Seems like lately I’ve been feeling kind of fat. Now, fat is a relative term in this case because I’ve actually dropped about 100 pounds since May 2002, but I’m still what you could easily call far-from-skinny. And I don’t mean to be one of those women who gripes about their weight when they don’t have a weight problem to speak of. Overall I’m really happy with my body and very proud of the weight that I’ve lost, I think it’s just that I’ve been eating too much junk lately — mostly sugar-oriented junk — and it’s just been making me feel kind of bloated and icky.

So, tomorrow, a new phase begins: I’m going to do Atkins for the next couple of weeks. I realize that this is going to be a very temporary crash diet, because there’s no way on earth I can stick to it once I go home for Christmas (turn down Mom’s sweet potato casserole with the melted marshmallows on top? I think not!). I don’t think losing weight is even the goal here, I just need a shock to my system to get me back in check. I need to stop the constant-sugar thing, and maybe get my body image issues under control somewhat. Of course, if I dropped a couple of pounds so that when my jeans come out of the dryer, the skin on my stomach above the waistband doesn’t look like a shar-pei puppy…. Well, that’d be ok with me too.

Anyway, to that end, tonight I fried up an entire package of bacon & stashed it in the fridge (I don’t believe in cooking something that messy in small quantities), I hard-boiled a few eggs, and I sliced up a block of cheese. What’s far more impressive is that I immediately cleaned up the kitchen afterward, loaded & started the dishwasher. I even scrubbed the bacon grease off the stove while it was still hot. That’s gotta be a first for me. I figure that this weekend, I’ll head over to the Lo-Carb Outlet store for some baked cheese chips and flavored soy nuts. Yee-haw.

Now we just have to wait & see if I can make it 2 weeks without booze. Especially with holiday stress looming in my future. Hmmm. Anyone happen to know how many carbs are in vodka?