Kitchen craziness
Phoof. We've spent the whole evening in a frenzy of cooking, and the cooking has been very productive. A. made his bean-stuffed bread, though he altered it heavily, tweaking the filling in particular... caramelised onions, Romano beans, and smoked cheddar. I had a bite, and it was fantastically good, made my meagre dinner seem positively sad. (He also discovered, too late, that when you assemble a stuffed bread on the kneading board, then try to slide it onto the cookie sheet for baking, parchment paper helps, a lot. There was a certain amount of swearing, when his tidy square stuffed bread flopped onto the cookie sheet in an untidy heap.)

I've made my lemon squares, and devised a slightly lightened version of a savoury cheesecake. Okay, not slightly lightened -- I think I halved the fat.

Here's the recipe, with my changes noted:
Spinach-Herb Cheesecake
Bounty of Biltmore Cookbook, via Post-Gazette
Serves 8

2 large tomatoes, sliced
Replaced with two large roasted red peppers, just because
3/4 teaspoon salt
3/4 teaspoon pepper
1/4 cup pine nuts
1/4 cup Italian-seasoned breadcrumbs
I replaced the previous 2 ingredients with:
1/2 cup rolled oats
1 teaspoon Italian seasoning
4 tablespoons Parmesan cheese -- grated
24 ounces (3 packages) cream cheese, softened
Replaced with 3 tubs ultra-low-fat cream cheese
15 ounces ricotta cheese
Replaced with a 16-ounce tub of Quark cheese (a skim-milk soft creamy "cottage" type cheese)
8 ounces feta cheese -- crumbled (I, uh, forgot to buy the light feta I was going to use)
3 large eggs
Replaced with 3/4 cup egg substitute
4 cups fresh spinach -- shredded
2 cloves garlic -- pressed
2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon fresh basil -- chopped
Inspired by another recipe I found, for a Spinach-Pesto cheesecake, I used about a half-cup of minced basil, and a tablespoon of dill

Process oats and Italian seasoning in a food processor in bursts, until coarsely ground. Stir in Parmesan cheese. Press into bottom of a 9-inch springform pan sprayed with olive oil. Bake at 350 F for 10 minutes. Cool in pan on a wire rack.

Slice spinach and herbs, and place in a large bowl. Chop one of the red peppers, and toss the lot together. Set aside.

Place cream cheese and Quark in a food processor fitted with the whipped-cream blade, and process until smooth. Add salt and pepper. With the motor running, pour in the egg substitute and process until well-blended. Stop the machine and scrape down the sides. Add garlic and flour, and process until blended.

Remove 2/3 of the mixture, and stir into spinach and herbs.

Pour spinach-cheese mixture into prepared crust. Spread plain cheese mixture on top. Bake at 325 degrees for 15 minutes.

Slice remaining pepper into thin strips, and arrange around the edge of the cheesecake. Bake 30 more minutes or until set. Turn oven off; leave cheesecake in oven 20 minutes.

Cool on a wire rack 10 minutes. Gently run a knife around edge of cheesecake, and carefully remove sides of pan; cool 10 more minutes. Serve warm or cold. Makes 12 appetizer or 8 main-dish servings.

Per each of 8 servings, my redux has: 212 calories; 6g fat (25.5% calories from fat); 21g protein; 19g carbohydrate; 1g dietary fiber; 18mg cholesterol; 262mg sodium.

The original had: 563 calories; 48g fat (75.5% calories from fat); 22g protein; 13g carbohydrate.

Not so bad. Hopefully mine is tasty; we'll see tomorrow.

In between creating these decadent things, and buying groceries, I've eaten rather less decadent things.

Meal Four, grabbed in between the Fancy Deli and Sobey's, was a bowl of sauerkraut and a can of sardines, with hot sauce on top.

Meal Five was ratatouille, 3 oz chicken breast, and Jello/flax fibre, with some Fibre One on top.

And Meal Six was 3/4 cup of Quark cheese, a half-tablespoon of peanut butter, and some English Toffee Da Vinci sugar-free syrup. (I just cracked this bottle. It's very good.)

Total damage, including the taste of A.'s bean filling:
1493 calories
175g protein
133g carbs
27g fibre
32g fat

Squeaky wheels
I have got to do something about my legs. I should grit my teeth and go to the gym (how I hate gyms!) so's I can train on machines for a while. This is ridiculous.

