can measure is the difference in the time I was there.)

Then came Sunday.

On Sunday, I woke up with some sort of stomach flu. I won't go into the details, but by the time I weighed in yesterday, I had managed to lose 2.2 lbs since 12/19, coming in at 249.8.
Now, before any of you decide to go drinking from cesspools, hoping to contract amoebic dysentery, let me mention that illness is NOT a good way to lose weight. Today I was up .9 lbs, most of which I attribute to the fact that once my appetite came back, it came back with a vengeance. I've eaten quite a few things today that I shouldn't have (to include my late-night snack of a very large bowl of Chocolate Chex, and two granola bars). Besides that, I still feel a bit off. So, hopefully my digestive tract will come back online in the next couple of days, and I'll be able to get back to business.
Until then, though, I'm sure we still have a bit of pie in the fridge...