Sugar-free, but …

not completely South Beach compliant.

It was hard to stay on plan while I was gone over the weekend. Rather than go into all the gory details, let's just say I need to hit the reset button today.

Sigh.

I listened to a lot of podcasts while traveling to and from, and got all caught up Russ and Jeff, Jillian and The Moth. I actually had to listen to music the last 20 miles or so coming home. Considering I was on the road for a total of probably 10 hours, I was, um, pretty far behind.

I wish listening to podcasts was all there was to it. Unfortunately, I need to put into practice the ideas these folks are preaching and teaching. And I am, really, but as you can probably tell I'm discouraged after a weekend where I wasn't able to eat the way I need to.

I might give myself a pass on the official weigh-in tomorrow.

One bright spot of the weekend (I was visiting one of my grandchildren, so that was the true bright spot) was getting out for a run/walk Saturday morning. Six other women, all young enough to be my daughters, meet up semi-regularly and invited me to tag along.

They've been doing a 1/1 run/walk, but we mixed it up a bit and did some 3/2s, 2/2s and 2/1s. I'm so out of running shape. But it felt good to be running (the flat terrain and paved trail helped a lot) and the fact that I didn't die gave me a little hope that I might actually be able to get back to it again.

Today I will hit the gym and the produce aisle. I have some freelance work to do this afternoon, but tomorrow will be another day out of town. Including  another lunch out of my control. This is what real life looks like, and it's making me wonder whether SB is really what I need to be doing. It's pretty inflexible and I end up feeling bad when I can't follow it to the letter. The testimonials in the book were carefully chosen, I'm sure, to point out how easy it is to stick with the program come hell or high water. Or business trips or restaurant meals.

In a situation where someone else is doing the cooking, though – well, not so easy at all. When one feels bad about oneself to start with, it's probably not useful or productive to intentionally add yet another guilt-inducing layer to the scenario.

A good hard workout will do me good and give me lots of time to think. My e-mail was read and discussed on episode #111 of the Fat2Fit podcast, and I listened to it again yesterday. I haven't lost any additional weight since then (12/8/10, and isn't that discouraging!), but I also haven't been starving myself for a year, either. Russ and Jeff encourage their listeners to eat whole, healthy foods, just as Dr. Agatston does, but I haven't been doing much at all to keep my metabolism revved up by eating more frequently. And I'm back into the calorie-restriction mentality, which isn't the best place to be.

Yes, it's definitely time to reset, reboot, renew my resolve.

The party's over …

Time to put my singed credit card back in my wallet, throw away the tattered shopping lists, point my car toward the east and drive for about seven hours. Give or take.

Actually I never found time to go to a craft store – Michael's would be my preference – so I'm going to see if there's one with easy access to the highway on my way home and make that my lunchtime.

My daughter and I built an Ikea bed yesterday. It's quite sturdy and, of course, since it's Ikea it's also nicely designed. Very few actual "instructions" in the manual, the Swedes are more visual, I guess. There were swear words – and much sweating – however, and it's pretty amazing how sore my back and shoulders are this morning.

Really, assembling furniture should count as both cardio and strength training.

In addition to heading home, it's time for me to reset my food button. It's much too easy to eat pretzels – a snack I don't keep on hand – when they're right there in the pantry. She keeps them for her children, since she's low-carbing. And skinny.

And every time I'm around her for any length of time I think, 'Should I try that? Could I even do it? What about fruit? WHAT ABOUT ORANGE MARMALADE?!?'

Clearly orange marmalade isn't a dieter's best friend, but I can find room for a tablespoon of it (49 calories) as part of my breakfast yogurt-preserve-granola breakfast. My daughter, however, absolutely would not eat it, not even a smidgen, because it would set off those blasted sugar cravings again.

Tempting is what it is. Not orange marmalade, but getting skinny. There's more than one way to skin a cat, so to speak, and I've tried them all. I just wonder, sometimes, and pretty frequently this weekend, what would happen if I shocked my metabolism by withdrawing sugar/flour/crackers/CARBS.

So who among you is low-carbing? And how's that workin' for you? And if you've formerly tried controlling your weight by counting calories, what happened when you made the switch to counting carbs? Details, people, I want details!

Also, Descendants was a little heavy. You've been forewarned. But there were enough twists and light moments to make it work, and I really, really cared about the characters. It's just an interesting story, well-written, well-acted, beautifully filmed.