It's a jungle in here!

In addition to recommitting to fitness and clean eating and all that crap, I've also recommitted to taking a daily photo. I'm going to do my best to take it with the Rebel instead of the BlackBerry, but honestly, some of my BB photos are pretty amazing. Like this one:

I was walking up a hill, turned to check out the view and saw the glow of the sun
just coming up over the mountain. I did not, however, actually see the sun,
which is what the camera saw. I love this picture.

I'm going to use the photo blog this year for food pictures, probably just one meal a day. I know there are weight-loss/photo bloggers out there who hold themselves accountable by snapping a picture of every little and big thing they eat. But I'm not dragging the Rebel out every time I eat an orange, and I want to use the good camera for Project 365. I certainly get the idea of recording your daily intake with pictures, though. There's even an iPhone app that will count the calories you've eaten by analyzing your photos.

I'm not limiting my Rebel photos to food, though, which is what today's post's title is all about. All of our talk about losing weight once and for all, all the weight-loss and gym commercials cluttering up television this month, and even the discussion yesterday about Weight Watchers then-and-now seems very dark and tangled and mysterious.

The tangled jungle that is
the spider plant in my
living room. 

All we're doing is trying to find our way through the tangled jungle of advice out there. We look back at what has worked in the past. That first iteration of WW was indeed strict, but you almost couldn't get hungry. You could eat as many heads of lettuce as you wanted (as a WW leader, I had a member tell me she ate six one day. I nearly barfed at the thought!), and lettuce wasn't the only "free" food on the list.

Interesting, isn't it, that fruits and vegetables are zero-Point foods on the current WW plan?

I could get very analytical, but I'm not in the mood right now and I doubt either of you would find it very compelling reading. I simply want to figure out (and writing about it really helps) what seems to be the best way to chop my way through the thicket of plans and processes and programs. And I think the plan I outlined yesterday is not only effective (it was effective in October, just THREE MONTHS AGO, and then I abandoned myself to the holidays), but doable. And also because of the whole I-don't-want-to-be-old-and-immobile-thing-so-I'd-better-start-RIGHTNOW-to-eat-better-and-move-more commitment.

Baby spider plants.

The spider plant in the photo is big. It started out very little, just about six inches tall in a huge pot and it looked ridiculous. It now fills its container and the leaves cascade down the sides and it's beautiful. It has sprouted about a dozen little babies, all tangled up with each other. I'm tempted to snip the babies and root them and let them get big, too, but I don't have room for all those plants. I'm happy with the ones I have.

I've watched this little rescued spider plant thrive since I brought it indoors for the winter. The mint, rosemary, chives and citrus are all doing well, too. They get fertilizer, water and sunshine on a regular basis, which is exactly what they need.

Perhaps gardening is the metaphor I need to take care of myself. I have no problem caring for my plants. They can't take care of themselves. I knew what I was doing when I brought them indoors. No one but me can make me work out or eat right or drink water or do any or all of those effective Things On The Plan.

But I'm glad, as Denise said, that the road is crowded.