My Big Fat Extended Family

I had a great weekend, and I was looking forward to it for months, so the fact that it lived up to the hype is all the better for me. For a family that has had its ups and downs, a weekend like this always makes me grateful that we survived the harder times.

This was my last blowout weekend with food. Saturday was the family reunion, tonight was Chinese Buffet, and while I am sure that I exceeded my 1500 calorie goal for when I start my diet, I certainly did not eat like I used to. Two hot dogs, some dip, some salads, and a lot of beer for Saturday, while today I had a lot of General Tzo and Sweet and Sour Chicken. I will miss Chinese when I start my diet.

Speaking of the diet, I have begun to narrow down my drinking options. Beer is out, as much as I enjoy it, it has to go, what a waste of calories, and all those carbs….but I am thinking that for nights when I want to have beer, I can make a shandy. A shandy is an English drink, half beer, half Ginger Ale, and it is all good. SO, if I use diet ginger Ale, I can cut the carbs and half. SO that is an option. There is always red wine, and mixing liquor with diet soda. Ideally I should give up drinking for this diet, and while I do not drink all too often, I don’t really want to give it up, so for now I will be working on ways to improvise.

Meanwhile I find it a bit ironic that Nestle is going to buy Jenny Craig. Maybe this is the next wave of the diet wars, all the junk food buys out all the diet plans and shuts them down.

Fortunately Fattle is not for sale, and while I would welcome any type of sponsor or donation, ultimately I am going to do this how I want to do this, and that I believe is the key to any diet. You have to want to do it, it does not matter what you read in a book, or on the back of some meal you stick in the microwave. Your diet starts and ends with you.

This week should be fun, I will start to formulate the first few days of the diet, and work on developing an exercise plan with my friend Chris and my brother Eric. In the meantime, I have a long drive back to Boston tomorrow, so off to bed.