And the winner is …

Denise! Who doesn't have a blog! Denise, you know who you are, please send me your address, either through Facebook or directly to me at shrinkingknitter AT gmail DOT com, and I'll get your book out to you ASAP.

That was fun, it lightened my load and, I hope, blessed everyone who won a book. We'll do this again sometime. I like how this giveaway ended on the last day of the month, leading up to the second-best day of the year for someone wanting to make some changes, and that is when the first day of the month falls on a Monday. (The best day, of course, is January 1st.)

It's better than a blue moon.

I wrote a couple weeks ago that this would be a good day to stop eating sugar. I still don't think that's going to happen, mostly because I haven't been overdosing on sugar. A spoonful (50 calories) atop my yogurt and granola hasn't let me to eat unlimited quantities of ice cream or cookies. And a Tootsie Pop (60 calories) falls into the low-calories range for treats. I acknowledge they are empty calories, but sometimes ya just gotta have a lolly.

The older I get, the younger I get.

The week before the stop-eating-sugar post I wrote that accepting how things are opens up possibilities for change. And while I was looking for those posts, I ran across one from late last September, right after my father died, in which I wrote about my genetic heritage – my entire immediate family's struggle with weight, and how obesity directly contributed to my dad's death. (I didn't say so then, but it certainly contributed to my mother's death, as well.)

And here I am, coming up on that anniversary, weighing exactly one pound more than I did then. (The beauty of record-keeping …)

On the one hand, gaining one pound in a year isn't too bad, you could almost consider it maintaining. On the other, of course, I was obese to start with, so I haven't made much progress in reversing the damage that could lead to my early demise.

Fortunately all my other health markers are good. My annual check-ups have never shown problems with sugar or cholesterol or thyroid (darn it!). When the weather is a little cooler, I walk almost every day. During this hot spell, I've been working in the garden almost every day. In other words, I'm moderately active, and that's a good thing.

The one thing that has been proven in study after study to help with weight loss is tracking one's daily intake. I'm sure I've gotten a little sloppy in both eyeballing my portions and remembering what and how much I eat every 24 hours. Therefore, on this first day of August, which falls on a Monday, the only first-day-of-the-month Monday of the year, I will commit to weighing and measuring my food and journaling every bite. I will do this until the first day of September, at which time I will decide whether to continue the practice.

A month of it might be all I need to get back in the weight-loss groove. Not that I've been in that groove for a long time, heh. But maybe this "break" I've been on will be enough that my body will recognize a calorie deficit and respond appropriately – that is, releasing pounds, rather than clinging to them desperately.

Hope springs eternal. (This is the fourth time this year I've written that phrase. Just call me Pollyanna. Or naive. Or hopeful. Just don't call me late for dinner. Heh.)