I'm so terrified of blowing out my knee again that I can't bring myself ever to squat below parallel... the slightest hint of complaint in a knee joint, and I'm likely to throw my form completely in a panic (and that's certainly going to help)... plus, the weights I'm doing are pathetic. I think I might be able to get over it a little bit if I worked on leg-press machines, or even a Smith machine; I wouldn't feel so unstable.

Anyway. I watched Marvin the Martian cartoons and had another Egg Foo Yong thing, then dragged myself downstairs for legs.

This is the beginning of Power Week. Tempo 301, rest 2-4 minutes. I stuck more to the 2-minute end, because I was being such a dumb wuss.

Bulgarian squats
15lb DB in each hand, 10/leg
(These I do for a warm-up; they really stretch out the hip flexors.)

Squats, low bar, somewhat wide stance
WU Oly+50lb x6
Work Oly+105lb x6, 6, 6 + 10 half-pulses
Note: See? See? Nowhere near a fail, but my knee was popping, and I was too much of a dam' coward to drop properly. Plus I'm not even squatting my own weight, which is more than shameful. Well, all right, I am if you include the bar -- but if you're tough, you don't include the bar!

Ski squats
2.5 minutes, 2 minutes, 2 minutes
Note: No weight. But they hurt, don't they? Suck it up, legs; you can't use your knees as an excuse here. I like ski squats. They work, and there is NO scary joint movement at all. By the time I was done the third round, I could barely stand.

Single-leg Step-ups (onto a milk crate)
WU b/w R6/L6
Work 25lb DB/hand L6/R6 35lb DB/hand R6/L6
Note: I've asked A. to make me a wooden box. The bottom of the milk crate is most uncomfortable -- I usually lift barefoot -- and feels like it is going to give way soon, moreover.

SL Deadlift, Wide Stance
WU Short Oly+50lb x6
Work Short Oly+105lb x4, 6, 6
Note: These simply kick ass, literally. I had to cut the first set short because my hands were slipping, despite the reverse grip I was using -- then I realised that I'd rubbed my face and got them greasy. The other two sets I used straps. Somewhere, there's a climbing bag of chalk. I should find it, for these moments.

Lying Leg Curl, toes pointed
WU 35lbs x6
Work 60lbs x6, 6
Note: Boosted the weight 5lbs from last week. Oh, these still hurt. A lot. I had to stretch my calves before I could climb the stairs.

Total workout time: 55 minutes.
Soundtrack: PJ again. I like it more already. Incidentally, after scouting out Ani's site yesterday, I'm more tempted by her latest album; the thing that's bothered me most about the last few is the over-production. Ani's at her best live and solo -- she really pushes herself out to the audience under those circumstances, a little ball of spitting energy. She recorded Educated Guess "at home on an old analog 8-track reel-to-reel, and the result may be her most intimate and indigenous work yet."

I'd like to hear this. I may have to buy it.

Right now, just finishing off Meal Three, postworkout: cappuccino protein shake (whey protein, water, vanilla, cinnamon, a bit of pectin powder to thicken it up, glutamine), and 8-grain cereal with sugar-free almond syrup, 1/4 cup blueberries, and 2T Quark on top.

I've got to get bathed and dressed and on the move, here. Must shop and cook for tomorrow. I'm planning on making a savory cheesecake, and Lemon Lust squares. Then A. is going to make a bean-stuffed bread out of Home Baking.

Retrograde
I rose this morning, stepped upon the scale, and saw... 133.5 pounds. I nearly cried. A week, for nothing! Back to the old drawing board.

We're going to a potluck party tomorrow; I'd been intending to cheat, so as not to be a big ol' drag on everyone -- "No, eat away, I'll just have my chicken and naked salad from these nice containers here, but I baked you all something decadent... have another slice... no, not even a taste for me..." I began hastily rewriting my plans to include the Rubbermaid containers of chicken and salad, and feeling hard-done-by.

I crankily made breakfast (2 veggie sausages with the Sauce that Shall Not Be Named; 1/4 cup Bob's Red Mill buckwheat pancake mix, made into batter with 2T Quark and 2T egg whites, with tofu cream, Da Vinci pancake syrup and a dash of Molly McButter, all started with my fine sour shot and a big handful of capsules) and ate it.

Breakfast triggered something, and I went to the bathroom in some haste. After that, despite having already eaten, I weighed in at 131. What a relief.

