While struggling to find a decent option for commenting on the Blogger site, I was also looking at alternative hosts to see what they offered. I came across BlogSome, which is a free WordPress host. Perfect! I've used WP a little bit before and I knew it was a very robust system. So I've ported dietgrrl.blogspot.com over into dietgrrl.blogsome.com and it's looking pretty good so far. My first attempt at setting up Kristine's template didn't go too well, so I will need to play around a bit; meanwhile I've put in a nice template that will work in the interim. Who knows, I may even end up making this a fully-featured blog, with a blogroll and everything! I still have to tell Google AdSense where my new site is, but I'll do that after lunch.

I changed the commenting for this site to Haloscan because I don't like Blogger's way of handling comments. I also copied all the existing comments over by hand into Haloscan, so anybody who has commented before does not have to go back and change anything. My problem now, though, is that it turns out Haloscan only e-mails comments to upgraded accounts. I'm not about to pay for it, so now I have to figure out another option. YACCS and BlogBack aren't accepting new registrations, and I can't figure out if Enetation will do the mailing thing. Then again there's the issue of spam to think about, too. Argh. It's time to leave work now, though, so I'll figure this out later.

I weighed in this morning at 169.5. No big surprise given that I had a big dinner the night before and haven't used the bathroom yet. I'm going to skip this one and weigh in later after I have eliminated. (TMI, I know.)

I'm over at my in-laws' right now; I brought my laptop. My mother-in-law has put out a little bowl of almonds and I am eating way too many of them. Damn, but they're good, though. I have also had two "Bellini" drinks, which is champagne plus peach nectar. I think I'm going to get myself a can of Diet Coke and just have that until it's time for dinner (whenever that is).

Yesterday's eating was a bit wacky because I had to take a test right at lunchtime. I didn't get out until about 2:30, and then I had to drive an hour back home. So I bought a bag of Baked Cheetos out of a vending machine, but I didn't eat it until I was almost all the way home. Then for dinner - to celebrate taking this test - my wife and I went out to dinner at a restaurant I knew had a salad I like, and they make pretty good chocolate martinis. But I searched the menu all over and I couldn't find my salad! There was one item under "salads" that was listed as new, so I assume they replaced my salad with that one. It was an Italian place, so we ended up getting a family-size plate of penne with fresh tomato...I really wanted the spinach four-cheese ravioli, but I knew that wasn't the best option. I only had a little bit of the penne because I was yammering the whole time! I also had two chocolate martinis because I love them, and I got nicely drunk but not enough to have a hangover, fortunately. (I've never been that drunk; I drink very rarely and only once did I drink enough to not remember the next day.)

Today, Sunday, is going to be another big dinner, and I'm worried about that. We're going over to my in-laws' to celebrate three different things, and my mother-in-law is going to prepare the same things she made for Thanksgiving. The vegetarian side dishes she made were very good, so I'm looking forward to them, but I will have to be careful and only have a little bit of that while having a lot of salad. I just hope the salad is good.

Methinks the Google Ads mechanism needs a bit of help! I've seen it advertising sites like FitDay on this site, which is totally appropriate...but it just displayed this ad:

Way to taunt me, Google!

I found a new diet ice cream treat: TCBY's Sorbet Swirl bar! It's three ounces, and has 80 calories and 0.5g fat. The flavor I had was "raspberry sorbet in vanilla frozen yogurt," and I think there was an orange one too; I imagine the latter would be like a dreamsicle! It was pretty darn good, actually, for only 80 calories. And I love ice cream, so this is a very awesome find for me.

I noticed today that Cheryl has both Diet Grrl and Amanita.net on her blogroll. Thanks, Cheryl!

I'm living dangerously today...I put onions in my salad! Unfortunately the dressing canisters were not labeled today, and there were two that looked like Italian. They have had Lite Italian and Creamy Italian in the past, so I assume that's what this was. I hope I picked the right one! I wish they'd bring back the Fat-Free Ranch, they haven't had that in a long time. And yesterday and today they didn't have the Lite Raspberry Vinaigrette either, but that usually comes around pretty often.

I'm having a fruity day! I had an orange with breakfast and I got an apple with lunch.

I just calculated my BMI...and I'm overweight! Obese is a BMI of 30 or higher, and my BMI is presently 28.9; I had thought I was obese by now but I'm still just overweight. I'm at the high end, of course, but at least I'm better than I thought I was.

On my way home from work today I saw a truck from Diet to Go, so I figured I'd check it out. They are a food preparation service, and you can get meals made for you for a fee. A full week of all three meals - a total of 21 - is $105 for the 1200-calorie option and $117 for the 1600-calorie option. Dinner only for a week is $43 and $46. You can also get meals for either five or six days a week. They have a low fat plan, a low carb plan, and a vegetarian plan. At first I was thinking "wow, this is a huge scam" but I'm mulling it over a bit more. It's far too expensive, I know, but I am kind of thinking about it. I wonder if you can try it for a week. The vegetarian menu looks pretty good.

