If you’re just here for the recipes, feel free to skip this post. I won’t be insulted, honest. I just need to face my demons, and facing them in public seems so much more, well, public, and accountability-inducing.

It’s official. I look fat. The picture above was taken during our stay in the Berkshires, just three days ago. I know, I know, you’re saying “Pshaw, you don’t look FAT, Debbie!” But I have an image of myself in my head, and it does not look like this. The rounded upper arms. The sloping shoulders. The full cheeks. Nope, not me. Except that you can’t argue with a photograph taken in natural light, with no retouching, can you? And you can’t argue with the fact that I have been decidedly lax in my dedication to losing weight. In the eight weeks that I’ve been “doing” Weight Watchers, I have lost a net total of TWO pounds. In the eight weeks that I’ve been “doing” Weight Watchers, I have gone to the gym approximately five times. Granted, I’ve done a lot of walking—at least two miles, five days a week—but I know my body, and I know it needs to be pushed a lot more than that. I just can’t seem to make myself do it.

Just for fun, let’s play a game. Let’s play “How Many Ways Can Debbie Screw Up Her Commitment to Losing Weight.” I’ll start:

• Last night it snowed, so I skipped my WW meeting, something I swore I’d never do. In the three years it took me to lose 100 pounds, the only times I missed meetings were when I was either out of town or too sick to get out of bed. And to be honest, I didn’t really skip because it was snowing either—I skipped because I was scared to step on the scale.
• For our two days in the Berkshires, I packed fresh fruit and Nabisco 100-calorie Chips Ahoy snack packs, in a virtuous plan to avoid temptation. S and I ate the apples, but the Chips Ahoy came home with us. Instead I ate gingersnaps and a chocolate chunk cookie and “tasted” S’s sweets: a brownie sundae with our first dinner, pecan-pie cups, sugar cookies, and a brownie from a sweet, homey little bakery in North Adams, and the famous, gigundus brownie at Elizabeth’s. Think about it: I ate all that in two days, when I’m supposed to be trying to lose weight.
  
• I’ve pretty much stopped counting points at all. I’m doing the Core plan on WW, so all I’m even supposed to count are the 35 weekly flex points, but I’m too embarrassed/lazy to even do that. I’ll start the week journaling what I eat, but by day two that’s pretty much out the window and I’m just keeping track in my head. By day five I’m not even doing that—essentially hoping for the best.

That’s a good start. There’s plenty more, but I’m afraid that if I keep writing this is going to veer into a scary mixture of self-pity and self-flagellation, which can’t be much fun for you to read. So I’ll sign off now, with a promise to myself to focusfocusfocus, and a promise to you to be more fun.