Saturday, 9/25/10:

WEIGHT before eating today:  158.0

Daily Calorie Goal:  1200 or less

Total calories eaten today:  OVER 2000.  (UGH.)

Week-ends are always tough for me when I'm dieting.  My intentions are always good.  I never look at the approaching week-end and think, "YES!  I can eat whatever I want on Saturday and Sunday!  But somehow, this often happens.  Today, my Mom came out around 1:00 p.m. and I spent more hours sorting and cleaning out my huge pile of bags and boxes of JUNK I've had stored in our old garage attic since March of 2006.  Before that, I had stored the same bags and boxes in various storage units and basements and sheds and garages.  It was literally almost 25 years-worth of stuff, moved more than 15 times since 1987, and none of it has ever really been unpacked.  After all those years, everything just got thrown together and mixed up until the job of sorting and throwing out the entire mess loomed like an impossibly huge monkey on my back.  The task has always existed, but had grown to such an imposing size that it was very daunting.  The thought of dealing with it all caused me daily stress and depression.

Well, now, the task is nearly complete.  I've been accused at times of being a "classic hoarder," but I know that I've never matched that neat definition.  Hoarders CAN'T throw anything away.  They look at an old newspaper or a half-empty bottle of something and they feel crippling mental anguish at the thought of being seperated from it.  

This is not me.  I WANT to be rid of my junk.  I WANT to not think about it every day.  My limitation is my nutty, crazy-busy life.  In order to sort through junk and organize your life, you simply must have the free time to do it.  This is what I lack.  I have not had any free time in almost 25 years.  

Does this sounds like a lame excuse?  

I only wish it weren't the truth.

Hoarders have rooms in their houses that look like this.  We don't.

My junk looked more like this, though most of my stuff ended up in plastic bags over time.

So I've been spending the past three week-ends sorting and throwing, organizing and cleansing.  It feels wonderful!  But the diet takes a hit when I'm doing an activity that keeps me so focused, and far away from the fridge or the kitchen.  The only solution would have been to pack a healthy, calorie-counted lunch and take it over to the old house with me.  

Coulda, shoulda - but didn't.  

In fact, the day started out on a carb-saturated note.  My older daughter and I "celebrated" the fact the our Big Apple Bagel franchise was recently re-opened (we've been suffering, big-time!!!) by treating ourselves to a bagel on our way to drop her off at a friend's house.  Mine was huge, onion-flavored, dripping with plain cream cheese, and washed down with a bottle of orange juice.  Yep, you guessed it... about 800 calories. 

Big Apple Bagels - ONION!

Once I got back home, I grazed a little during the day, and then finished the evening at a movie with the hubby ("Eclipse!") and the subsequent movie food:

Buttered movie popcorn:  Lard-drenched goodness!

Large fountain Root Beer.  Burp.

Entire box of Good & Plenty.  My FAVORITE candy.

So, yeah, Saturday was another bust.  I wasn't exactly depressed about it, just a little disappointed because this is my first week of focused, brutally-honest blogging about my journey.  I won't blow smoke up anyone's a$$, least of all my own.  Dieting is miserable.  I can't think of anything I despise more, with the exception of certain lab procedures I won't elaborate on here.  Suffice it to say, I struggle with it, every minute, of every day.