minalisms

I went into a tailspin yesterday around 9 o’clock. This occurred after I recorded my dinner and found myself nearly 400 calories over budget for the day.

I will not type the vile reaction I had upon calculating my caloric intake — which, despite the expectation of grand failure earlier in the day, still upset me immeasurably — out of respect for my mom.

But you all are an imaginative bunch.

So, back to my tailspin: Three words: Girl Scout cookies.

Jesus Christ, they’re everywhere, like ants after heavy rainfall. And yesterday I was reminded that Ben and I each ordered two boxes months ago to support our co-workers’ kids.

Anyway, had I not adopted an “Eff the World” attitude last night, I could have easily resisted the Tagalongs, but because I had already failed, I indignantly mowed through a row of cookies, adding 300 more calories. And I hadn’t even exercised. Go ahead and do the math.

That was yesterday. Today I’m in a funk.

To be fair to myself, I have done remarkably well with my diet today — just 570 calories thus far, at 4:15 p.m. This success is likely related to aforementioned funk because a bad mood dulls my appetite. We’ll see how I do with dinner and exercise later on tonight.

But Week 1 has seriously driven home the principle of conscious eating. In other words, I could snack on a chocolate bar, but, unless I’m ignoring my diet, do I just want scraps for dinner?

In retrospect, I wouldn’t be surprised if I was consuming close to 2,500 calories for the past three years. Pair that with my ass perpetually on the couch and suddenly the 35 pounds of excess flab isn’t so mind-boggling.

Revelations are good. And, in this case, very bad too.

Until Monday…

So, life is poopy at the moment.

I prefer to believe that I’m overcompensating for my meal servings when I log them into my Lose It! application, but preferences aren’t what diets are about. Truth — bleak, mortifying, demoralizing truth — are what DIE(ts) are about.

Did I really consume 146 more calories than my daily allotment on Day 3? Do I really have only 377 calories to spare from now until dinnertime, which is still over three hours away? Did my exercise yesterday — which has made for stiff, uncooperative calves — count for nothing?

HOW IS THIS HAPPENING?

I don’t even want to get on a scale in a few days. I already know the extent of my progress, and really don’t need to be reminded of my weight.

Speaking of weight, and dieting and all things unholy, my lovely, absurdly hysterical friend Erin also started her diet early this week. I encourage you to follow her musings. Lucky for Erin, she has lost 7.2 pounds already and she’s only halfway through her seven-day challenge. Unlucky for her, her diet consists of lots and lots of … goop.

Aside from my 250-calorie Kashi dinner that had Ben exclaim, “Your food smells delicious!” my first day of relay training and DIE(t)ing made me want to, well, kill myself*.

A brownie that ravaged my stomach, a chicken ceasar wrap wrapped in a too-fatty tortilla, cookies — goodness me, cookies! — and little exercise: those are what big waistlines are made of. In fact, I exceeded my daily caloric limit by 291. My 1,636-calorie limit has been set based on the goal of losing a pound per week.

Cookies, I tell ya, are weapons of mass destruction. But because it’s impossible for me to cut them out of my life, I came up with a plan today that looks like this:

and… 

I will keep the baggie of chocolate-chip morsels in my desk drawer at work, the only place that requires such desperate measures because the drudgery I endure drives me to snack endlessly on crap. I hope this baggie does the trick.

Other than that, I did a little better than Day 1 in terms of physical activity and diet — I was 130 calories under my budget — but, folks, this regimen is kicking my arse.

*I’m joking, Mom. Please do not take your daughter’s melodramatic writings literally.

I am too angry with my scarf-n-barf cats today — landmines on carpet two days in a row! — so I will just leave you with a couple gems that helped me, for a minute, maybe two, forget about revolting hairballs:

Have you ever wondered if the $1 bills in your wallet or purse were once in a stripper’s butt crack?”
— Cousin No. 1219

I’m makin’ it rain on these hoes! And by “makin’ it rain,” I mean “spilling my coffee.” And by “these hoes,” I mean “my sweater.”
— Rayke, from Twitter

Somehow, my coworkers persuaded me to participate in the Go! St. Louis Marathon Relay with them.

I’ll be part of a four-person, matchy-matchy team that will run 26.2 miles altogether — 6.5 miles per person — on April 19.

Training begins Monday, and my boss, who is captain of my team, sent a peppy, “Yes, we can!” e-mail today offering a workout schedule that team members can execute at our company’s fitness center. All that did was annoy me.

“Does everyone have to be so serious about this?” I thought, realizing a nanosecond later that my posing the question is precisely why I haven’t been able to lose, and keep off, the excess pounds.