Alright, if you've survived Halloween, then your ready to gear up for the first real battle of the season--Thanksgiving. Halloween was nothing compared to the full on assault you are going to face over those three days of feasting and family. What were the pilgrims thinking? Oh, I know. There weren't that many of them left that first fall, and there wasn't that much food to eat, so of course they were thankful! They were alive, they had food, and they were pretty sure the Indians they had invited to share in the festivities weren't going to sacrifice them to some heathen god in an after-dinner roast.

I don't mean to sound completely flippant. The pilgrims really did have a lot to be thankful for during that season of suffering, as do we. The difference, however, between those original party animals and those of us fighting in the weight loss wars, is both far and wide. Yes, pun intended.

I don't mind telling you, I was really nervous about this particular Thanksgiving. We were going to have a houseful. Our friends Ron and Emmy, Lloyd and Tonya, and David's father and sister were all coming for an honest-to-goodness sit down, old fashioned holiday experience. I knew my friends would support me and tell me whatever I made was yummy, but the idea of cooking low fat for my father in law terrified me! No, I'm not exaggerating. I was scared.

My husband's father is a sweet man, but when it comes to telling someone what he thinks he has no trouble sharing his views, positive or negative. If he doesn't like it, he tells you. In front of everyone. I'd chalk it up to his being over seventy, and therefore entitled to say and do whatever he wants, but he's been like this for as long as I've known him. The first time I went to my husband's, then boyfriend's, house for dinner I was frozen with fear. I didn't say a word and hardly ate a bite despite his mother's wonderful cooking. I just wanted to get our of there as quickly as possible before his dad yelled at someone. Now that I'm part of the family and know how tender his heart really is, I better understand where his "voice" comes from, but I still don't want it directed at me.

Okay boys and girls. I was thinking now was as good a time as any to address the age old question about the holidays. No, I'm not going to discuss the existence of God, St. Nick, or any other religious icon. Nope, not gonna argue the "should we stay home or go away," or "my parents' or your parents' this year" argument. No way. This is neither the time nor the place for any of those hot topics. I wanna talk about how to survive the days between Halloween and New Year's Day without ending up on death row for gingerbreadman genocide or mashed potato massacres.

Let's talk about Halloween. I wish I could tell you it's a breeze to shop for hundreds of tiny, tantalizing tastes of temptations and store them in your home for the duration, but it's not. If you are a chocoholic, it is really going to suck. So, basically, you have two options. You can either face the enemy one day at a time and pray to the diet deity of your choice that you can and will survive this skirmish in the battle of your bulging backside. Or, you can win the prize of an egg wash for your car from the local kids for offering the lamest of lame Halloween treats, sugar-free candy and--egads--fruit! I'm not a big fan of each, so lemme offer you a third, drastic, choice--move out into the country so far that you don't see a freaking trick or treater for fifteen years!!!

On occasion, and this was such an unsettling surprise to me, my polite refusal of the aforementioned yummies was even sometimes met with down right anger, as if my attempts to curb my calories was an affront to the natural order. Some friends got their feelings hurt when I refused to eat some sweet delight. Several colleagues rolled their eyes when I passed on the pastry. Even my husband lost patience with me in the beginning. I can remember a particular shopping trip to our favorite store, Walmart.

We were having a cookout that weekend and were looking for hot dogs and frozen burgers to make our lives a little easier. While I searched the freezer section of the store for a box of turkey burgers that didn't look completely tasteless, he picked up box after box of all-beef burgers for my approval.

"Nope. 20 grams of fat each." "Uh-uh. 30 grams of fat" "No, sweetie. Those have 27 grams of fat a serving." "Honey, are you kidding? These are ridiculous! 45 grams of fat? For a burger? Please! After several attempts, I told him, "Babe, just let me get a box of turkey burgers and you can get whatever you want."

That's when my sweet, loving, patient, considerate husband lost it. Right in the middle of Walmart, no less. "Just never mind!" he said, throwing the offending box of angus burgers back into the freezer. "This is freakin ridiculous! I don't know why in the hell you just can't eat what I eat. We don't have the damn money to buy different food for the two of us!"

Needless to say, we left without said burgers. He was not a happy camper. I didn't know if he was irritated about the money or it was something else. He was right, though. This healthy eating thing was a lot more expensive than eating fast food and microwave meals. It didn't help that the recession and fuel costs have driven the price of food up already. Our grocery budget had gone from under $100 a week to around $125 from economy issues alone. Now, with this experiment of mine, I was adding anywhere from $25-$50 a week to our grocery bill. This was really a hardship, too, considering my husband's new job paid considerably less than his last.

Anyway, it took awhile, but as the pounds started to fall off my incredibly large ass--truly; it was enormous. It was scared me in a parking garage one night! Thought someone was creeping up behind me when really my behind was creeping up my back--he started to come around. That's not to say he doesn't still get irritated when I make him a baked potato with all the trimmings and I make myself a sweet potato with spray butter, but now he just sighs and eats his food.

It's Been a Hard Day's Year.

I'll tell you the truth, since there's no one out there anyway, it was really hard some days. Whether it is just a southern thing or a female thing or just a thing in general, people often offer up food to friends, family, and even strangers with an understandable assumption that their delectable deliveries will be accepted graciously. The lucky recipients of these culinary delights are then expected, of course, to reward the goody-giver with gushing praise.

I am well acquainted with this dining dance, was a more than willing participant in the marathon of donuts, cakes, pastries, cookies and other treats that are now a staple in our office at work. However, what I was not prepared for when I started this experiment was the reaction I would receive by refusing, albeit politely, tasty treats so loving prepared by my friends and colleagues. The typical exchange went something like this,

"Oh, go on. Have some (insert your food fetish of choice). What's one little piece gonna do?" Or . . .

"What, you don't like my cooking?" Or . .

"Oh my God! You have to try this. It is amazing! You don't know what you're missing!"

This last one was--and still is--usually accompanied by almost orgasmic groans of oral satisfaction, as if the chocolate, sugar, or bacon fat was going straight from the eater's mouth to, well, you get the idea. All the while, there I am, drooling as I try to stay strong, keeping the words of that great role model of abstention close to my heart, "Just Say No." No small feat, I assure you, especially at the beginning, when I was still craving all those gooey goodies. Though my face wore a smile, and my mouth formed all the right words, the starving chubby girl trapped in my head was screaming out to be heard.

"You bitch! How can you stand there eating that in front of me? Don't you realize how freaking hungry I am? This stubborn cow hasn't fed me in days! If I don't get some chocolate and get it NOW I am going to kill her and then come after every single one of your skinny asses!"

Of course, I never let that evil girl out of my psyche. She was far too dangerous to be granted even a moment's furlough from the prison I had managed to create for her inside my brain. Instead, I would smile and nod, thanking the well-meaning saboteur, making my apologies for not holding up my end of our unwritten social contract, and make my escape as quickly and quietly as possible.

Mea Culpa

Okay, I'm am bowing before my nonexistent readers, begging for your forgiveness for abandoning you. I knew when I started this blog that I would struggle with keeping up with this, and I was right. I was so busy living my life that I completely forgot to write about living it :)

If anybody--or again, nobody--is wondering. The experiment has been a HUGE (pun intended) success! In fact, not only did I lose the 40 pounds I was hoping against hope to lose, I have lost a total of 88 pounds since I began this journey. It hasn't always been easy, but I was determined, and that helped carry me through A Lot of rough days.