Weeks of working on my coping skills to get to the point that I could find peace in something other than chocolate went up in smoke in the last few days. Most of the gnawing  anxiety is work-related, so I won’t go into detail because:

• I’m a a professional
• The details are boring to anyone but me
• I like being employed

So let’s just go with work-blah-blah-blah has been rough and so Friday night I bought cookies. And a wee bit of ice cream. And caramel apples with nuts because that is my seasonal Kryptonite.

And then Halloween happened and there are all these fun size candy bars that the little beggars didn’t claim that I may or may not have consumed for breakfast this morning.

And today, after I wasted 30 minutes stuck in a drive-thru bank lane behind some asshole in a beat-up pick-up who must have been refinancing his house, I *tried* to order a low-WW-Points sandwich from a drive thru.  But the surly chick at the window got really rude with me because I pointed out she was charging me for the wrong order and so I did what I always do when I’m mad: I left without buying any food.

Hello, Burger King double cheeseburger. You were convenient, fast and the young lady at the window was sweet, smiling and has been the brightest spot of my shitty lunch hour.

In other words, I haven’t done much toward the weight loss goal in the last seven days.

But shit happens. I didn’t pile on all this weight in a matter of days the first time, I can’t lose it all in the same amount of time. You cannot buy coping skills on Amazon or eBay, because I’ve looked, and old habits are hard to break. And caramel apples with nuts are just wonderful and they really do make it all better. At least for a few minutes.

I may need to seek professional therapy and a personal trainer before pecan pie season, which starts today, is more than I can resist.

In case you are unfamiliar with Sandra Lee, go ahead and click on this link. Watch it and tell me if you don’t cringe and gasp.

That’s one scary-assed bish, no? She’s also the semi-first-lady of New York cause she’s the live-in-the-mansion love interest of Mario Cuomo. Have fun with that, New Yorkers.

So after I had my shizz-and-giggles poking fun at the wench via social media,  I realized my lunch today was indeed, semi-homemade. I toted a steam-in-the-bag of veggies harvested and cooked with love by the jolly Green Giant, and a smidge of leftover pulled pork that I made in my crock pot on Sunday.

I give no credit for this to Sandra Lee, by the way. As most working people do every single day, I can mix my ready-made foods and homemade foods successfully without her advice and her ugly-assed “tablescapes.” BTW: that’s not a real word!

But back to my lunch, which was easy and awesome. The veggies are redskin potatoes, red pepper and sugar snap peas — three of my go-to home ingredients. The potatoes are a bit mushy from swimming in this faux-herb-butter sauce that the Green Giant added, but otherwise the veggie medley was tasty. And the whole box is only 100 calories.

The pulled pork was awesome, but will likely never be repeated. We had three open bottles of various barbecue sauces in the ‘fridge and a pork loin. Put it all together with a half of an onion in a crock pot for four hours and viola, awesome pulled pork in a wonderful hybrid sauce of unknown proportions of Sweet Baby Ray’s and a couple of others brands. Calorie and fat content are a wild card here, but the meat was lean and none of the sauces were over-the-top on fat (calories maybe cause that’s a lot of sugar; but I don’t consume all the sauce.)

Overall, I like my semi-homemade lunch. Very satisfying, and no booze was wasted and no stupid costumes were worn.

I think producers of mass-marketed frozen diet entrees really love Asian-inspired foods. And what’s not to love? Rice,  veggies, white meat chicken and a bit of spicy sauce and WHAM! You have an appealing-yet-calorie-friendly lunch.

And in the middle of the workday, who doesn’t need a BAM! of flavor to POWer! you through the rest of the day?

And this dish did deliver a little of the promised PAO! via the sauce, which is the only attribute that kept it from being mostly BLAH!

There wasn’t much sauce, but what was there coated the rice and packed a PUNCH! The rice was a little toothsome, and the chicken was bland.  The veggies were OK, even if the water-chestnuts-broccoli-peppers color combo (white, green and red) made me think of Christmas and  which led to an “OMG that’s exactly two months from now!” moment of panic because even though I love the holidays they are stressful especially if you are on a D*I*E*T.

So yeah, once I recovered myself and finished my lunch, it was OK. Not memorable. Not special. Just OK.

