skinny ink

from the blog: http://candimandi.typepad.com/

2.5 more pounds OFF of my body!!!  I celebrated last night with a glass of wine (don't tell Arthur Agatston, M.D.).  That's a grand total of seven pounds lost in the first week of dieting.  Cravings are still in check and I've decided that at the end of this long road, I'm going to reward myself with a tattoo, on my arm, my least favorite part of my body.  The above-image is a personal favorite.

Very little to report, other than that.  I've almost finished The Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan, which was the perfect reading pair with my dieting.  I started the book not only as a dieting aid, but also as a brainstorming aid.  Come the spring, I have to write a 60 page history thesis on a topic of my choice, and so far I can only narrow the topic down to "food."  60 pages is a lot, but I don't know if I could fit the entire food industry into it, at 12 point font, double spaced.  A few years back, I wrote a miniscule 12 pages on a group of individuals from the 19th century who started a vegetarian commune in the middle of Kansas.  Their philosophies were part of a larger food movement at the time, based on temperance, vegetarianism and a dangerous dose of optimism.  Individuals like Bronson Alcott and Sylvester Graham (father of the graham cracker, which he believed would be the main nourishment of the future) led this movement straight into the ground; losing family members and dreams in the failure.  I would like to fill that story out, maybe researching vegetarianism in a larger context--its philosophies, its successes as a movement, as well as its failures, and relate it to modern vegetarianism led by men like Peter Singer and the canon.  Maybe...

Sidebar: Coop just awoke, my loveable six-foot zombie.  He can barely form words fresh out of bed.  It's just the cutest.

Kelly becomes her mother.

South Beach diet, week 2.  I always thought that only boring adults did diets that come from a book, but here I am--I've lost four pounds in a week, which is four pounds more than I was losing on my own "Eat nothing and like it" diet, therefore Arthur Agatston, M.D. is my new best friend and his diet book is my Bible.  So thanks, Mom, for lending me the book... I'm beginning to wonder if I'm 22 or 52.

It hasn't been pleasant.  The carbs I'm not struggling with, it's the lack of sugar, namely fruits that's killing me.  I have a lone orange chilling in a fridge full of chicken, salmon and leafy vegetables and it keeps tempting me with its sunny disposition and sugary innards.  But I will stay strong until the end of this horrible Phase I.  My boyfriend joined in on the diet fun--I can't tell if it's for his own health or my own.  But it's sweet, and so comforting to have my favorite partner with me through all this.

Phase I will end the day before my birthday, which seems like the perfect day to splurge and reward myself for (hopefully) losing the customary 10 pounds.  If I do not lose those promised pounds, Arthur Agatston, M.D. will be on my shit list and his book will be banned from my household.  Let's just hope it doesn't come to that.  I'm getting a new dress for the occasion, and I'm crossing my fingers I can squeeze everything into a medium, especially the girls, which have been the most difficult to deal with.  I'll be ever so slightly sad to see them go back to 34 B where they belong.  Coop's sadness over the situation is more pronounced.

Laterrrrr