Body temperature this morning: 97.2?F.

Foodcount
All right, just had the last meal. Three-quarters of a scoop of protein powder, chocolate sugar-free pudding powder, flax fibre powder and a teaspoon of Udo's, mixed into puddingy mush with water. Er, woot. It vaguely resembled dessert... And green tea.

Final totals:
1505 calories
155g protein
139g carbs
23g fibre
29g fat

Feel the burn
Not from my workout -- from my supper.

I had one of my favourite dishes for dinner, something I'd forgotten about and hadn't made for months. The original recipe came from Cooking Light -- Szechuan Potatoes. It's even more delicious with sweet potatoes, though.

I didn't bother looking up the recipe, just made it up. So this is what it was, with two-thirds for A. and one-third for me.

12 oz sweet potato, peeled and finely julienned.
(You can shred it, but that makes it kind of mushy. I wish I had a mandoline.) Set aside in a bowl of cold water.

Peel and grate (on an ordinary hand grater):
2 cloves of garlic
a large thumb's worth of fresh ginger

Heat up a frying pan or wok on medium heat. Spray with cooking spray. Add the grated ginger and garlic; stir and fry till fragrant. Drain the sweet potatoes, and pour them in. Stir and fry. In between stirring and frying, mince up
a green onion or two or three
Set aside.

In a small measuring cup, mix up
2T Braggs aminos (or low-sodium soy sauce)
2T rice vinegar
a drop or two of toasted sesame oil

Stir the sweet potatoes again. Have they changed colour a bit? Do they seem somehow softer? You don't want them really soft; the slight surprising unpotatoey crispness is part of what makes the dish.

Okay. Stir in the liquid mixture, and the green onion. Scatter with:
a generous bunch -- a tablespoon maybe -- of Korean hot-pepper threads
(These are so cool. They have a real pepper/paprika taste, but are hot as well. And very pretty: hairlike and dark red. If you can't find them, I suppose hot pepper flakes or something will have to do. Not a tablespoon though!)

Serve. Sprinkle with sesame seeds if you like -- black ones look very attractive.

With these, I had 3.5 oz of chicken (fresh-baked!) and the nuked sprouts/kimchi thing.

Huge, and filling, but I'm really not that much further off my target than I have been any other day. I think next week I shall have to Get Serious and start planning out my meals in Nutribase the night before, so's I can tweak down to the right amount. That will save time in the long run (and in the morning) but quel drag, as Holly Golightly would say.

Other eating:
Meal One: 1 cup scrambled egg sub with salsa, and Cinnamon Bun 8-grain cereal (cook it, add some vanilla and cinnamon extract, and some Splenda; eat topped with a bit of tofu cream, butter sprinkles, and more ground cinnamon), and some grapefruit (and green tea and cider vinegar/lemon juice).

Meal Two: I can't remember what the "real" version of this is called. Egg Foo Yong? Ginger, garlic, green onion and bean sprouts, stir-fried a bit; 1/2 cup of egg sub and 1.75 oz shrimps poured over, with a bit of Braggs and some hot pepper. Topped with teriyaki sauce. Very good.

Meal Three: ratatouille (made a fresh batch yesterday) and a can of tuna. Oh, and half a tablespoon of hempseed, for those all-important EFAs.

Meal Four (post-lift): oatcake, with the Jello pudding/Quark "icing" again. Glutamine, which I shot in a glass of water. I never realised glutamine had a taste... I usually put it in a post-workout shake.

Speaking of shakes, A. tried out the new stick blender today. Gotta watch yourself with that thing! He incautiously lowered it into the shake already running, and protein with Udo's went all over the place. Then, he pulled it out of the shake before it had quite finished spinning, and got another bath. I'm so glad he got to figure that out, and not me!

Speaking of meat, I went to the butcher today. I love my butcher. He sells organic grain-fed chicken breasts that are exceedingly delicious, as well as other, even more interesting things. (Extra-spicy bison sausage, anyone? Low-fat Limburger cheese! Polish cream fudge... sigh.)

After the previous show, I made him a little poster, a graphic designer's idea of a joke, done up rather like a Victorian soap testimonial. Picture of me all oiled and flexing, with "B_____'s Bison Builds Bodies!" in nice curly type beside it, and the most foo-foo border I could find. I really meant it in fun, and because he gives me a little bulk discount on my pounds and pounds of bird.