For 290 calories, 17 grams of protein and only 6 grams of fat it’s a nice fit for the nutritionally conscious lunch bag. The 560 mg. of salt sure tasted like much more, as I was gasping for WATER! the whole time I was eating it.

Hard day at work, husband out of town, dogs bouncing off the ceiling, cat being a dick.

You know, the typical stuff.

While I have been almost boastful of my resistance to eating my emotions lately, I folded like a seven-two-offsuit hand of Texas Hold ‘Em last night.

I totally grabbed a spoon and went face first into a pint of Ben & Jerry’s Boston Cream Pie ice cream.

One bazillion calories later, I was still stressed. But damn. That was some very good ice cream.

In light of the fact that I neglected to bring the lunch I packed (dumb ass pulls ahead in the odds) and that today may be one of the last summer-like days we have here for a while, I decided to walk four blocks to our newly refurbished City Market in search of food.

I found a little cafe that touts fresh, local ingredients.  Sold.

I decided to make this just another meatless Monday and ordered a grilled veggie pita with a side of black bean/corn salad.  The veggies included zucchini, mushrooms, onions and a variety of lettuce leaves, with some mozzarella cheese (hardly any, really) and garnished with a mild remuolade.

The sandwich was very tasty –veggies were still crisp but nicely grilled — however in the four blocks I had to walk back to my desk the pita got a wee bit soggy.

Note to self: EAT SOMEWHERE BESIDES YOUR DESK ONCE IN A WHILE!

The black beans should provide enough protein to power me through water aerobics tonight, and the red onion in the dish should ensure no one wants to get close to me for the rest of the afternoon. Win/win.

Second note to self: Make this at home! Nom!

I need to give up the capri length pants I’ve been wearing to work all spring and summer and squeeze my thighs into floor-length slacks and jeans. This, I am afraid, is going to require shopping.

I love to shop for shoes, purses and jewelry. I hate to shop for plus-size clothes — which for some reason retailers are convinced must look extra ugly to make the cash register ring.

Who doesn’t loooove a good pair of blue jeans. But finding a pair that follows the contours of my cellulite deposits in a flattering way is a challenge.

I did find one pair in the back of my closet that are a wee bit small (read one full size) but they have enough give (read stretchy pants convoluted to look like denim) that I can get into them.

My fear is this:

Yeah. As my friends in the South would say, you don’t want the crotch of the jeans to hit ‘ya where the good lord split ‘ya.

So wish me luck as I head out to Macy’s, Marshalls and, gulp, Lane Bryant, in search of a pair of jeans that do not give me an unsightly case of camel toe.

Today’s fare is a feast compared to yesterday’s lunch, which was non-existent. You know those stupid people who say stupid things like, “Oh, I was so busy I forgot to eat!”?

I hate those stupid people. But I was one of those stupid people yesterday.

Here’s the thing with vacation: You should stay gone forever or never go. What you return to when you get back to “real life” sucks. Piles of work everywhere and no food in a house that looks like an episode of “Hoarders” because stuff is scattered everywhere.

On vacation, there was fresh fruit waiting for me every morning. Someone came in and cleaned my room, made my bed and left me fresh towels. In real life I have to do that shit for myself. And a husband, three dogs and tyrannical cat.

So yesterday, without so much as a morsel of food in my stomach, I had to stop at the grocery on my way home.

BTW — People look at you like you are a fucking freak if you stand in the middle of Kroger and yell, “I WANT ALL THE THINGS! ALL THE FOOD THINGS! IN MY BELLY NOW!”

My husband, you see, is the Mr. Moneybags financial guru for Kroger, and he told me there was about $200,000 worth of edible inventory in the store and that our credit card doesn’t have that high of a limit. So even if the store were inclined to actually sell me all the food instead of escorting me out, I couldn’t afford to pay for it.

WTF, platinum card?

So I had to be selective, which is not easy when you are so hungry you are trying to decide if security will stop you from licking that grape you squished off the wheel of your shopping cart.

It would have been so easy to hit the bakery HARD CORE. I was tempted to grab a couple of deep fried chickens and make them MY BITCH.  I wanted to stuff every mayonnaise-based deli salad down my face like I was PAULA FUCKING DEEN with a raging case of PMS.

