south beach wk 2

The end of the second week of South Beach came a little sooner than expected. On the calendar it read something along the lines of "Tuesday." In reality, it happened along the lines of, "Now, goddammit. Now now now now now." That was on Saturday.

I am not, I think, meant to be on restrictive diets -- or, in fact, any kind of diet at all. Being defied infuriates me; rather than taking it as a personal challenge to excel within narrow perimeters, I instantly develop paranoid fetishes about what is being withheld from me, as though that Hostess Twinkie, on the top shelf of the unreachable cupboard, is in some way better than this Hostess Twinkie, currently being experimented on in the microwave. My masterful mother, who in all other ways has the infallibility of a particularly insufferable diety, misunderstood her children -- and, I daresay, her husband -- in that one respect. During our childhood, convinced that hiding her chocolates would in some way thwart our greed, she squirreled them away somewhere she fondly believed to be safe and secure. Tightly locked freezers. High shelves. That sort of thing. Later, she would return to gloat over her booty, only to find the boxes emptied of all but the little paper cups.

Confronted with the evidence, the three of us would invariably maintain that mice must have gotten at the candies, curiously unmoved by the thought that, by our logic, six-foot tall, voracious rodents with opposable thumbs and the ability to use keys on locks remained at large somewhere in the house. It never occurred to Mom that the very act of hiding the chocolates made them attractive; faced with a box of candy in the straightforward, accessible tray of the pantry shelf, the rest of the family would have rapidly lost interest and moved on to other, more exciting adventures, like gluing skis on the guinea pig and building jumps on the roof.

That said, it became painfully obvious during the second week of the South Beach diet that this is not, after all, the diet for me. Despite not actually wanting carbohydrates, I nonetheless began to sneak them into my diet anyway, simply because I wasn't supposed to. I've come to the conclusion that if I was put in a room with a button reading "Don't Push," I'd inevitably push it, just to see what would happen next.

My total weight loss: 4 pounds. The Guy's weight loss: none. And he didn't cheat.

"You shouldn't think of it as a diet," he said. "You should think of it as a lifestyle change."

"Fuck this diet," I said, "and fuck this lifestyle."

Note to self: stop swearing so much.

My diet diary...

Continuation of Phase 1: elimination (or restriction, anyway) of carbohydrates from the diet. Discovered during week 1 that I hate meat and I hate vegetables. However, am eating a lot more of both. On the other hand, find I am eating less in general, so it all seems to balance out.

First week was notable for heavy consumption of cheese. Wonder if it would be a good idea not to tell my cardiologist about this? Although it was all white cheese, mostly....

March 16, 2004

Breakfast: handful of cashews, lots of water.
Mid-morning snack: None. Not hungry.
Lunch: tuna salad plate and water.
Mid-afternoon snack: more cashews, more water.
Dinner: Grilled salmon steaks under light sour cream/mayonnaise/caper sauce, steamed bok-choy with soy sauce.

Most notable today is an extreme lack of hunger. At the beginning of last week, I was ready to eat anything, provided it stayed still long enough to be conveyed to my mouth. Today, I've got utter indifference on my side. I wouldn't have eaten lunch if it weren't for the fact that I'm not sure what's for dinner. (I'll have to figure something out, I guess.)

The Guy has given up craving carbohydrates. Meanwhile, sheer impatience with my limited dietary choices has made me want to break loose a dozen times today and eat a cheerio. I haven't, but it doesn't help that I hoard cereals. Three big boxes of them, sitting at my desk. Haven't dipped into them yet, but suspect it's just a matter of time.

Book club tomorrow. Won't have choice in what to eat, so will plunge in, apologize to diet gods, and punish myself later with celery sticks or something.

Mm. Grilled salmon. It's so good. Pity it's going to give me mercury poisoning.

March 17, 2004

Breakfast: Cashews and lots of water.
Mid-morning snack: None.
Lunch: Tuna salad plate.
Mid-afternoon snack: Gum. I swallowed it by accident, damn you.
Dinner: Vegetable upside-down cake (from The Elegant Broccoli), grilled vegetables in olive oil.
Dessert: Lemon cake.

Book club day, so dinner and dessert are out of my hands. Ah, variety -- and delicious variety. The hostess of book club made an incredible dish out of the Enchanted Broccoli Forest, some cookbook written by the same people who did the Moosewood Cookbook. Odd names for books. Who am I to judge, never having published one? (Note to self: if I do write a book, Foo-Foo Funky Bunny Wiggles would be a good title.) First thing I did when I went home was write down the names of the books. Now they're both on my Amazon wish list. (Note to self: add link in shameless plug, later.) (Second note to self: Done.)

Worried consumption of carbs at dinner and dessert will result in renewed cravings. Find that I don't care. Ate a lot at dinner, though; it's true that carbs, while good, don't really make you feel as full as protein does. Probably a damn good reason for that. Don't care about that, either.

All in all, diet's going well. Odd side effect: strange dreams. Had a bizarre one last night. Dreamt I was at my clinic in New Jersey, except it had somehow relocated itself to New York. For a medical facility, it was crawling with opinionated parrots, who kept climbing up and down my legs and offering me absolutely unwanted advice. Confused the doctors, who kept trying to pick up the parrots and use them as styluses for their touchpad laptops. Parrots got irritated. Then the damn birds found a giant slug in another room that they started to eat, which was rather hard on the slug, except part of it broke off and turned out to be a caterpillar, which promptly oozed its way to a bench and became the world's largest chrysalis. Dream also featured my sister and lots and lots of maggots. Woke up still trying to scrape them off my hand.

