January By the Numbers (And Some Other Stuff)

Over 2 years ago, my mom died.  And after living in "their" house alone for most of those 2 years, my dad moved 5 hours away to my town.  Then six weeks later, my brother died.  I became very glad my dad lives across the highway.  We are all that is left.  He is, by nature, a nurturer and really enjoys cooking.  In the last couple of weeks, we've had 2 pans of brownies, a banana cake (so good!) and a strawberry cake with vanilla icing.  We've also had spaghetti and three 5-pound bags of chicken leg quarters.  Today, a meat loaf.  It's making things a little....um, tricky, to eat well.

Then of course, we had Nasty.  I didn't eat any the first night.  But the whole next day, my "piece" was calling to me from its Tupperware box.  "Oh, Georgia....are you out there?  I thought I saw you pass by.  Say, did you know that there's a fabulous piece of chocolate cake with chocolate frosting out here in a box?  Remember...Brian said this box was for you.  It's full of chocolate cake.  You should eat me.  It's 80-20, right? I'm cake. And I'm goooood."

I mean, can you believe that cake?  Talking to me like that?  So rude.  But I'm kind of a follower.  So at some point in the afternoon, I fell for it.  And this is after I had already taken my measurements and knew how well I'd been doing.  So dumb.  I grabbed a big fork (not a dainty salad fork) and dug right in.  The frosting didn't taste so much like partially hydrogenated soybean oil.  It tasted chocolaty-ish.  And the cake itself was okay.  Kind of dry, really, if you ask me.  (Even though it had all the secret ingredients to make it great.)  It just didn't taste like I remembered chocolate cake and chocolate frosting tasting.  But do you think that stopped me?  Oh, please.  I ate about half the box which had about 2 reasonable sized pieces.  You can do this Sad Math.  Made myself a little queasy.  (And this was *after* I turned down some homemade brownies at a dinner on Sunday.  Thankfully, I had heard an ugly rumor that those brownies had maggots in them.)

But being queasy was nothing compared to the headache I got after gobbling up all that cake.  I got the migraine from hell.  It just got worse and worse and worse until I could barely see and even my teeth hurt.  It took 4 ibuprofen and 1 Benedryl to settle that baby down.  And the lesson in all this?  Don't eat cake, dummy.  It's not good for your brain and it's not even all that good.  Don't eat cake.  The end.

But as a whole endeavor, I'm doing pretty well.  I'm going to bed much earlier and getting up much earlier.  Except the day after I have a major migraine.  I've had few bread products.   I can't even think of one single bread product that I have had.  I tried parsnips as potatoes.  Too parsnippy.  I eat lots of nuts and meat and salads.  And it seems to be working.

Because in the month of January, I have lost:

• 16 pounds  
• one complete size
• 10 and one-quarter inches.  Three inches in one spot alone!  Seriously...I have lost 10.25" off my body for some skinny person to find.  I just love helping people.

Now.  To get back on track for the Fitness.  Must get motivated.  Time is ticking to lose another 2 sizes by the big 3-5.

And no more cake.  It is not good.  No matter what it says.