Well, this morning the scale showed a pound loss.  I still need a half pound to be even with the weight loss at WI.  I’m not obsessing about it (can you believe that?).  I need to have a pound loss to earn my next 5 pound sticker by Saturday am.  I can do that.

This morning, I heard from both of the jobs I had applied for.  The one that I really wanted, I didn’t get.  I was their second choice.  The other one, I am meeting the hiring manager at 2pm to discuss the job requirements.  I have no idea what this means.  He did say, however, after my meeting with him, I should have a discussion with the evil one and that he will be calling her on Thursday (good luck, she screens her calls).  I’m pretty sure I will have a tentative offer.  My only hurdle is that the evil one will give me a good recommendation.  Since she treats me like a stupid two year old who can’t make a move without her direction, maybe she will want to get rid of me.  Maybe she wants to see me go as badly as I want to go?  ok, I’m in fantasy land now.  Back to the real world.  Everyone out there who might read this – pray hard for me!  

I decided last night that I want to go to Texas to see my mom in April.  That will give me six months to lose 40 pounds for a total loss of 55 pounds.  I will be at the same weight my mom saw me last.  My mom’s most recent test results showed she was at a “Stage 3” of her liver disease.  The scale only goes up to 4.  When you are at a 4, you don’t have much time left.  It’s really unfair.  My mom never drank – not even a glass of wine and she has liver disease.  The doctors said her liver looks like someone who has drank a quart of whiskey every day for the last 20 years.  My mom’s doctors are trying a battery of new medications and combinations of medications to keep the disease from progressing to a stage 4, but so far, nothing is working.  Of course, there is always a liver transplant, but she won’t hear of it.  I really want to go visit and the only thing stopping me is that I don’t want to disappoint her with my weight gain.  This is on the top of my incentives list. 

I have a list of incentives that I carry everywhere I go.  When I’m tempted to get off track, out comes the list.  You would think that intense knee pain every time I stand after sitting for longer than ½ hour would be enough incentive to lose weight, but it didn’t stop me from gaining 55 pounds before deciding to lose weight!

Wow!  As I’m writing this, my lunch came early.  I had to arrange for lunch for a business meeting of 20 people.  It is an unwritten rule that the arranger gets a lunch out of the deal as well.  I usually take home the leftovers too.  I knew I could easily pass up the zillion point sandwiches and the gazillion point chips….but there was cookies.  Bakery cookies.  Big cookies, at least 8” in diameter.  I didn’t give them a thought till I just saw them sitting there, calling my name, begging me to snap off a corner and savor the chocolately goodness.  I literally was fighting the voices in my head, telling me that one cookie wasn’t going to hurt.  Just one bite – that’s all I needed.  Well, I couldn’t very leave a cookie there with a bite gone, so I’d have to have the whole thing, right?  I thought about my mom, then the cookie, then my knees, then the cookie, then my diabetes, then the cookie, the post partum guilt, the cookie.  So many arguments in my head.  It was an epic battle between cookie and losing weight.  I know that I have the 35 optional points that would have covered that cookie – another argument to eat the cookie.  Believe me, every thought crossed my mind in about two minutes – justifying that cookie.  My list was down on my desk, but I have looked at it so many times, I know it by heart.  In the end, I turned off the lights, left the room, closed the door and let the business meeting know that their lunch was ready.  I came back to my desk and ate my peanut butter sandwich on whole grain bread and had my sugar-free chocolate pudding.  I was strong this time.  But, I have to clean up the leftovers.  Another battle in my immediate future.  

I will let you know how it goes.