My secret weight-loss plan, unveiled

I went to the doctor for a checkup yesterday, and it was the kind of doctor’s office where they trust you to weigh yourself in the bathroom and then report your weight to the nurse. Well, I stepped on that scale, and I realized all my summer cocktails (sorry, people, but my pool serves wine) and summer baking had sort of caught up with me.

So when I saw the doctor, she looked at the chart and said, “Wow, you’ve lost a lot of weight since last year.” I replied, “Oh please – I totally lied.” She just laughed and said, “I can’t even believe you actually weighed yourself. I am starting to not fit into the largest pants I own, and I refuse to buy the next size up, so I spend my days in scrubs or yoga pants.”

I left there with a little sense of solidarity (and a firm disregard of the fact that she just had a baby) and decided that I needed to get rid of the five to (gulp) eight/nine/ten pounds I’ve packed on in, honestly, a year. That’s not scary, insurmountable weight loss, but because I’m crazy it’s “lose weight before your metabolism stops dead in its tracks and even baby carrots give you a muffin top over your jeans” weight loss.

So, like any good dieter, I thought about the diet choices I have. Weight Watchers? Nah. I love that diet but can’t put that much effort into it. The Paleo diet craze that’s sweeping through all my social circles? And what, not eat bagels? No way. I thought back to high school and the grapefruit diet and the rice diet and the Special K diet and even the Scarsdale diet and none of them appealed to me.

So I looked at how I eat. Frankly, it’s pretty darn healthy, and I am not a huge eater. I run a lot and am very active throughout every day, so it’s not a lack of exercise.

After a lot of introspective and honest thought, the truth hit me. No matter how I tried to tiptoe around them, I could see the culprits staring me in the face: wine and chocolate.

Wine and chocolate are the exact same to me. If they’re in the house, I want them. “One glass of wine,” a friend famously announced, “is simply a tease.” “Yes,” I would reply, “and so is one Hershey’s Kiss. That’s like mouse food. You need at least two in your mouth at once so they melt together.”

Now, if neither is around, I don’t seek them out. I very rarely run to the wine store and I only buy chocolate “for the (ahem) kids.” But when they’re here, I’m nibbling on chocolate and enjoying a glass of wine (or two) with Whit at night.

So I resolutely decided there would be no more wine and no more chocolate until this weight was gone. That’s it. Kaput.

Except.

Except that it’s Halloween month. If you’ve read this blog for a while, you know my problem with Easter candy. It’s the same with Halloween. Halloween candy just can’t have calories or else it would be irresponsible to sell so much of it so early that there’s no way people are just buying it to give out on Halloween. So maybe I’ll limit the Halloween candy (which yes, I say defensively, I have been buying to give out on Halloween. Mostly). One a week. No, that’s just crazy. One a day. Unless it’s the Kit Kats where it’s really just one in a fun size (bullshit name) and not just two little ones in one wrapper. I want the two little ones in one wrapper, so it could be two of the ones in one wrapper. Okay, good, that’ll help.

Now for the wine. Easy peasy, not drinking wine during the week is easy because I am busy and then I’m just tired. Okay, so maybe I can have a glass of wine on Fridays and Saturdays. No, not Fridays, because I run on Saturday mornings. So then Saturday night I can have wine, but I have to make up for not having wine Friday night, so maybe we’ll move that to Thursday.

So here’s my diet. No chocolate or wine. Except one piece of Halloween candy a day (unless, as we’ve discussed, it’s a bullshit fun size and it’s really little, then I get two). And except for one maybe two glasses of wine on Thursday and Saturday. Done.

Bite me, Jenny Craig. People are going to be ALL OVER this diet. You’ll see.