But he was terribly chuffed, and went off and had the thing framed, then hung it behind the cash. Which is even funnier; I haven't felt this much like a celebrity since I was in a Surprise Hit show back in university, and got recognised on the street. Apparently people come in and ask about me, and all the women working in the butcher shop know me (and joke, when people ask about the picture, that it is them). There was a new girl working there, and she asked me all sorts of questions when I said I was going to do another show.

"Are you eating all the meat to get bigger again?"

"No, I'm eating it so I can get smaller and still keep the muscle. I have to lose all my fat."

"But you look so big in that picture!"

"Actually, I was really small in that picture. I went to that show in a pair of pants I can't even get my butt into now. Bodybuilding women are usually really tiny when they're ready for a show, like size one or two."

"Really? You don't look big..."

"Honest, it's all in the paint and the flexing. See?" I made her a muscle.

"Oh! Wow. You are that big."

I can be such a show-off.

Turn back around
Today's workout: Back and Traps, the last of Shock Week.

Superset:
Pullover
WU 10lb plate x6
Work 25lb DB x10, 10
Wide-Grip Pulldown
WU 40lb x6
Work 70lb x10, 9
Notes: It might, finally, be time to try something a bit heavier for the pullovers. They usually make my shoulders pop, and so I've been taking it light. This time, somehow, I got my position on the bench right, and they felt good, and easy.

Superset:
Stiff-Arm Pulldown
WU 10lb x6
Work 30lb x10, 9
Reverse-Grip Bent Barbell Row (short Oly bar)
WU 20lb x6
Work 50lb x10, 40lb x10
Notes: 50 lb too heavy, but I was feeling lazy -- two 25lb plates is nice and portable. My form went all to pieces, and the last rep was in all honesty a sort of bastard shrug. Then I should've put an extra 5 on the 40 I think. Ah well. Next time.

Seated Cable Row Dropset (V-handle)
85lb x6
75lb x7
65lb x8
Notes: 85 is just a tiddy pushing it, but I'll keep pushing. (Target for all: 6-8 reps.) Again, laziness; perhaps a 5lb drop would be better?

Superset:
Close-Grip Upright Cable Row
30lbs x10, 9
DB Shrug
55lb DBs x10, 10
Notes: Didn't I just do rows yesterday? That would explain why these hurt (I didn't fail, my shoulders were just whining warningly). Why can I lift such a stupid amount for the shrugs? I'm pretty sure I'm doing them right... And if I can lift such a stupid amount, where are my Giant-ass Traps?

Total workout time: a mere 25 minutes.

Soundtrack: PJ Harvey's new album, Uh Huh Her. I picked up the local free independent Thursday entertainment rag, and lo! a review! I don't generally follow the media all that closely, so I don't hear about these things... a new album! So off I rushed to HMV right after work, and snagged a copy (it was even on sale). There are very few artists left that I'll do that for. Ani Difranco used to be one, but her latest didn't really do much for me, and neither did the one before. I admire what she's doing, but the immediacy that made her so incredibly ear-grabbing seems to be gone.

As for the PJ Harvey, I hate it, but I can tell I'll love it later. Hah. No, she's always this way for me. On first listen, I find it grating, but after a couple of times through, it becomes an aural addiction.

Something ran over my grave
Weight this morning: 131.5 pounds. Basal temperature: 97?F. I'm glad to see that last night's devouring of carbs didn't put my paltry little one-pound loss back on.

I note a drop in the temperature. Now, this is, or may be, significant (as opposed to the wacky one from the other day) because I've been consistently popping the thermometer into my still-sleeping mouth as the alarm goes off of a morning. If it drops 2? or more, that will be a sign that my metabolism may have been kicked in the teeth, and I'll stuff my face with a couple hundred grams of extra high-GI carbs to jolt my leptin levels. This is another one of those bodybuilder binge phenomena. It's a hoot; cruise bodybuilder forums for a while, and you can watch the wise ones stomp all over any poor fool who confesses to eating white rice instead of brown, or (gasp!) anything with sugar. Then they'll post their own diets, and you'll see enough Splenda daily to kill whole labfuls of rats, or a day full of nothing but colourful kiddie breakfast cereal, bagels, and fat-free ice-cream, all in shocking quantities. The latter? "Planned overfeed to boost my leptin levels."

