It all comes down to this

D's comment on yesterday's post ended with this: "I guess we know better, but it is so hard to do better."

And that pretty much says it all. But you know me, I'll say more anyway.

Yesterday was another starting-over Monday at Chez Diets-a-Lot. Since my BlackBerry is in my pocket all the time anyway, I decided to use a calorie-tracking app to record my intake. Lord knows there's been no expenditure of calories around here lately.

I ate 1193 calories yesterday, including two Tootsie Pops. I could have spent that 120 calories much more wisely, I'm sure, but I'm not one to waste food (are Tootsie Pops food?). Like a squirrel preparing for the winter, I have a month's supply of them in the cupboard. Savoring one mid-afternoon is still kind of comforting.

And maybe this is the secret. If I allow room for something that was formerly forbidden when I was trying to lose weight, maybe the whole plan won't come off the rails a couple weeks from now.

Although, seriously, while I wasn't tracking calories this year I also wasn't eating out of control, especially when the garden was producing. (I still have tomatoes, albeit tiny ones. Perfect for topping angel hair pasta, garnished with fresh basil and a whisper of Parmesan. That's tonight's dinner, along with some grilled chicken. 370 calories, approximately.) I was eating reasonable portions of healthful food and hoping it would result in weight loss. And it did, just not as much weight lost as I hoped for.

But I don't want to go backward. I gained two pounds over the past two and a half weeks. Isn't it amazing how weight comes back so much faster than it goes away? It'll be Thanksgiving before I'm back to where I was at the end of August. Sometimes I wish I had a different job, this losing/gaining/losing weight is getting old.