But I didn’t.

I bought a roasted chicken (it was late and we were having my daughter and her boyfriend over for dinner so I needed something pre-cooked), salad, fresh fruits and veggies. I did get enough deli potato salad for four people (we had leftovers, thank you very much) but I passed by the fresh baked double chocolate chip cookies (OM NOM NOM said my inner Cookie Monster) and grabbed a couple small loaves of fresh bread, some whole grain chips and peach mango salsa.

For dessert? Watermelon.

I am sure lack of food yesterday contributed to this pounding in my brain today, but I am glad I had this nectarine and these early-in-the-season clementines today. Raw food just sits better in my stomach when my head is all fizzy and foggy. And I am giving myself a huge gold star for being famished at the grocery and not going crazy with the calories.

This diet thing, much like real life, is really tough, you guys.

Nude is beautiful. Just not on the furniture, please and thanks.

There was a meme all over Facebook this week about a woman who reportedly wrote a response to a bulletin posted at a gym. I  do not know if any of this is true, so the journalist in me resisted posting it to my wall.

Also, many of the memes included a nude photo of French model Tara Lynn (pictured here) sitting in a wicker chair. While she is certainly beautiful and I appreciate tasteful nudity, I don’t like naked people on furniture. It’s an phobia I have about ass-matter-transfer, one of the multitude of reasons I would never be comfortable at a nudist colony, and totally not relevant to this discussion.

Any old hoo, this is the text of the meme:

A while back, at the entrance of a gym, there was a picture of a very thin and beautiful woman. The caption was “This summer, do you want to be a mermaid or a whale?”

The story goes, a woman (of clothing size unknown) answered the following way:

OK. There’s a lot going on in that meme, and it has generated a lot of discussion.

For some, it’s been eye-opening that beauty does come in all shapes and sizes.  

For others, this seems to say that it’s OK to be obese, no matter what the consequences to your health. (I follow this blogger on Twitter and she’s smart and funny. I totally get where she’s going here.)

My take, for what it’s worth, is this: If some staffer at a gym really posted that flyer, it’s a condescending way to isolate and shame women and it sends the wrong message. In other words, that person is a douche.

Women should not be shamed into fitness because of their appearance, ever. This is not a way to incentivize exercise, at least it’s not for me. The horrific memories of school gym classes come flooding back and that is one of the reasons I’ve always felt like I don’t belong in a fitness facility. Every gym teacher I ever had was Sue Sylvester. True story.

But I am trying to convince myself now that I do belong. I remind myself that I do not swim to look prettier in my swimsuit. I swim, despite all the cellulite jutting out for the world to see, to improve my health.

To the woman who wrote the response that has now been tweeted and liked around the Internet, I am almost there with you. Whales are not overweight and they are certainly not unattractive. They are powerful, graceful and fit. Mermaids are not real and certainly not aspirational. I want to enjoy food, drinks and ice cream, too. I want to embrace my curves. But I also know that too much “cultivation” is going to kill me.

If losing weight has the side benefit of looking better, then that’s great. But the goal for me is to alleviate my arthritis pain and help my mobility. My current weight is impeding my career and my personal life. I have no illusions that I will ever be thin or look like the images in magazines, which are totally unrealistic and, frankly, unattractive.

Fifteen years ago, I was fit and active. I walked more than 20 miles a week and had no problems with blood sugar, blood pressure, cholesterol etc.

Still, I was 40 pounds over the weight I am supposed to be for my height.

Tara Lynn (with clothes) is gorgeous and curvy. And a size 12, from what I've read.

I have always had a round ass and chunky thighs, and no matter how much shame is shoved down my throat, I always will be curvy. I was not OK with that when I was younger. I loathed the way I looked and those body images haunt me to this day. It’s part of the reason that, as I became older and less active, I piled on so much weight — I found comfort in food that eased the pain of never feeling pretty enough.

People who do not have emotional issues with food will never understand that statement. Those who do know exactly what I mean.

Marian del Rey

Vacation is synonymous with joy to me. I love being free of the stress of every day life and I love traveling. This week I am tagging along while my husband attends a conference in Los Angeles, because I am too selfish to let him get that close to the ocean without me.

