Holy hell, I have GOT to get my shit back together.  Yesterday and today have been fine exercises in the lackadaisical half-diet, half-don’t-give-a-goddamn behavior that has made me fat in the first place.  My week without blogging (and without too terribly much self-restraint) now has an open-floodgates feel that is making me feel incredibly uncomfortable.  I need to snap back into full-blown diet mode: nothing processed, lots of vegetables and lean proteins.  Today was not THAT bad, but I did eat food I should not be eating if I’m trying to lose a substantial amount of weight and generally ate too much of everything.  Food breakdown:  breakfast was a poached egg and sliced chicken breast over greens with light balsamic vinaigrette (I’ve been trying something new lately: the delicious ‘egg salad’ breakfast; a fried or poached egg in a salad), and a tomato of course.  Lunch was a too-large bowl of leftover wheat pasta with tomatoes, chicken, black olives, onions and five pieces chocolate (nestle crunch wafer bites, if anyones interested- not even that good and I swear I ate them in under a minute- WTF?).  Went to a sushi dinner with my girlfriends (after seeing the product-placement orgy known as the sex and the city movie):  got a bento box with  two pieces california roll, 4oz piece salmon teriyaki with rice, chicken skewer, 1 potsticker, 2 pieces prawn tempura (damn you, tempura, for being so outrageously delicious!), 1 piece OlyRoll- smoked salmon, cream cheese, deep fried soft-shell crab, cucumber.  Miso soup and salad.  Sent all leftovers home with Nancy.  Just now ate about two ounces of low-fat Oaxacan cheese.  Yeesh, now that I write it all out, I guess it was THAT bad of a day and the ache in my stomach is well-earned.  30 minutes on the stationary bike, 2 mile rainy dog walk.  I feel disgusting and bloated and disappointed in myself.  I am getting back on strict track tomorrow; I can’t let this week-long hiatus from diettown turn into a slide into my old bad habits.  I’ve been giving myself ’shake-it-off-champ’ internal pep talks all day and trying to become inspired by the SATC movie (not by the bottle-blond stick insect SJP, but by my desire to shop within the regular-sized section at department stores again- not making do with the only marginally cute shit that Old Slavery and torrid.com have to offer.  I’m tired of not having adorable, fashion-forward clothes to match my extensive purse and shoe collection).  I just ordered some downsized work clothes online yesterday and now I’m all freaked out that I won’t fit into them because of my indiscretions the past week.  Whatever; shake it off, champ.  Also, my dreaded Ex is coming back into town in the next couple of weeks after this years maiden voyage into law school across the country.  He makes me anxious and, well, generally peckish.  Also, I still have a tendency to hop right into our wildly emotionally unstable dynamic.  I need to be habituated to the diet by the time he gets home, not only so that I can look fabulously healthy and happy, but be on securely wholesome footing in terms of my lifestyle plans.  Ex is not the most recent boyfriend (not by about five boyfriends) but he is the one I was with the longest (five years off and on), loved the most and the one who did the most damage, the one I gained all the weight with, cheated on and was cheated on by.  It was ugly and now five years later, we STILL have a lingering entanglement, which 80 percent of the time could pass for a normal(ish) friendship and 20 percent of the time seems like we’re one of those psychotic married couples who clearly hate each other but are too dependent to separate.  This summer, I plan to change that tired mess into a cordial, affectionate relationship in which we do not call each other every day, have explosive fights or explosive sex and in which we DO have lunch occasionally and see movies and platonically hang out.  That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.  Also, I feel better already, blogging all this nasty business with my diet letdowns and old Ex-tastrophes.  I’m definitely going to have a great diet day tomorrow- I just need one or two to get the ball rolling again.  No candy, no pasta, no fried food.  Lots of water and exercise to clear the decks a little bit.  I have to go to a job fair and do a variety of unpleasant errands, but it should be a good day.

Well, I am certainly relieved to once again be back in the online food journal business. . . my computer has been in the shop all week and I have been seriously struggling without it.  I’ve been somewhat on track with food and exercise, but I was shocked to discover how much I really do depend on the daily practice of writing this blog to keep me accountable.  I have had a few binges this week, all under the auspices of them ‘not really counting’ because I wasn’t able to document them on my ailing beast (this damn computer has been in the shop so many times, the guys at the Apple store know me by name- absurd).  No more- I’m moving forward, getting back on a stricter plan after a brief lapse (actually this week wasn’t that bad, barring a few exceptions: some cookies one day, some potato chips another- but not an insane amount of either).  Back to business as usual tomorrow.