Ahem. Anyway. I'm not planning anything so extreme, should the occasion arise, but there may be a bowl of Kashi Crunch cereal involved, or possibly a fat-free No Pudge brownie or two. (If I'm lucky, that will be enough brand names to get rid of the accursed b@rbecue banners across the top of this here blog.)

This morning A. and I and the dog went running, before dawn had even chipped slightly, in the cemetery. I like cemeteries -- old ones, anyway. I have no use for the newer ones, which are like well-groomed golf courses punctuated by columbaria and memorial plaques. This particular cemetery is a very fine one. There are two halves to it; one was at one time Protestant, the other Catholic. The stones date back to at least the early 19th century, and there are a few beautiful and unusual monuments.

Sadly, the beautiful ones are very subject to vandalism. There are several very nice angels and other sculptures, and most of them are missing hands or wings. One of my favourite monuments is in the back, near the Orthodox section (another fascinating bit, with the seven-day candles and occasional other offerings on the graves). It has some sort of photographs of the man and his wife, printed on metal plates and inset in oval glasses right into the stone. When I first moved here, both photographs were clear and perfect, but in the last ten years, the glasses have developed leaks. I think the last time I looked, the man's image had gone completely black, and the woman had a great dark stain spreading across her face. Sad. The thing was already at least eighty years old. I wonder what happened?

We ran twice round the ring road that circles the entire cemetery, and twice round a smaller ring near the gate we came in, a course A. charted out which is 5 kilometres long. Onyx ran wildly back and forth and started rabbits behind the stones; he never catches them.

It took us 28 minutes, which pleased A. He wants to be faster when he does the military physical, but I think, if I remember right, that technically for his age this is already acceptable. The dog was pooped. We came in, he polished off the remains of the cats' breakfasts, and flopped out flat on the floor, a position in which, A. reported, he spent most of the morning, panting.

The price of decadence
So I'm not at my dietary goal for the day. This is more like dietary horseshoes, really. I suppose, if I was really dedicated, I would work out a meal plan, no condiments, no trimmings, same six meals every day, that added up, and just eat that. Fun wow...

Or not.

First, 1/4 cup 8-grain cereal, Da Vinci syrup, tofu cream; 1 cup egg substitute, the last 2 tablespoon scrapings of cook cheese (goodbye, cook cheese) and green onions. Oh, and half a small grapefruit. Green tea. Various capsules of things. The lemon juice and vinegar dealie (which I then proceeded to forget for every other meal).
Second, a frittata of 1/2 cup egg substitute, a small can of smoked tuna, half an onion. With salsa on top. More green tea.
Third, a spinach salad with grape tomatoes, Vidalia onion, red pepper, capers, 3 oz chicken, and creamy tofu mayo dressing. Coffee.

(I was fading fast by this point. Onyx's owner stayed over last night, having errands in town, and brought Onyx's bud Orc. Who, after repeatedly dominating and having his way with Onyx in a shameful fashion, then proceeded to sleep on our bed, which meant flopping down in one spot, getting up, wandering about, flopping down, turning around a bit, resting a bit, getting up, wandering about... being thrown off the bed, jumping up again, repeat... He didn't sleep with Owner Boy, oh, no, he had to sleep in the bed, with us. We must have a special smell or something. We're always the ones in any room with animals all over us.)

Third meal: oatcake, Jello pudding, a bit of Quark. A diet Pepsi on our erranding.

Fourth meal: bean sprouts, kimchi, 1/4 cup edamame, last 2 ounces of chicken (until I buy more tomorrow. Fifth meal as stated. And more green tea.

The totals:
1619 calories
179g protein
140g carb, of which 28g fibre
31g fat

Not too bad. I can live with that.

Another day, another workout
Perhaps unsurprisingly, today has, all in all, not been one of Fulfillment and Great Accomplishment. Hah.

I normally lift right after work. If I don't, I lose momentum, and the idea seems to grow less and less attractive, and then I find myself rearranging the rest of my week and going to bed.

We had to go out and do a couple of errands, and so -- yes, you guessed it -- we took off right after I got home from work. I grabbed an oatcake out of the fridge, and off we went. (So my meal arrangement was all farked too, since the carby oatcake was supposed to be the post-workout meal.)

