Getting...weak...need...bread

Dieting stinks. No, that's not strong enough language. Dieting, especially dieting that involves cutting out all your favorite foods, is worse than having your toenails removed while someone stabs needles into your tear ducts. Yeah, that's about it.

If you can't tell, I've been dieting. FOR A WHOLE WEEK! I'm nearly unconscious with hunger, frustration and crankiness. I don't care what Fitness magazine says, there is no way to cut bad fats, starchy carbs, dairy and sugar from your diet and still have any reason to live. Unless, I guess, you are stronger than I.

Anyone who knows me at all knows that I love food. I love talking about food, reading about food, shopping for food, cooking food and my personal favorite, eating food. Until about a year ago, I was okay doing this and still fitting in to my clothes. I wasn't a super model, but I was a reasonable size 4-6. Then, I did a couple of things wrong. I started some medication that lists weight gain as a side effect. And I started spending a lot of time in my car, eating fast food. Some days, I'd have fast food two or three meals. And not grilled chicken sandwiches, either, which I believe are for people who like to punish themselves. I'm more a fan of the high-octane stuff - burgers, fries, chocolate shakes, etc. For one month, I basically lived on chocolate malted milkshakes, the ultimate in portable food. You don't even have to chew!

At then end of about eight months of that routine, I'd put on 20 pounds. Add that to the five or so I gained when I moved in with Tony and started eating something other than Lean Cuisines and Diet Coke for dinner, and I was staring at a number I'd never before seen on the scale. And more depressing, a closet full of clothes I couldn't wear. And if I have room in my heart for a love besides food, it is fashion. And, to add injury to insult, have you ever tried to wear stilettos for 16 hours carrying 25 extra pounds? Not comfortable. I started growing a bunion, for God's sake. I was so fat, I had old lady feet.

And I don't want to hear any equivocating from people about how fat they are compared to me. This isn't a competition, folks, and it isn't about you. It's about me, my tubby butt and my ever-climbing blood sugar numbers. Oh, and my shrinking self-esteem. It is really hard to feel hot with a new muffin top. Or fat rolls. Or walking around in your fat jeans every day. Or, God forbid, buying even fatter jeans so you don't have to walk around in your fat jammies.

So, sick of flab, sick of rolls and really sick of self-recrimination (which only makes you eat more, I find), I decided to get a trainer. For three months, I saw him, working out somewhat diligently three days a week and spending the other four days so sore I could barely walk or shampoo my own hair. (This is where having an assistant with a loose concept of personal space comes in handy - just have her wash your hair. Save your arm strength for lifting the fork.) I lunged, squatted, curled, pressed and grunted through every workout. Sweat ran from my forehead and puddled in my sports bra. Breakfasts heaved from my stomach and into the toilet bowl during killer cardio sessions. I cried several times from the strain and my own frustration at my body not being able to do the things it used to do with ease. I even held off weighing myself (something I used to do every day, if just to torture myself) so I could see massive improvement and stay motivated.

When weigh-in day came, I had gained two pounds.

Spare me chatter about muscle weighing more than fat, etc. I'm not an East German power-lifter. I don't put on muscle that fast. The only thing I put on that fast is fat. I won't detail the horrible things I said to myself on the way home from the gym that day, but suffice it say it was negative. I said things to myself I wouldn't say to someone I really hated. And isn't that sad - I'm a great, smart, funny, interesting and still pretty attractive person, but the number on the scale can negate all of that. It reduces me to a single accomplishment.

So, if the training wasn't working, it must be my diet. Sigh. I hate going on diets. I am a stubborn person who really hates being told what to do, even by myself, and diets play on that part of my personality. But, it had to be done. My weight had pretty much stabilized at an astoundingly high number, but I really wanted to lose some weight. Especially if Tony and I were planning on getting pregnant. It is always easier to stay in good shape when you are pregnant if you are in good shape to begin with. So, a diet it was.

Tony first suggested this protein-shake plan, where you drink five shakes a day and take some fiber supplements and that's that. We ordered all the hideously expensive shakes and supplements and cleared our cupboards of any real food. (We are packing to move anyhow, so it served two purposes to box it all up.) I even packed the salt and pepper. We wouldn't need any of it - this diet lasts 28 days and you only eat 4 solid meals the whole time, so we could go out for those meals. We started the plan on a Wednesday morning, weighing in, measuring each other and taking truly brutal "before" pictures. We were going to do this! We were going to lose 20 pounds in a month! We were going to be hot, sexy beach-people by May 14th!

We lasted three days before ordering Chinese.

The shakes tasted terrible. I don't eat artificial sweeteners because I can't stand the taste, and the low-carb, sugar-free protein powders were packed with them. I honestly think they were made with artificially sweetened dehydrated alfalfa mixed with the powdered carcasses of thos bugs Survivorman eats on his show. (That guy eats some seriously awful stuff, but he's always talking about how it is packed with protein, just like those shakes.) Whatever it was, it tasted awful. And when we had to add the ground flaxseed, it got even worse - it was chewy and awful. The only way I could choke it down was to use a straw and stick the it as far back into my mouth as I could without gagging. I basically constructed a feeding tube for myself. If I could have rigged it up to never touch the inside of my mouth, I would have. The one highlight of the day was the tablespoon of all-natural unsweetened peanut butter we got in our last shake. By the end of the second day, I was sobbing. At the end of the third day, Tony was sobbing.

When I called the company that manufactures the diet stuff, I told them I was pregnant and couldn't do the diet anymore. I didn't have the heart to tell them their product tasted like dead things. Powdered dead things.

Without the structure of the five shakes a day, we had a few options. We could just go back to our old way of eating, try to work something out on our own, or we had another diet plan that I had ordered - at one-tenth the cost of the original one - that involved one drink a day and two meals without starchy carbs, high-fat food, dairy or added sugars. We tried that.

So far, it has been okay. I get hungry all the time and I crave bread and cheese (my two favorite foods) like crazy, but so far, I haven't had to insert a feeding tube or order Chinese. Last night, we had a moment and devoured a pan of brownies, but the damage on the scale was negligible for me. Tony even still lost a pound. We've lost between five and six pounds each, which is great. The biggest issue is being cranky from being hungry. That, coupled with the new puppy, has given us some fodder for our counseling session tonight, I'm sure.

I'm not sure how long we'll keep on this plan, but I'd really like to see a number on the scale closer to the one I saw a year ago. And I'd REALLY like to not have to buy a new fat summer wardrobe. I'm a fifth of the way there already, so I guess I can keep this up for five or six more weeks. Not eating carbs doesn't even bother me that much.

Oh, who am I kidding? I want a grilled cheese sandwich and a brownie sundae, stat!