Day 21, Phase 2:There should be a Krispy Kreme clause in the South Beach Diet.

Y'know, like, one may eat the last donut left in the box if the kids have gone off to school for the day and no one has claimed it. You don't want it to go to waste, now do you?

Rest assured, I didn't eat the donut.

But I was real close. Who knew a donut could represent such peril?

Day 19, Phase 2:Children make you fat (Part 2)

Jane let Sophie get a pastry from the supermarket today. A reward for being helpful while shopping as well as a Shabbat treat.

She ate it after dinner. Slowly. As she and I played Skip-Bo.

I have never known a greater hell.

Day 17, Phase 2:I've invented a new exercise.

It's called Trudging. It will become the latest fitness craze. Gyms across America will fill their studios with 3 feet of snow and charge 30 bucks a pop for members to suit up in 10-pound goose down parkas and perform aerobic routines.

The warm up -- led by a crusty plow operator named Walt who reaks of gas fumes, motor oil and b.o. -- will consist of simply making a path to your spot in the floor. Talk about resistance! No need for mats, as the snow will break your fall.

Then Trudge in place until your spot becomes an icy sludge that no amount of Gortex will protect your already numb feet from. If in fact you still have any sensation left in your lower extremities, you just might feel the burn!

Your cool down will be a feeble attempt at finding a traffic cone or lawn chair to claim your spot so that other people won't use it. But they will. Even though you spent all that time clearing it.

Advanced classes offer the same features, but with 30mph gusts of wind and sub-zero temperatures.

Your excess pounds will melt away.

Unlike the snow.

Day 16, Phase 2:Incredible shrinking woman.

In general, my wardrobe is a very sad colletion of faded and threadbare items that I've had for a year or more. Every week, I assemble these items into ensembles that I hope will be considered moderately presentable. Additions to the work-appropriate clothing category have been few and far between over the past six months, as our income has been meager. But I'm a professional now. And I just got some Christmas money. I just have to find the time to go shopping.

I had an unexpected infusion of work clothes last September. Among other things, I got myself a nice lavender blouse. I swear it fit me when I bought it. Wore it only once. Every time I tried it on over the next few months, I seemed to be popping out of it -- you know that thing that button-down shirts do when they're too small? The thing where you can see your bra in between the buttons? The thing that if you inhale while wearing it you run the risk of turning said buttons into high-velocity projectiles? Well, that's what it was like. Utterly unsuitable for wearing to the office (unless I wanted to find myself on the receiving end of what my former supervisor would call an "HR moment"). But I hung on to this blouse as well as the hope that it would fit me once again.

Lately, due to stains, rips, fading, pilling or other calamities that might befall one's garments, I've been running out of options. I'm also too lazy to iron my other nice things on most mornings. This morning was such a morning. So I took a chance. I pulled the lavender blouse out of the closet. I tried it on. And ...

[cue music]

...it FIT!

I would dare say it was roomy.

I strolled through the rest of my morning, triumphant in my lavender self.

Day 14/15, Phase 2:Blizzards are bad for diets.

You'd think with a blizzard raging outside I would make time to catch up on my blog. But no. I was too happy sitting by the fire, sipping cocoa (with REAL sugar! and GASP! MILK!), and watching TV. I was a lazy bum.

But the good news is that Jane and I have transitioned into Phase 2. I made an egg, cheese, and ham wrap this morning for breakfast. Carbs! Though I have to admit that for breakfast yesterday (Sunday), Jane made Eggs Benedict and you just can't have Eggs Benedict without some form of toasty, bread-type stuff. I also made a yogurt fruit smoothie to go with dinner last night -- so okay, maybe you can say that we started a day ahead of schedule. The weather inspired a desire for comfort foods.

Can you blame me?

Author's Note

Yeah, yeah, yeah -- I know I'm behind on posts. I've been very busy with a ton of other projects. I will update all the missing days this weekend!

Day 9, Phase 1:I feel boney.

I really feel an actual change in my appearance. I was in the shower this morning and felt bones that I no longer believed existed!

Days 6/7/8, Phase 1:Children make you fat (Part 1).

Let me play for you a moment from this weekend with the kids:

"What would you guys like for lunch?"

"Macaroni & cheese."

"We don't have macaroni and cheese."

"Cheese quesadilla?"

"Uh...don't have tortillas."

"Nachos?"

"No chips."

(Insert frowns, pouts, and puzzled stares here.)

So, Jane took Sophie out grocery shopping and returned with tortillas -- and Pringles. Sour Cream and Onion.

Sophie must have seen the desperate look in my eyes and hid them as quickly as possible.

