Minus 3.6

I weighed at home yesterday morning in preparation for my weekly phone call with my Jenny Craig counselor, and I'd lost 3.6 pounds over the last week. I guess that is to be expected when you go from eating 11,000 calories a day to 1,500. (Kidding.)

So despite the fact that my hunger is so completely, mind-numbingly, absolutely overwhelming, 24 hours a day, there is a 3.6-pound silver lining on the cloud.

After eight days on the program, I have discovered that:

- The food shipments (one every two weeks) come packaged on dry ice in large styrofoam coolers. If it takes me 40 weeks to lose the weight, I will then be the proud owner of 20 styrofoam coolers.

- The food is actually pretty tasty ... just tiny.



- When I was on Weight Watchers a few years ago, I got used to dipping my fork in my salad dressing before each bite rather than dumping the entire contents of the ramekin straight onto my salad, so getting used to the tiny packet of salad dressings hasn't been difficult. I was always leaving 3/4 of the dressing behind in restaurants, anyway. And Jenny's dressings are surprisingly good.


- As I mentioned last week, the words "cookie" and "cake" are apparently open to a wider interpretation than I'd previously thought. I wouldn't put "tasty" in front of any of their dessert names, but I suppose it's better than going cold-turkey off of sweets altogether.

- I still don't like turkey, even if it's been cooked, frozen, packaged, shipped and microwaved before it hits my mouth. None of that made it any more palatable.

- French toast is still yummy, even if it's been cooked, frozen, packaged, shipped and microwaved before it hits my mouth. STILL. YUMMY. I even get a thimble full of syrup.



- Eating six times a day is more difficult than I thought it would be. It sounds like you'd get to eat just as you realized you were hungry again, but in fact, it is really hard to work in those mid-morning and mid-afternoon snacks when you are REQUIRED to do it. And when said snack doesn't include a king-sized bag of Peanut M&Ms. It's much harder to remember to eat a "snack bar" or "cookie" than it would be to remember to eat a Twix.

On Saturday, while we were in Atlanta, I forgot to eat lunch. (Again, if it had been Pizza Hut pepperoni pizza, I probably wouldn't have forgotten ... but it wasn't. It was a tee-tiny turkey panini.) I ate breakfast, then my snack of yogurt and a banana around 10:30 a.m. Everyone else prepared their lunch, and I just managed the kids while they ate, thinking I'd heat my lunch up once everyone was finished.

Since I'm so used to THE EVER-PRESENT HUNGER, I ended up ignoring my stomach and ate my mid-afternoon snack around 2:00. When I went to get my dinner entree out to heat it up, I stood there looking into the freezer, puzzled. "Why is there a turkey panini AND a salisbury steak in here? There should only be one." I was honestly stumped.

It took me about 90 seconds to rewind my day and realize, "HOLY CRAP. I forgot to eat lunch." Mind you, this isn't a GOOD thing. I ended up eating the salisbury steak then, and (against the "rules" or not), I heated up the panini about two hours later so that I'd complete my caloric intake for the day. WHEN I ONLY GET 1,500, I'M NOT ABOUT TO LEAVE 300 ON THE TABLE. I am not that lady.

Until next week ... just a reminder that I am not being paid to blog about my experience with Jenny Craig (in fact, I'm sure if they knew about it, they'd probably prefer that I not!) ...