(We did stop at Chateau Wal in the course of our travels, where I picked up a Braun stick blender. I'm really a bodybuilder now, indeedy. Just let me stock my bottom drawer at work with the half-dozen cans of tuna and jar of rolled oats (which I keep forgetting to bring in) and I'll be in the Ironwoman Club.)

I did end up working out, though, just now, in fact. Why? Because I love the fitness lifestyle? Because I enjoy seeing my massive musculature pump more hugely each day? Because I get a thrill from the smell of sweat and endorphins like no other?

No, because if I worked out I could justify having another meal even though I had -- yet again -- hit my arbitrary calorie limit at five feeds, and was starving. Starving! Well, whatever works, right?

Chest, Shoulders and Calves on the menu today. It is still Shock Week.
Superset:
Incline Flye
WU 10lb DB - 6
Work 25lb DB - 10
Pushups (b/w)
6
10

Superset:
Cable Cross
WU 5lb - 6
Work - 10 lb L10/R10, R10/L10
Incline Press
WU 10lb DB - 6
Work 25lb DB+Add 10, 10
(Note: I am again in that awkward spot: I don't fail at these weights, but would flop at the next possible weight. I shall try adding another 2.5lb to the cable cross.)

Bench Press Dropset
35lb DB 6
25lb DB 10
15lb DB 10
(Note: bla. First set was supposed to be 8-10, rest 6-8. This is because I was lazy, and didn't feel like loading up the Oly, so I used the Powerblocks instead. The weight drop's too big. Not sure why I couldn't do more on the 35s though. So I went higher on the rest to, uh, compensate.)

Superset:
Side Lateral
Work 15lb DB 10 (oops!) 10
DB Press
Work 15lb DB 10 (oops!) 10
(Note: The oops means "I forgot to do the second set until after I had done the next superset and looked at my notes and thought 'whoa, that was supposed to be two!'" Not surprisingly, the second round, especially of the laterals, was rather filled with pain.)

Superset:
Bent-over Lateral
Work 10lb DB 10, 10
Upright Row
Work 20lb DB 10, 10

Front Raise Dropset
15lb DB 6
10lb DB 6
5lb DB 7
(Note: I love a good dropset.)

Single-Leg Calf Raise
holding 55lb DB, pause 2 sec top and bottom
R15/L15

Double-Leg Calf Raise
holding same DB, same pause, toes in
15

Total time: wow, 30 minutes! I like Shock Week. It hurts a lot, but it's over so fast.

My reward for the above was a bowl of a half cup of Quark cheese, mixed with a half scoop of whey protein, a spoon of sugar-free pudding powder, and a quarter-cup of Fibre One. Decadence! Carbs!

Fat. Or thin.
Weight this morning: 131.5 pounds. Temperature 97.3?F.

I was cruising through the archives of our digicam pictures yesterday. (I was hunting for a good picture of one of the cats, and didn't find any of that particular cat.)

I did find a lot of pictures of me. (Good grief, A. takes a lot of pictures of me, and some of them not even at my request.) Among them were pictures of my progress through the Rock Hard Challenge last year, and a few pictures from the year before that.

I recall that while I was doing the Challenge, I gained several pounds, to a grand total I think of 119 at one point, and was horrified. But all my thin clothes still fit. I'm extremely thin in those pictures. I'm proudly flexing my arms, and they're still more elbow joint than muscle tissue. (Makes me wonder what I'll think of My First Comp pictures next year, or the year after.)

In the pictures from the year before that, I'm nothing. Skin, sinew, bone.

I miss that. I didn't think I was thin enough at the time; I was barely eating and running every day. I looked-- too thin, but I miss it. Now, I'm normal to pudgy. My clothes don't fit.

Maybe I should give up this muscle stuff, and try maintaining lean again instead. Since I started lifting seriously, it's made it "acceptable" (in my head) to eat, and tooling around with my diet has caused more than a few bad binge days... and all of that is "normal", for bodybuilders. You have clean days, and you have cheat days. Good or bad, black or white. And the competition preparation made it worse. The rebound after the various depletions and loadings precontest is like nothing I'd expected, and I was glad to start again for this one, to regain that feeling of control (before there was nothing left in the house that I could wear save the queen-size sheets).

But what happens afterwards? I don't want to go through endless big bulk cycles followed by cuts -- fat, then thin. I don't want extremes. I want moderation. I want to go back to the days when I could be satisfied with a single bite of cake, and not want to eat the whole thing.

I eat too much. I like eating too much.