I’ve had a nasty chest cold for the past two weeks.  What this means is: exercise has been at a minimum.  Eating bad things at a maximum.  About halfway through I found myself like a cat in a bag, head first into a bag of potato chips.  I was craving the salt, so I figured I needed it.  That happens to me when I get a cold, I’m sure there must be some reason for it – losing salt through snot or something.  Then there’s the feels-oh-so-good on the sore throat ice cream/Jack in the box shake/coffee drinks remedies.  Add another 15,000 calories.

It all starts out so well.  Not hungry at first and wanting something to help ease the congestion,  I eat some chicken soup which really hits the spot.  Maybe a little ice cream at that point. One week in and the cravings begin.  I’m sick of being sick and start consoling myself with comfort food.  Then I start eating under the false assumption that maybe if I keep throwing stuff down my throat it will clear the secretions that are making me cough all night.  Never mind that I actually dissected a human cadaver in PT school and know first hand that the esophagus is a completely separate tube from the trachea, and food is not supposed to ever go down the trachea which is where the secretions hang out until they hit the bronchial bifurcation and…you cough.   This knowledge does not stop me from trying everything in the refrigerator to carry out the futile task.

Now the cold is over, mostly. Getting back into exercise is, for me, The World’s Laziest Physical Therapist, a major roadblock to losing the five pounds I  picked up.   I will get there, I always do, and at least last night started my knee exercises so I can ski in two weeks without injury.  How to return to sanity in the kitchen?

I started with the “how many grams of fat should you have daily to lose weight” calculus formula my Mom has give me several times in my lifetime.  Turns out: 26 grams per day to lose weight.  Next, the 1200-1500 calorie per day remains the norm if a woman is going to lose weight.  Finally, and this is the most important part: the food journal.

Oh boy.  Yesterday I began.  I started with a piece of paper with the calories and the grams of fat on the top of the page, and just started subtracting as I went.  I weighed my food.  I thought I was eating “small bananas?” Nope. I weighed it on my food scale.  9 ounces, make that super sized please.    My friend whose young (skinny, otherwise healthy) daughter has diabetes, recommended the book The Calorie King that was given by the diabetes center at the children’s hospital.  This book is awesome – lists EVERYTHING, including fast food restaurants.  Brutal truth on every page.

A food journal really is a great way to realize what you’re eating.  I am a popcorn nut, and often will eat it and throw butter on it even though I know the truth.  Popcorn without butter is like coffee without caffeine – why bother?  Now I’ll have to write it down, subtract it from the grand total.  Suddenly I’ll have to bother.  Also, guess what?  Fruit and vegetables may have calories but they have NO FAT.  Sigh.  I guess that’s one of the reasons they are so good for you.

The end of the day found me with enough left over on the 1500 calorie limit and the fat grams limit for 5 squares of a Hershey bar for desert.  Yummy.  Choices will have to be made.  Talking to Mom about it today she said she loves Marie Callendar pot pies but when she picked one up she noticed the grams of fat was 36. She put it back.

I do not believe in deprivation, and I’m sure once in awhile Mom indulges in a pot pie.  It’s just so dang easy to get carried away, to not care, to just this once, to reward yourself, to comfort yourself, all with what lies in the refrigerator.

I have another college reunion coming up.  The once extremely hot Kathleen Turner (young folks, if you haven’t seen the movie Body Heat, you are missing a classic sexy thriller) once said in her thirties: “At this age an actress has to choose between her face and her ass.”  What this means is that when the ass gets smaller, the face gets wrinklier/saggier.  She chose to keep her face smooth and sacrificed her ass.  It’s a personal choice, and I’m choosing my ass.  And, oh yes, my health.  It won’t be easy – I like it when people say “oh you can’t possibly be 56.”  I have found that in the transient moments that I have lost some weight, my little old lady patients are able to nail my age perfectly.  It’s only when I’m more rotund that they peg me 10 years younger.

Too bad, because the fat gram/calorie counter is ticking now and I’m on a race to the scale.  Enough.