Day 3: Or how chinese food is not a good idea...

Everything went much better than expected yesterday. I had a delicious and filling dinner of oven baked chicken fajitas on whole wheat tortillas with my sister and her husband, both of which are a few days ahead of me on this first of the year diet of doom. I substituted my delicious full calorie Yuengling or PBR with lower calorie Michelob Ultra Amber...which wasn't horrible, but only saved me 15 calories per beer. I'm still apprehensive if sacrificing better tasting beer for 15 damn calories is worth it, but hey...baby steps, right?

When I woke today, I was immediately craving Chinese. Really thought maybe the boyfriend would talk me out of what was sure to be an epic fail, calorie wise. Then again, he had Taco Tuesday Mexican & ice cream last night, so he's obviously not good with temptation. (He's a few days ahead of me on this diet, and mentioned already losing 4 pounds. Guys are assholes who lose weight way faster.) But the craving prevailed, and we headed to the China Star.

Armed with confidence that I would resist the oh-so-tempting battered and fried selections, like my favorite General Tso's, and would try what seemed to be healthier choices, I made my plate. I successfully avoided everything deep fried, had a nice little pile of green beans, a few broccoli florets, plenty of what I thought would be fairly lean beef and chicken (yes, it was covered in delicious sauce but I really underestimated how calorific that delicious sauce would be). I didn't even have a single wonton! I even took the honey's suggestion and had unsweet tea with a tiny sprinkle of artificial sweetener, and it wasn't too terrible. I was very proud of myself for making such healthful choices. And best of all, I didn't even finish the entire plate or my bowl of white rice with soy sauce. (They didn't have brown rice. Hey, at least it wasn't fried. Don't judge me.)

With a smile on my face, I considered the meal a complete success! I got on my calorie counter app and started entering the components of my awesome healthy meal. I had no idea that beef with broccoli is a whopping 900 calories per serving, pepper steak is significantly less, weighing in at 187, and the seemingly healthy green beans had 94 calories. FML. I could have had a plate of General Tso's after all, as it has around 50 less calories than just the beef and broccoli. It looks like I'll be only eating Chinese food on my once a week "cheat days".

Speaking of cheat days, I have decided that today would be mine for the week. I chalked today up as a loss and splurged on a Dirty Snowman (small with skim milk, thankyouverymuch!) and vowed to do
crunches before bed. I will also be spending some time searching and saving which meals at which restaurants I can and most certainly can NOT have on this horrible, horrible diet. Hopefully, there will be some decent choices. But at this point, I imagine I will be one miserable girl until I lose this weight, but at least I'll be a miserable girl who's getting skinnier, right?? Ugh. Lesson learned. Chinese food is NOT diet friendly. I'm totally screwed.

As Day 2 of my diet began (which I should consider Day 1, due to a significant amount of calories from alcohol last night), I realized what a huge challenge this would be. Sure, people deal with tragedy and illness and all types of other hurdles in their lives. And sure, those are likely far more important and challenging and tedious, and I admire them for their strength and blahblahblah. I fucking love food. A lot. I love to cook, I love trying new foods and experimenting in the kitchen. I could watch cooking shows all day, and read cookbooks and recipe websites like most people read novels. Having a shitty day? Let's snack the pain away! Friends getting together? We should go get sushi and drinks! Bored? Might as well grab that bag of chips so you have something to do while Redditing! Kiddos getting bored? Let's bake some goodies and eat ALL the things! Eating has become less about actual nourishment and more about social interaction or a form of pseudo-therapy.

That changes now...even though I'm not too happy about it.

So I decided to create a blog, not only to bitch incessantly about having to give up my favorite foods, drink less beer, and basically suffer endlessly in the hopes of losing these last 30 pounds, but to also share what works for me. Also, I hope to piss off less Facebook friends by constantly posting emo statuses about how horrible this is. I hate diets and the responsibility that goes along with them. I just lack the self-discipline required to take on something like this with grace and maturity.

I will blog the pain away and hopefully this journey will provide some insight as to what changes need to be made in my life to be a healthier, happier, and most importantly SKINNIER person. And maybe, just maybe, along the way I'll have some insight for readers as well. I'll be the hero that dieters deserve, just not the one they need right now. So I will diet, because I can take it. Because I'm not a hero. I'm an insignificant blogger. A whining dieter. A Fatgirl.