Temptation Table

I attended a work luncheon today where they automatically serve you every course, including dessert. I was determined to tell the server NOT to give me any dessert because I had no intention of eating it.

The server thwarted me, however, by putting a big bowl of vanilla ice cream with chocolate syrup at my spot while I was out of my seat working. I never knew ice cream could be so offensive. I swear it just stared at me.

So, while I listened intently to the speaker (ho hum), I stared back at that bowl of ice cream. I hated to see it wasted; I debated just taking a few quick bites - bites taken quickly do not contain as many calories - but I did not. I let that ice cream melt. Score one for me.

The situation spurred me to invent the game Temptation Table.
This is how the game works:

All day long I am confronted with food and dessert - some of it very enticing - my objective - to win the game - is done by choosing only reasonable amounts of the healthiest foods and leaving the rest alone. Points are scored by using a scale. The game, however, lasts an entire lifetime, which makes it pretty lame. I suggest playing it several times a day and not thinking about it never ending.

Lose the game and stay (or get) fat. Win the game and be thin and healthy. Wa-la.

Patent pending ;)

The photo (www.guardian.co.uk) is an artistic rendering of Star Wars character Jaba the Hut. Jaba should not have eaten so much ice cream. I bet he's really sorry now.

Resolved

I'm resolved to lose weight this year. You might think I was resolved to lose weight last year when I started this blog, but that was just the warm up. The prelude to a diet. This is the real diet. Now that I'm used to the idea, I think I can really make some progress.

Over the holidays I made it a point to eat as many cookies and pastries and chocolate delicacies that I could handle so I am now (almost) completely sick of them.

I am, however, mostly sick of talking about diet and exercise, though, to be honest, (obviously) I've never actually done much of either. It's all that darn Thinking about diet and exercise that has me plain exhausted. I feel like I should have accomplished something.

But, here it is, friends, my most sincere attempt ever to Really and truly lose all of the extra pounds I'm lugging around.

If I don't lose any weight you can make fun of me forever. "Remember when Rene wrote that blog about losing weight and didn't lose ANY weight - for like TWO YEARS? What a loser."
I promise I will sit back and take it and not move to defend myself at all, except for in my next blog tentatively titled, "How Rene Hates Her Phony Friends."

Photo caption: This little cockroach is determined, just like me. It is also representative of how cute I feel lately.

Biggest Losers? Not so much.

It's not often you get to feel good about NOT losing weight, but every once in a while we are granted a little Christmas miracle, like the demise of the Biggest Losers club.

I recently blogged about joining my work place's "Biggest Loser" weight loss competition. I will make a long story (filled with tales of my overeating) short and just say I didn't win. A very deserving gal named "Louise" won. She went and got a new haircut with her $50 prize and she's lookin' pretty sassy lately.

The Biggest Losers club was started just two (ha! two!) months ago by a bunch of co-workers who wanted to exercise, eat healthier and - most importantly - lose weight. Each participant would donate $5 and the person who lost the most weight won the money.

They were so smug in the beginning. They all went out and joined a gym. They exercised together. They'd gather in the hallways and talked about all the exercise they were doing. They seemed so certain their success was just over the horizon.

I'd already been trying to lose weight, oh for 20-some years, and have been failing miserably. I knew it was next to impossible. They had yet to learn.

I admit, I secretly scoffed at them. They actually thought that moderate amounts of diet and exercise were going to get them results? These people aren't teenagers. Ha! What were they thinking?

So, after two months, pools of sweat, massive sugar deprivation and a long, cold, demoralizing shower, the Biggest Loser club has come to its end. (I'm skipping around my desk right now singing, "I told you so, I told you so!")

The weight-loss wasn't as easy as they had anticipated. They blamed the holidays. So do I, every year.

They said they're going to pick up again after the new year. It will be a New Year's resolution of sorts ... and we all know how those end up. He he. I wish them all the best. ;)

Photo caption: Dancing Santa is laughing with them, not at them.

Honest A?

Is honesty always the best policy?