I had just gotten over my strange obsession with Ritz crackers, and now this. But as I sopped up my drool, I realized something: I didn't grow up with Ritz crackers in my house. I certainly didn't grow up with Pringles. My brother and I begged for them but our pleading fell upon deaf ears. My mother absolutely refused to buy us these foods. I look back on it now and I'm grateful, but back then it was the worse kind of torture.

Picture me and my toe-headed brother in a drab, early-80's supermarket, limply walking alongside our mother's shopping cart, whining with all the shrill desperation our little bodies could muster:

"But why NOT?"

"Because I SAID SO!'

End of discussion.

So this whole category of food was forbidden -- including sugary cereals, "fruit snacks" and the like -- which of course just made these things even more desirable to our little ids. When we got older and had our own money or were away from home, we were finally able to indulge in these foods -- and I have to admit I felt a naughty thrill everytime I consumed them.

Like that one summer, when I was in Junior High, at the Exploration Summer Program. It was the first time I was living away from home (even if it was only for a couple of weeks) so my meals consisted of what I call the "Ice-Cream-and-Cap'n-Crunch Diet. I apparently had good reasons for this: 1) I was terribly picky about what was being served in the cafeteria, and 2) my mother wasn't around to tell me that I couldn't eat these things for every meal. Nary avegetable passed my lips for that period of my life. I felt liberated.

But other times, I felt sick to my stomach. In college, I ate an entire box of Froot Loops. Why? Because I could. The unpleasant sugar high I experienced was enough to put me off that crap for a while.

Ten years ago, I worked at a health food store, which is not the best place for a young woman given to bouts of paranoia and anxiety. I became terrified of eating anything that had an ingredient I couldn't pronounce. Thankfully, I got over that after a year or so. But some of what I experienced then remains with me today. Jane and I buy local, organic produce when we can get it. We select free-range, hormone-free meats and dairy. We eat well. On the whole, we are not a junk food family. I don't fit the profile of a typical overweight American. Yet here I am.

Despite everything I know, I still desire for junk food -- though I know that doing so is not only harmful to me but to the environment and our economy. I'm a weak woman. I crave that sensual flavor kick even though I posess the awareness that what I'm tasting has been carefully designed and bares only a scarce resemblance to it's natural antecedents. I have read about the evils of processed food in Fast Food Nation, and all that was accomplished in doing so was a stronger desire to eat a double cheeseburger with fries (watching Super Size Me unfortunately had the same effect).

What can I say? I'm a hedonistic sensualist. Screw the planet. It's all about me...

Well, wanting to get pregnant has certainly changed all that. I want to give the potential life inside me the healthiest home possible for nine months.

So now I'll be one of those parents (I'm already one of those step-parents) -- whenever the kids ask me for a candy bar or artificially flavored chippy-things, I respond with a firm "No."

But whyyyyyyyy...?

"Because I said so."

Day 5, Phase 1:So the deal with the scale is...

Jane and I have never owned a scale. Together, anyway. We've neither needed nor wanted one. But it became clear to me that this diet -- er, meal plan -- was going to require hardware. So I walked into the giant home goods retailer down the street from my office and bought the cheapest one I could find.

The plan is that every morning I step on our new scale and Jane makes note of my weight. I am forbidden to look. In theory, this is to prevent me from getting discouraged or becoming obsessed. I have coped with this by setting up a nifty Excel spreadsheet, complete with a very colorful line graph, which Jane will reveal to me at the end of Phase 1.

But because I needed some kind of baseline, I did note my weight when I first brought the scale home last Tuesday night. It was 166.

Now, I'm just shy of 5'2". According to the Body Mass Index (BMI) calculator, I fall into the obese category. This frightens me. Jane will say that the BMI means nothing, as there are so many other factors in determining one's healthy weight. According to the BMI, one can say that an exceptionally fit man would be considered overweight, and I'm inclined to agree with her. But let's face it, I am not an exceptionally fit man. I'm not even a marginally fit woman. I am an inveterate couch potato. I get little to no daily exercise. To be honest, while I enjoy the concept of exercise, I loathe any implication that I should do it myself. God bless all those active people and their Lycra, but that lifestyle is just not for me. I mean, I've had the same pair of sneakers for over five years and they have yet to show a trace of wear apart from your average dirt -- that's how rarely I've used them.

However, in an effort to change this, I asked for a pedometer for Christmas and got one. But I've only used it once thus far (note to self: don't go out for a brisk walk on a raw, drizzly night when recovering from a chest cold, for it will just give one the excuse not to walk until one "feels better" ... uh, *cough*).

Still, I have great plans for this gadget when the weather improves. There's a track down the street from our house and I fully intend to utilise it. I also look forward to the spring when I'll make my long-held fantasy a reality by buying a cheap commuter bike and riding it to work. And I'll feel the pounds just melt away...

