You know you're on a diet when...

You can differentiate the distinct flavors for Equal, Sweet-n-Low, Splenda, Stevia, Truvia, honey, brown sugar, cane sugar, and white sugar.

Same goes for Diet Coke and Coke Zero.

If you don't drink a Diet Coke every day you turn into The Hulk. (Maybe She-Hulk, but a hulk nonetheless).

You know the low calorie food options at Wendy’s (it’s the chili).

You consider the following cheat food: Corn.

You have counted out the 55 pieces that equal one serving of goldfish crackers and 140 calories.

You know how many calories are in one single Dorito.

You know what glycemic index means.

You know the glycemic index of a banana.

You have tried Weight Watchers, Jenny Craig, and Nutri-system, and thought they were too expensive. At the same time, you’ve spent equal money and calories at Starbucks without a second thought.

Then you’ve tried Atkins, The Zone, South Beach, The Cookie diet, and the Paleo diet. You are pretty sure that diets that make you feel crazy must work.

You’ve had the South Beach flu.

You once drank cabbage soup for three days straight.

You've invented your own diet more than once. (See the George Clooney diet and the Star Trek diet).

You’ve considered cutting your hair to lose weight.

You don’t weigh-in until you’ve shaved and exfoliated. I mean really exfoliated. I mean shaved everything.

You count sex as exercise (and your husband isn’t complaining).

You caught yourself discussing your bowel movements with your co-workers. During lunch.

You have stayed up not once, not twice, but five times to watch the P90X infomercial at 2 a.m.

You’ve been dieting for five months and lost five pounds. Your husband goes jogging twice in a week and looses six pounds.

What are some weird things that you do when you are dieting? Let me know in the comments.

Weight in (July 5 to date): -5.6 lbs! Food journals and recipes coming soon! Happy eating and exercising.

LL Cool J Exercise Plan

Remember the George Clooney Diet? This week I'm all about LL Cool J. I'm not ready to track my food yet, but I am exercising.

Wednesday - 1 hour yoga
Thursday - 40 minute interval walk/run
Friday - 30 minute interval walk/run, 30 minutes of yoga
Saturday - Soccer mom (there is no way to calculate this exercise)

The moral of the story is LL Cool J. As I ran, all I could think was "You're jiggling, baby." Which of course made me think of the song "Jingling, Baby." That made my running happy. The more I jiggle now, the less I'll jiggle later. Thank you, LL.

On a side note, two friends kindly emailed me regarding pilates and Zumba. Rule #1. Be sure to keep good friends by your side, the kind that reach out a hand and encourage you. I also exercised several times with my tweenaged niece. She's lazier than me, but she is a good motivator. Even sent me text messages to let me know what exercising she did on her own. A good kid.

As some of you know I gave up Facebook for Lent. There are always people out there waiting for you to fail. This is a reminder to those people that I need encouragement. Don't wait for me to fail or break my commitments. It makes me feel disappointed in you. Now you owe me an apology. Twitter is not Facebook. (And Facebook emails me updates once a week, so I can see you talking bad about me). Do 50 sit-ups, and I'll challenge you to an arm wrestle on Easter Sunday.

Until then happy eating and happy exercising. Even if you are jingling all the way. Was LL talking about Christmas in that song? What does jingling baby mean anywho? A point to ponder on my next run.

140 Words or Less

(Pregnant me and monsters hiking at Amicalola Falls. I grudgingly got exercise even while gravid. It was What's-his-name's idea.)



Last year, I was about to get back on the exercise bandwagon, then poof! Nothing. A year of silence. Here’s what you missed.

• I got pregnant and had a baby.

• Yesterday, the baby turned 12 weeks old. To celebrate, I started a couch to 5K running program. 20 minutes run/walk intervals on Days 1 and 2.

• I ate a Wheat Free Peanut Butter cookie from Karmic Kookies. Life changing.

• I’ve given up the frivolous internet for Lent. I won’t be on Facebook, but you can still find me here and on Decatur Patch.

• Despite my love of verbosity, edits on my novel will progress better if I limit myself to 140 word diet updates. Kind of like Twitter’s 140 characters only super-sized into a blog about getting skinnier.

Happy Eating and Exercising. Happy Lent!