Little white lies will rest on your thighs.

We all cheat on diets. It’s a universal fact. We all do it. Sneaking a cookie. Stealing away with a cup of ice cream. Claiming that single flight of stair climb as ‘exercise.’ It is inevitable that when you embark on a journey to lose weight you will turn coat on yourself while standing inside the refrigerator eating that last little bit of banana pudding that the kids forgot.

The truth is that all that sneaking around doesn’t do anything but lower your self-esteem because the moment you do it you bombard yourself with cruel below the belt insults or worse…you quit. I ate the cookie. I’ll admit it. I ate the damn cookie. It was that new birthday cake Oreo cookie my kid convinced me he would love to have for dessert, even though he’s a 1 scope of vanilla ice cream kind of guy.  But he assailed me with those big brown eyes in the middle of a Meijer after a pretty rough day at work and him being all angelic at school so I bought the damn cookies knowing good and doggone well he was not going to eat the cookies but that they would sit in the cabinet for months until some more kids came over and I put them out as treats.

So there I sat during my week of ‘gonna keep these carbs from playing tricks on me’ with a full bag of birthday cake Oreo cookies on my kitchen counter. He ate a total of 4 over the course of three days. I tried one one day. Then another another day. Then there were two. And I knew I was being outrageous because suddenly the cookies I had consumed as a small ‘treat’ after a long day at the office were not showing up on my food journal although they were definitely playing tricks with my mind (sugar rushes and me don’t mix well). That’s when I caught myself with my hand in the cookie jar and asked myself, “Girl, who you fooling anyway?”

I really didn’t have an answer for me. And I’m pretty quick-witted. But the question stomped me. That’s when I realized I ain’t fooling nobody. But I am making a fool out of myself. There is no reason why a grown woman would need to lie about consuming a cookie. There is no reason for a grown woman to feel ashamed that she actually ate a cookie either.

All the self-deprecation and guilt laden exercise will get you by for a while, but in the end you will play tricks on yourself. And when the games begin your sense of self-resolve that this time will be the time that you make it to the promise land of your perfect weight will be go down in a great big avalanche of lime flavored tortillas with peach salsa and a few mega margarita chasers.

At 39 years old I stood on a scale in my doctor’s office. After the shock of learning that my 60 inch frame was carrying 243 pounds, a more than a 100 pound overage, I also learned that every health destroying demon my genetic code happens to harbor was chasing me down like I had stole something from them. She looked me in my eyes and held out both her hands. In her left hand were prescriptions for an anti-depressant, anti-inflammatory, blood pressure, and sugar relating medications. In her right hand she held the number to a nutritionists and renown weight loss management center. She told me, “Choose, if not for you for your son.”

I was like damn but I went to that nutritionist and learned more about how to eat than Weight Watchers ever taught me. And 30 pounds later, I find myself questioning if I need to go back because I can’t seem to figure myself out…enter the birthday cake Oreo cookies.

The fact that I can’t seem to get my scale to budge again is not rocket science. I’ve been cheating on me with birthday cake Oreo cookies along with cheezits, kettle fried potato chips and this divine Maui onion dip Target has created just to taunt me. I’m cheating myself out of a regular exercise routine. When I know these bones are only getting older and need at minimum those 15 minute yoga stretches in the morning and 30 minutes of purposeful walking in the evening. I have been cheating myself and it’s time I stop.

This week my plan is to be honest so I will focus on:

1. Weigh In Everyday. I hate it. I hate it. I hate it. I always thought those everyday weigh in’s were for the self-obsessed but I am beginning to see the value in weighing myself each morning. It’s a little check in with me, a reset of my priorities to make me aware that I have to come first – no bullshit. I have to put my health first, or the rest of this house of cards will come tumbling down. So I commit to weigh myself everyday as a reminder to keep my health in the forefront.
2. Log Every Nibble. Generally by the day’s end, I’m done with all that good girl dieting stuff. I check what calories are left and just free range it till bed time. I figure I can eyeball something enough to know if it’ll fit in my calorie range for the night. Nonsense. This week I will log what I eat and what I drink. I will commit myself to being as accurate as possible. And I will close out my log at the end of the day, no matter the outcome.
3. Start Exercising. For real. I use to be a weight training machine. In my twenties I loved how powerful it made me feel to be able to bench my body weight. I would work out daily taking only Sunday’s off. I had issues and exercise was my remedy. Truth is I still like exercising, I just find that I appreciate sleep more. But I want to commit to doing the minimum this week, 15 minutes of yoga in the morning and 30 minutes of walking at night. I believe with this formula I will actually feel better and sleep well.
4. Stop All Self-Abuse. You know it’s real hard to be mad at somebody for talking bad about you when you talk so bad about yourself. This week, I’m just gone be honest with me. No more pretending that I didn’t see me sneak that cookie or take a spoon of the baby’s ice cream. I can’t hide from myself and I’m done with the game of trying.

I’m on full tilt this week. I went down following Rule #1 (Authentic Rest) but Rule #2 (Carbs are Not My Friends) was my nemesis and up the sprout again I climbed. I’m not beating myself up about but I am gone tell the truth and shame them health devils chasing me down.