I Am That Woman

When I started out on this diet, it was in secret. Thus the blog title, which I still like, even though it's not a secret any more.

That lasted for maybe three weeks before I had one of those moments of triumph that I just had to share with someone... So in strictest confidence, I told my friend Karen. And like opening a floodgate in a dam, I found myself running for her whenever I had something I wanted to say about the diet, good or bad.

I remember one such observation very clearly. I don't remember how the subject came up, but I confessed to her that one of the things that terrified me about losing weight -- and subsequently, losing points -- was that I'd have to deprive myself on a daily basis in order to maintain a "healthy" body. I brought up my mother-in-law as an example, because the last time she'd visited us (which had been about a month before I started the diet) I had watched her have a breakfast of black coffee and a lunch consisting of a single 4-oz cup of (light!) yogurt, and an admittedly normal-to-large dinner... But it terrified me. Was I going to be confined to snacks for my meals, or else sacrifice two meals to get one decent one?

She came to town last week for a visit. (She comes every year for a few days, somewhere in the vicinity of my daughter's birthday.) I don't know what she ate for breakfast and lunch, because this year her visit was during the work week, so I wasn't around. But she was very complimentary of the meals I cooked, which was nice.

We hadn't planned ahead, though, and I wasn't sure if she would suggest, one day, that we go out to eat. So to be on the safe side and make sure I had the points for it, I cut back on my breakfast and lunch. (I don't mind doing that occasionally -- it was the notion of having to do it daily that freaked me out.) I had a 6-oz cup of light yogurt for breakfast, and a can of light soup that worked out to 1 point, along with about half a point's worth of tomatoes and cucumbers with a little balsamic vinegar for lunch. Three and a half points, total.

The breakfast -- the yogurt cup -- was... surprisingly satisfying. I'd expected to be hungry all morning, but I wasn't. I wasn't full, by any stretch, but I wasn't clutching my stomach and watching the clock for the earliest possible moment I could eat lunch, either.

(My weight actually popped up a tiny bit, the next day, because it turned out that we didn't go out to eat after all, and I ended up eating a huge snack before bed to make up some of the extra points. Oddly, I didn't panic at the minor increase. I knew where it had come from, and I knew it would go away in a day or so. And it did.)

I did it again, over the weekend, when I knew I had a heavy lunch planned on Saturday. Same result: No gnawing hunger.

Tuesdays and Thursdays are usually my yogurt-and-oatmeal breakfasts. Monday night, as I was packing my stuff for Tuesday, I looked at my yogurt cup, and wondered: should I drop the oatmeal for good? Just a yogurt? Am I that woman, now, inconceivable as the notion was less than a year ago? I packed the oatmeal anyway, and told myself I'd hold off on it. If I got hungry, I wouldn't deprive myself -- I'd have it as a late-morning snack.

I ate the yogurt (and learned that I like Yoplait's key lime pie yogurt better than Breyer's) and went on to my work. It was even a slow morning, work-wise, which tends to lead me into trouble with the diet.

I didn't get hungry.

My 11:00 meeting was canceled, so I took care of a few minor things, then changed and went to the gym a bit early. I got back to my office a little after 1:00, hungry but not famished, pretty much like I always feel after a lunchtime trip to the gym. I ate my lunch and went on to have a normal day, diet-wise. Skipping the oatmeal even let me have a little dessert after dinner.

Apparently, I am that woman.

I'm not entirely sure how I feel about it. Part of me feels proud and excited that I've come so far and changed so much. But part of me wants to cling to the terror: just a yogurt? How is that possibly enough food to keep me going for four hours? I can't tell if that part of me has a valid point, or if it's just a remnant of the 3X me. Am I going crazy, or going sane?

Whatever. Despite the late-night snacking and the big lunch and everything... I lost 1.2 pounds this week, putting me at 193.4 -- that's 79.6 pounds lost, total.