Augh. The cafeteria needed to prepare for the building-wide holiday social that was being held this afternoon...so they closed at 11am. Prior to that they had carryout sandwiches and salads, but who eats lunch before 11am?! The e-mail announcing the 11am closure had not mentioned sandwiches and salads at all, so I didn't even realize they wouldn't have those after 11. Most people in the building can go out for lunch, but contractors have to park in a separate parking lot that requires a shuttlebus trip just to reach our cars...so the few hundred contractors in the building essentially can't leave for lunch unless a federal employee or military person drives them.

This wouldn't have been so bad if there were other options, but the cafeteria is pretty much the only eatery in the building...we're not within walking distance of anything. There are two snack bars at opposite ends of the building, and they usually have sandwiches and salads, but the one at my end of the building didn't have anything vegetarian at all. I thought about getting a package of Cheerios, but they didn't even have any skim milk! So I walked down to the other end of the building (good exercise, but took up a lot of time; I had a meeting coming up and I had to eat beforehand) and got in the huge line. The snack bars are small to begin with, and they're crammed full of stuff, so there wasn't much room to move around and the line extended out into the hall. They had three vegetarian choices: an egg salad sandwich on a croissant, an egg salad sandwich on a long sub roll, and a peanut butter sandwich on regular wheat bread. I chose the peanut butter sandwich and also got some raw veggies with ranch dip. WW says a peanut butter and jelly sandwich is 7 points...bleah. That's three times what I normally have for my main lunch.

I avoided the holiday social completely. There were fancy treats and cookies there, and I already went through all that on Tuesday. I just didn't go down there this time. My coworker did, but fortunately he ate whatever he got before coming back to our cube.

Thanks to a post by ladi_lavinder, I discovered that Ticker Central now has a weight loss tracker! Finally, a tracker I actually have a use for! I'm not sure where it should go with this design, though, so I'll just leave it in this entry for now.

I had some of the cookies last night. I know they were high in points but I don't know how high, and that's where I run into the problem. If I assume that I used up almost all of my flexpoints for the week, then I should only eat 22 points per day for the rest of the week. But if I didn't use them all up, then I won't eat enough for the week, and my body will be in starvation mode and I won't lose any weight. I can stay under 22 points on any given day; I mostly use my flexpoints for extra treats...but I don't know what extra treats I'll encounter the rest of this week.

I had a very long day today; my job started at 7am and ended at 5pm and I had an hour commute each way. I started it off right, with a Cocoa Puffs cereal bar (3 points) and some coffee with lots of skim milk and Splenda. Lunch was pretty good; I had a veggie sandwich at Subway (4 points) and a bag of baked Cool Ranch Doritos (3 points). But then after the ceremony I was interpreting today, there was a reception and the non-working interpreter was strongly encouraged to partake of the massive layout catered by the hotel. (If we didn't have food in our hands, people urged us to have some.) I wrapped up some huge cookies in napkins - one chocolate chip, one peanut butter, and one sugar - to bring home and eat later, but then I still had trouble resisting the tables. I mostly kept it safe, sticking to the cut-up melon (and a tablespoon or so of yogurt) and the grilled vegetables...but then toward the end, I was sucked in by a tiny piece of pumpkin pie. I eyeballed it at about two ounces even though I have no idea how much two ounces really is. The WW website says that 2 ounces of pumpkin pie is equal to 2.5 points.

So now I have these huge cookies. Le sigh. As if the 3.5oz Nutrageous bar in the freezer wasn't enough tempation! (I've been working on it little by little; I've had maybe a quarter of it so far.)

Ha! My concerns from yesterday about weighing in higher this morning were unfounded. I checked in at 167.5 but couldn't believe it, so I stepped off and stepped back on only to get the same result. Of course it's unlikely that I lost 1.5 lbs overnight, so I am going to compromise and say 168 for my official count. I haven't been entering weights into my WW records, though, because I've been feeling so bad about the weight I gained on the cruise. I had been thinking I would wait until I got down to where I left off before entering weights there again, but I think I will just bite the bullet and put down 168 for today and then record the food I've had so far this morning.

How much does time matter, anyway? Tonight I weighed in at 169, and I'm quite happy with that. But my normal weigh-in time isn't until tomorrow morning. Does it really matter if there's a twelve-hour difference? I know there are some people who weigh themselves daily, but I've always held firm to the belief that weekly is just right. Of course I got this belief from WW, not from scientists, but I do realize that weight can vary on a day-to-day basis so I'm happy with weekly. But what about a short difference? I will weigh myself again in the morning, of course, but what if I'm up from 169? Which number should I really count? How much does it really matter?

I've been meaning to post this all day, and I keep forgetting when I sit down at the computer! I don't remember if I've mentioned already how much I love grapes. The funny thing about grapes is that the more you eat, the less you gain. Grapes, you see, have a laxative effect if you eat enough of them. And I love them so much that I do end up with that effect. So that's how I ended up weighing 168 pounds today: I ate a couple of pounds of grapes yesterday. I have no idea if that'll hold until Monday, though I do have another bag of grapes so I probably will eat those all up too.