Week 17--Treat Your Holiday Calories Like Your Credit Card

[This article was first published as Treat Holiday Calories Like Your Credit Card on Technorati.]

Not only did I manage to wear my "skinny" jeans again this week proving to the naysayers that it wasn't all some fluke, I also managed to shed another pound this week.

And that, my dears, was no small feat since during my ornament exchange with two of my BFFs, I left with not just some cute ornaments but a wide array of chocolate. And not just any chocolate, no siree, Missy, but my favorite chocolate from Hotel Chocolate. If I could check into the Hotel Chocolate, I don't know that I would ever come back out again.


Now my other BFF, Jennifer, fancies herself a Godiva girl. She has one of those frequent buyer cards. The Godiva people always ask me if I want to join and get my own card, so I can get my free piece of chocolate for those times my friend opts not to share with me.

Really? If I signed up, I might as well just roll a cot into their store. I don't think I would ever leave. 

It's that self-control thing I constantly wrestle with.

I also learned this week that I am not alone in my stinkin' thinkin' about chocolate. You see, anytime I have Hotel Chocolate in my pantry, I start trying to ration it out, but then I rationalize that I'm going to eat it all anyway so does it really matter if I divide up the calories throughout the week or just inhale all gazillion calories at one time and get it over with. Hmmmmm?

I learned  my yoga pal, Becky, thinks the same way (and I thought I was alone).
But sadly, apparently it does matter. According to Judith J. Wurtman, we need to approach the holidays, "Like putting charges on your credit card, you can decide that you are able to 'afford' the calories at the party, feast or open house, or you can choose to stop eating because you have already consumed more than your caloric limit. But don't fool yourself that if you decide not to notice how much you are eating and drinking, your scale won't notice either."

I'm pretty sure eating all that chocolate at once puts me over my measly caloric limit just like I'm fairly certain shopping at Neiman Marcus or Barneys will max out my credit card.
Another website provided a bit more hope for those in the gorging camp. Although most health folks claim we gain anywhere between three and seven pounds over the holidays, one site says it's more like one pound. One. As in Uno. Kind of like the one pound I lost.

But I'm thinking they don't have a pantry with a wide assortment of Hotel Chocolate or a Godiva frequent buyer card or my yoga pal's big bag of M&Ms.

I think the pound I lost would be found along with quite a few of his friends.

Why I hate the French––Week 2: Frying in My Own Fat Weight Loss Challenge

[This article was first published as Frying in My Own Fat Week Two: Why I hate the French on Technorati.]

After my dinner out Friday night, you might as well make me the poster child for the big fat diet failure.  
 

Apparently, though, I'm not the only failure. According to a recent study and news reports, obesity is fast replacing tobacco "as the single most important preventable cause of chronic non-communicable diseases."

I'm not quite sure why everyone else keeps failing, but I'm blaming the French because my failure can be summed up in two little French words– Creme Brulee.

For those of you who didn't take high school or college French, Creme Brulee  roughly translates as "Fatty Fatty Two-by-Four." This dessert alone can single handedly be a diet saboteur, and even that word is French in its origins.

Need I say more about why I am no longer fond of the French?

So now I can only say that, according to the scale I keep hidden in my closet, I have only lost a grand total of two pounds since we got this party started two weeks ago. 

Before the creme brulee debacle, I was down another pound by midweek and hoping to whack off another 16 ounces by my weekly Monday weigh in, so I could report a two pound loss for the week. But according to my cyber fitness pal, if all my days were like my day Friday, I'd gain 10 pounds in five weeks and look like that lady at the restaurant spilling out of her zebra print dress.

OK, OK, OK so maybe my cyber pal didn't give me that visual.

You might as well poke my eye out with a stick of salted butter.

Except I'd probably eat it–all 810 calories.