Decided it was definitely a work dream. Parrots probably company executives. Slug probably software product. Maggots probably . . . change my mind. Maggots probably company executives. Parrots probably my coworkers. Don't know what my sister was doing there, except she's supposed to come home tomorrow. Wonder what tonight's dream is going to involve.

March 18, 2004

Breakfast: Laughing Cow cheese.
Mid-morning snack: cashews.
Lunch: Tuna salad plate. (Hate tuna salad.)
Mid-afternoon snack: nothing.
Dinner: Chicken melt (grilled chicken, avocado, cheese, onion)

Carbs had result after all. Tossed and turned all night with too much energy; had dream I was trying to eat spaghetti, which for some reason was a tortuous experience. Couldn't get the damn noodles on my fork. Woke up exhausted and sore. Might have been gnawing on my barley pillow. Odd taste in mouth, but pillow looks healthy.

Barley is carbs. Bad. Bad.

Sako's back in town. Picked her up at the airport. She was hungry, and is now sitting next to me while I type this. She's eating a massive bowl of kimchee ramen. I'm considering hating her.

Requires too much effort. Will gnaw on this pen instead, and wonder if wedding invitations count as carbs.

Felt extremely thin and sexy today. Also felt peculiarly blond. Has something to do, I suspect, with my relative blindness today; had eye doctor appointment to get contacts, and he had me try on a pair (for fit only) that had a slightly stronger prescription than I needed. Had 20/15 vision for the first time in my life. Took 'em off -- he said he'd order the correct prescription -- but was left feeling disoriented and, yes, blond for the rest of the day, as though being unable to see clearly somehow divested me of the responsibility of caring what people around me thought. Can't see you, you can't see me. Something very comforting about that attitude, should do this more often. Said stunningly idiotic things all day, and caught myself headbanging to the noises coming from the highway behind the building.

Want to be blond. Why couldn't I have been born a blond? Being born Japanese is just close enough to tempt me, and just far enough to be frustrating.

Bother.

March 19, 2004

Breakfast: forgot. Busy doing the kill Purple Monkey dance at work.
Lunch: Chinese food with coworkers I can stand! --Braised mushrooms, hot and sour soup, avoided rice (well, okay, maybe a mouthful.)
Dinner: Pork chops, sauerkraut, steamed and pounded cauliflower.

The Guy is getting to use his grill a lot, which is good. We love that grill. He loves it with an incestuous, slobbering love. I love it like I love any kitchen appliance: with distant courtesy, a vague suspicion, and a show of intimate friendship in public.

The Guy is also enamoured of the cauliflower dish, which is still surprisingly good. One benefit of this diet is the brand new recipe, and a closer acquaintance with cashews and Laughing Cow cheese, which is not Swiss, no matter what they say on the package. Pretty sure damn things are packaged in China. No longer considering weight loss a benefit. Suspect that all the weight is being lost in my breasts, as rapidly starting to be able to see the shadow of my nose cast on the floor when I look down. Since my face isn't really three-dimensional, that shouldn't be happening.

Lunch consisted of Chinese food. Well, can't have Chinese food without rice, can one? Fortunately, we went out. Can't understand why the Chinese food the Purple Monkeys order when doing company dinners and lunches is so bad, considering a good 99% of the employees (excluding the token white and Japanese people) are Chinese.

Can't believe I asked that. Of course I know why: Purple Monkeys are cheap, and want to spend less than $1 per person on food. Quality not an object. Think they order their Japanese food from the same place. In fact, positive of it, since both restaurants are named exactly the same thing, and are located in exactly the same street address. Japanese food you have to order in Chinese from a restaurant called Suzy's Wok for less than $2 a person is not good Japanese food.

March 20, 2004

Breakfast: none.
Lunch: Chicken salad sandwich with light Italian dressing. Half a pickle.
Mid-afternoon snack: Cheese party! Cheating galore.
Dinner: Sashimi, edamame, chilled tofu, karaage.

Cheese party, thrown by book club member. Much cheese and cheese-related dishes: cheesecake, cheese, cheese tarts, cream cheese fruit pizza, etc. Can't have cheese without something to spread it on. Ugly place for diet. Good place for me. Screw this diet. Wanted sushi for dinner, complete with rice. Coaxed the Guy. Tempted him. Waggled the prospect of eating actual good food for a change.

....bastard refused to cheat. Went to Japanese restaurant -- decent Japanese restaurant not named Suzy's Wok -- in Mountain View called Masa's. He vetoed all my suggestions. Had a protein dinner. Bastard! Don't see why have to not cheat, when I've already had lots of bread in the afternoon. Had to spread the cheese on something, didn't I?

Love cheese. Found lovely white cheese at party; must get more of it. Should ask book club member what it was called. Cardiologist won't mind. It was white. White cheese is good. She said so.

Wonder what makes cheese yellow? Wonder if it's food dye. Wonder if there's white food dye out there somewhere. Wonder if I could make some. Radishes are white.

March 21, 2004

Breakfast: scrambled egg-beaters, mushroom, onion, ham scramble.
Lunch: nuts.
Dinner: Steak, steamed broccoli.

Bugger. Non-cheating day. Had to. Spent entire day with the Guy, and he kept watching everything that went into my mouth. Not sure I want to marry him after all. He's mean. Also, he's protein-based. Think I want someone who's not already on my diet.

March 22, 2004

Breakfast: no time! no time!
Lunch: meetings!
Mid-afternoon snack: fuck this.
Dinner: Curry. And Brown Rice.

Don't think this is a diet that's going to work for me.

Sako and Tara and I went shopping. Got makeup and bridal underclothing for me. Got bridesmaid dresses for them -- damn, they look good. Better than I will in my wedding dress. Fuck the South Beach diet. One of these chocolate croissants would be right up my alley.