Yesterday while he worked I strolled up and down Venice Beach, in and around it’s canal walks, and back to our hotel in Marina del Rey.

It was a warm day with a cool breeze and I took lots of photos. The path along the canals is gorgeous, with its variety of architecture styles and its multitude of flowers, bushes and succulents. It was a rush of saturated color, contrasting textures and intoxicating aromas from the blooms.

Canal walkway along Venice Beach.

I honestly can’t imagine being unhappy if this was my view every day, but I know that’s a crock of shit because even if you live in paradise, you have stress. Hell, it maybe even more stressful because the rent’s so damn high.

Still, it’s fun to imagine waking up to this beauty every day and I certainly hope the folks who live in these homes have allotted enough time to enjoy it.

Vacation is normally synonymous with lots of indulgent food, but I have really tried to make better choices this time. I am winning the battle of good verses evil when it comes to food (mostly) but probably just holding my own on booze.

Pineapple martinis have made me their bitch.

Most people will tell you to avoid buffets if you are trying to lose weight — I suppose because it’s like leading a hog to a trough and asking him to go easy on the good stuff.

I genrally agree with that (not the hog part, that’s just a metaphor) especially if I am feeling vulnerable, which a lot of time I am. But this week I’ve been feeling pretty good, and the breakfast buffet here at the hotel is reasonably priced and loaded with good choices. Also, the flip side to the buffet argument is that I can control my portions much easier if I am the one doling it on my plate.

I learned something this week: French toast can taste good a) from a buffet line and b) without butter or syrup or whip cream, just topped with fresh strawberries.

No. Really. It’s true. The way I look at it, it’s a minimum amount of carbs and fat (the slices were not at all greasy) and a wee bit of protein from the eggs but with a lot fewer calories since I only had one slice and left off all the other extra sugar and fat and subbed in antioxidant rich, unprocessed fruit.

Eggs with salsa, fresh fruit.

This morning I got a variety of melons and pineapple (hold the martini this time) and just a single spoonful of a huevos-ranchero-style scrambled eggs from the buffet. I was very satisfied, and got in a good stretch while patting myself on the back for my bacon restraint.

Yesterday while I was on my walkabout all over the shoreline, I chose the healthiest lunch I could from the menu of an adorable Mexican cafe: a soft chicken taco and a salad, with a minimum amount of cheese and lots of veggies. Sure, I had a Dos XX with it because I love beer at lunch while on vacation, but since I walked probably five miles yesterday and drank a gallon of water, I figured it was OK.

Last night I joined my husband and his accountant colleagues for dinner on the roof of our hotel. The food was OK — a small beef filet, a poached salmon filet, a pile of mushy mashed potatoes, two asparagus spears and two gangsta-tough baby carrots. I ate only half of my dinner (only a single bite of the potatoes) and only half of my dessert — a citrus flavored sponge cake with a cream filling and white chocolate shavings.

I may not be an accountant, but I know I saved half the calories by only eating half of the food. Math skillz, yo.

So yeah, it all comes down to choices. And I am trying, even while on vacation, to make better ones. I don’t really think I will lose weight on this vacation, but I at least hope to break even.

I haven’t checked my weight at all this week on my bathroom scale, which is calibrated correctly so it matches the one at WW. I have eaten healthy for the most part, but there was a drive-thru incident on Sunday. After I swam laps. On an empty stomach. Before I did some heavy lifting.

It was one cheeseburger. A small one. And fries. Medium.

I felt guilty. I didn’t really enjoy it.

Yesterday I was mega-stressed at work. Not once, not twice, but THREE times I wandered my fat ass to the vending machine and contemplated a Three Musketeers bar. I twirled the dollar in my pocket. I thought the chocolate would make me feel better. But I did not buy one.

If I am going to indulge in chocolate, I want something better than a stale Three Musketeers bar.

That’s progress, I guess.

Still, I don’t want to weigh in tomorrow. I can’t handle another episode with Judgy McJudgerson, the condescending bitch behind the counter, if I didn’t lose weight this week. Never mind that I know that losing weight is a marathon, not  a sprint. Never mind that I know setbacks happen and never mind that I ate one lousy fucking cheeseburger but did not eat a candy bar this week.

I just don’t want to go. And that usually means the beginning of the end.