The other day I was chatting with my "friend" about how difficult it is to lose weight. I was babbling on about how often I exercise, how many times a day I forgo much of the food I would like to eat, blah, blah, blah.

"Just think about how fat you would be if you didn't all of those things," she said. "It could be worse."

Read: My ass could be as wide as the Great Wall of China right now.

So, while the whole weight loss bit isn't paying off in smaller clothing sizes - yet (WhyGodwhy??) I'm taking comfort in my regular level of fatness.

It could be worse, much worse.

Hallodaze

I stare at the bowl of Halloween candy 87 times a day. It’s almost empty. You and I both know who ate the candy. Let’s not pretend. Let’s not talk about it either.

I’m glad the bowl is almost empty, so I won’t have to worry about it anymore. My candy eating has become so robotic I don't even realize I'm doing it. Reach into bowl, unwrap, imbibe. Yum. Repeat.

Now, I have to learn how to kick this sweet addiction.

Then I look at the calendar, it’s almost Thanksgiving.

Sigh.

I love pumpkin pie. I have promised myself to only eat one piece – at a time. Today I had a conversation about pumpkin pie and if you overheard it you'd think I was talking about a lover.
That may not, however, be the worst of my problems. After Thanksgiving everyone really starts baking.

Sigh.

Why would anyone even want to try and resist baked goods? Yum. What's so great about being skinny anyway? I'll never know.

Once the holidays are over it will be a new year and time for another resolution.

I already know what mine is: Learn to love being PHAT.

Sigh.

Fat Farm

I feel like I live on a fat farm.

I joined the Heritage Biggest Loser weight loss group at work. It's a bunch of people trying to lose weight and win $50. I'm only in it for the $50.

The person who loses the most weight wins. Simple. Impossible. I can't even lose the most weight when I'm the only person in the contest.

There are a lot of people around the office now paying attention to what the others are doing and eating. I'm glad it's not just me anymore - both paying attention to others and having attention paid to me because of this blog.

The group also helps with some of the conversations.

Before they started, every time anyone had anything to say about diets, exercise, food, being fat, being skinny, writing a blog, trying to lose weight, gain weight, walking on the moon, cooking tacos, or speaking Chinese they would come to me. Now they have other people to bounce off of. Hell, they should bounce off of each other, all that extra fat has to be good for something.

The weigh-in was on Monday and on that day I did not eat the MnMs when I wanted to - being in the group helped me all 22 times I reached for that candy. Since Tuesday I haven't cared as much. I've eaten a mini Milky Way and the MnMs.

I wonder if they'll give me back the $5 I paid to join if I get out before Friday? There's no way I'm going to win, or lose (weight).

Love to Hate Her: Denise Austin

I hate her; I do, but I have to admit, she may be my only salvation.
Months of trotting my largess around parks and on my treadmill have amounted to virtual squat, but just over a week of Denise Austin's kickass exercise death match and I've lost 10 pounds.

Yes, I said 10 pounds.

Every time I look down at my bulging stomach I am shocked that it is actually bulging less. I have LESS of a bulge! There is hope left in this world yet.

Just to make sure my eyes aren't deceiving me I grab a hold of the offending blubber and heft it to see if my hands can make me understand what my eyes can't believe. It's shrinking :) :) :) !!

Getting here has not been pretty and more ugliness must ensue. MUCH more ugliness.

I only do the videos in my basement, because, God Forbid, one of my neighbors were to catch site of my hulking form flopping around like a sopping wet whale out of water. I wouldn't want to make them have to move out of town, or worse - attend therapy.

So while I struggle to breathe and heave my laden thighs just one more time - Come on, you can do it! - onto that step, I hate her, but I have to love her too. She's like the mother-in-law you'll never be good enough for, but you keep trying so damn hard anyway.

I admit, I don't do half of the exercises. "I'm not even trying that," I frequently think while jogging in place and fighting for air as I watch her skinny, fit butt prance around, but one day I just might get there.

So, though it pains me to do it, I leave you with an Austinism: "Strong bodies strong minds, because you are worth it."

I may have to start muting the TV.