6:00 p.m. diet

Every so often I go on the 6:00 p.m. diet. What it amounts to is that I can eat my head off until 6:00 p.m. but nothing but liquids after that. I made this diet up, as far as I know, but it is such an obvious diet that I can’t imagine that someone hasn’t published it and made a lot of money in some book. I certainly hope so because now the secret is out and I’d hate to think I missed the boat on early retirement.

The idea behind the diet is the acknowledgement that all I eat after 6:00 p.m. is junk and lots of it. Truth be told, I don’t eat much during the day but come 6:30 – 10:30 p.m., bring on the doritoes, cheetoes, popcorn and potatoes chips. If I lived in NYC this might not be the case but the rest of the United States eats at reasonable hours and that is where I live. I thought about restricting my wine intake to before 6:00 p.m. but decided the potential fallout could cause more problems than it would solve so I just call wine a liquid and allow it after 6:00 p.m.

So far I have been on the 6:00 p.m. diet for 10 days. For some reason, I have not lost any weight. In fact, I gained a couple of pounds for three days. I am not certain why this has happened but suspect there is some weird hormonal thing going on that increased my water weight and contributed to my feeling cranky and like a squeezed sponge (see earlier post). (Alternatively, it could have been all the cheese I’ve been eating, lately - but surely not). I hold out hope that in a day or so I will wake up 6 – 7 pounds lighter and have lost three inches in my waist. If I am lucky, my butt will be two inches shorter. Yes, shorter. When you get to my age you learn to measure things differently than a younger woman would.

Even if I don’t lose any weight (which I will), I figure the self discipline of not eating past 6:00 p.m. is good for me. This is the lentil (or is it Lenten?) season, after all. I am not Catholic but went to a Catholic high school and had Catholic friends growing up so some of the mindset rubbed off. I thought about giving up quilting for lent but decided God would not expect that. It would be like giving up telling my family I love them and what would that accomplish, after all?

In addition, I figure that giving up so much salty, processed food is going to detox me. How could that be bad? The weird way my body was feeling, yesterday, may have been because my body was revolting against the loss of toxins. I can’t prove that but for SOME reason, my body was revolting.

-- As a follow-up to yesterday's post, I felt so cruddy that I took a nap and missed eating dinner because I woke up at 6:15. Because I am so self disciplined, I wouldn't eat past the deadline so drank wine, instead. It went straight to my head since it wasn't diluted down with doritoes. Fortunately, I'd eaten a lot of chocolate, earlier, so I didn't get a headache from lack of fuel. --

Since it is Saturday, I plan to finish a quilt block for the swap. I have skipped the last two weekends and will live to rue the day when the swap deadline looms. That is all I have planned for today other than to go to the Mexican restaurant and chow down on chips and salsa. We go every Saturday.

I will keep you informed of my weight loss as it progresses.