But, knowing me, it probably won't be long before the bike is in the garage gathering dust.

Anyway, I think I've lost about 5 pounds already this week, and I suspect I'll lose five more before Phase 1 is done. I haven't noticed any outward changes in my body yet, though I do feel more "clear" internally. I'm not sure I can describe it any other way but that. Now that I've gotten past the worst, I just feel an unprecedented calm throughout my body.

And I like it.

Day 4, Phase 1:I actually had some cake today.

And it made me sick.

Day 3, Phase 1Kill me now.

One of my co-workers and fellow South Beach-ers (I am one of four people at my office attempting this regime) warned me that Day 3 is the worst. And I really hope that 's the case, because I don't hink I can get through two more weeks of this.

Since I began this noble experiment on Monday, I've been having an issue with shortness of breath. At first I thought that maybe it had to do with a latent tree nut allergy, as I've been snacking on almonds in the morning. I've never been much of a nut-lover actually--unless you count Jane -- so this is a new introduction into my normal diet.

So today I excluded almonds, hoping the issue would go away. Alas, it did not. In fact, it got worse. For a moment there, I thought I was in serious danger. I just couldn't catch my breath.

I take this episode to mean that my body is experiencing withdrawal.

Day 2, Phase 1:Gimme some sugar.

No, I mean it. GIVE ME SOME SUGAR!

Or a Ritz cracker. A Ritz cracker would be nice.

*Sigh* I bought a scale today.

Day 1, Phase 1:I close my eyes and see chocolate cake.

First, we are not calling this a diet. Diet is a very dirty word. Let's say we've adopted a new meal plan.

Because Jane and I don't believe in diets. Diets are for other people. Not us.

When I think of the word diet I think of people who don't need to lose weight believing they need to lose weight.

I am not one of these people.

These people use scientifically unsound methods. They deprive themselves, starve themselves. Have a poor body image. Obsess about medical reports on the news. Eat fake food. For vanity.

You see my problem. You see this idealogical roadblock. Here I am, 30-years-old and overweight. Sedentary. Still feeling momentary twinges from the ruptured ovarian cyst I had two months ago. Wanting very much to get pregnant within the year. And now I have a job in the health care industry, where I see daily the debilitating effects of obesity.

But I'm a snob. I consider myself too intelligent to fall for this nonsense. Yet I am embarking on what may be considered a fad diet. But...my doctor recommended it, so it must be okay.

Right?

There was much preparation to get to this point. We read the book (okay, Jane read the book). We've sketched out a menu. There is a plan.

Let me take this time to point out that Jane does not have to do this. She of all people does not need to lose weight. Loving wife that she is, Jane is joining me in an act of solidarity. And she is putting up with alot of crap. Chicken breast for instance. The woman absolutely hates chicken breast. And there is alot of chicken breast in this diet -- er, meal plan. She really loves me.

So the report on Day 1 begins with a very meager breakfast of a 2 oz serving of vegetable quiche and my normal cup of coffee (containing a scant amount of lactose-free milk and "raw" sugar -- there is just NO way I CANNOT be caffeinated in such a fashion). That lasted me approximately 20 minutes. So I had a 1 oz piece of cheese. Another 20 minutes. That was it. I was sunk until mid-morning, when I could have my 15 almonds.

My body rejected me. Mostly by holding my brain hostage. I clicked between Excel worksheets, lost. What was I doing again? Ah, yes, compiling very important data for a very important report that is needed by tomorrow. I ached for lunch. Chef's salad. Blessed protein! When the time came, I INHALED this salad like I've never had salad before. Those almonds did squat to tide me over! This salad, it was the king of salads. The only salad. The one true salad. The salad to end all salads.

The salad lasted me about an hour. But I held out until 2 o'clock for my snack of hummos and celery. Jane made the hummos and it was good. It brought joy to all the land. The fog began to lift, and by the time I left work I didn't feel the constant need for a fainting couch.

For dinner? You guessed it, chicken breast. And mashed cauliflower. Oh the excitement was just overwhelming. Jane already warned the kids that I was going to to be veeeery bitchy tonight, because not only was I feeling strung out for lack of calories, I got my period to boot. Which just invited them to be more obnoxious. Or maybe it was me. I sat at the dinner table feeling like I was nursing an ecstacy hangover -- wrecked, but somehow clearer than before. Though my body was crying out for calories, I have to admit there's been a bit of a pleasant, yet unsettling buzz going on. I just wanted everyone to SHUT THE FUCK UP. Thank you.

And by the way, I swear that today I peed ten times as much as before. Maybe I was drinking more water to fill the oral void, I don't know. Food for thought.

Cripes. Someone give me potato chip.

Nevermind -- then I'd have to pay Jane ten bucks.