So tonight is my "weigh in"

I'm not giving it much "weight" because I was just weighed on Sunday and your weight fluctuates with water and muscle building yada yada yada.  So if there is a loss...cool.  If its the same...okay.  If there's a gain...good to know I need to get on the bike more!

I was thinking of my mom today.  I think of her everyday, but today there was something specific that got into my head and I have to say it was brilliant!  So my mom had trouble cleaning as she went.  The house was messy, dusty, not swept nor mopped.  Every once in a while I would go over and just giver her house an enema.  To be honest it truly needed it!  It was just dirty.  It was such an ordeal that on such occasions we would find ourselves in major projects...we'd rip out the carpet and put tile.  Paint the walls because the opportunity to clean them had come and gone!  Reface the cabinets in the kitchen because painting them with that much grease piled just wasn't an option and there just isn't enough TSP for that.  When my mom passed I was cleaning out her closets and cupboards and I managed to put together two big plastic totes of cleaning solutions and chemicals from the store, the fair, as seen on TV and probably a door to door salesman or two.  Mom had it ALL.  A steam mop, a broom made of rubber that was "a magnet to pet hair", swiffer broom, mop and duster and duster extension for those spots you just can't reach.  Most of this stuff was brand new never been used still in the package.  I said to my sister "I think mom got this stuff thinking that it would magically come out of the closet at night and make the house clean."  My thought...she had good intentions.  She bought the stuff and subscribed to the concept she would clean her house...the only part missing was her doing it.  Just cause you buy the stuff doesn't make it so...there is a key component in there.  We have students at my college.  They pay for their classes, buy all the books and school supplies. Then they barely come to class and they don't do their homework.  They get put on academic probation.  They again pay for the classes, buy the books, the school supplies...even pay a tutor this time, the intent is there, or is it?  They again don't do the homework and rarely come to class.  They get barred from enrolling for a year.  One year later, money in hand they pay for their classes.  It is as if they come to the college, pay for the class and books they think they will magically learn and earn a degree.  The only thing missing...them doing it.

For me it's diets.  I've done curves, weight watchers (2), optifast (2), medifast, the zone, GI diet, carb-lovers, atkins, cambridge, herbalife and probably many more.  My mom actually sold herbalife!  She never lost an ounce on it but I think that is because she was like me.  If I buy the diet, subscribe to the thinking it will magically be so.  I will sit over here eating my loaf of bread watching the fat just fall from my body...but wait!  Why am I not losing weight...why am I gaining weight?  Why can't I maintain the weight?  Today I realized I depend too much on "the product"  Optifast forced that product...there is no passive way to do Optifast!  There is a passive way to "maintain" it and if you are passive you surely will not maintain.  The product you are left with after Optifast is you...period.  There is no other thing...no other diet.  I am in control of whether I weigh 150, 160, 170 or more pounds.  Weight Watchers doesn't do that and it doesn't work.  I work.  How I can use those other diets are as tools...like cleaning supplies.  Which one will work best for the job?  If none...I'll have to go it alone with good old elbow grease.  Weight Watchers is the closest thing to normal there is.  Balanced, normal food not at bunch of carbs, not no carbs, not weird calculations of sugar levels and how fast your body burns it, not four green bananas a day, not powder shakes for lunch and breakfast and are you kidding me who can have a sensible dinner after starving myself all day!?  Not building a design on my plate with measured food types only a physicist would understand.  What you do on Weight Watchers you decide.  I have lately chosen to eat lots of vegetables to the point I was taking pills to avoid gas!  Um, nib, why not just not eat so many vegetables you big nut!  Because I think I'm starving and vegetables in this "product" don't count...I can eat as many I want (not a good thing to tell a food addict ever).  I think I need MORE.  If I want to work out so I can eat more I will, but it would be dumb to work myself so much it hurts just so I can eat until...it hurts.
On Weight Watchers I can chose to do that, its not encouraged and it would not be wise.  I'm getting it.  It's taking a while, but I'm getting it.  What I'm learning is that all food should be treated in moderation, some foods more than ever.  For me there should never be a "forbidden food" I will rebel against myself to have it.  I should remember moderation though and in my case avoid some foods for only special occasions.  Kinda like funnel cake at the fair...when the fair leaves the funnel cake goes with it and I can have it again next year...Unless I find myself across from the log ride at Knotts Berry Farm!