Motivationaly Speaking

The hub and I just got back from a special edition of Fat Camp. We listened to a motivational speaker and Chris Farley notwithstanding, she was really - motivating! She stands just a shade under 5 feet tall and she weighed 281 lbs at her heaviest. She lost150 pounds and has kept it off for four years. Now, I wish we hadn't seen her just three days before Thanksgiving because I was really looking forward to honking down half a turkey, but I think that might have been the plan all along.

Last night we went to some friends' house for dinner. I offered to take dessert, and I made brownies. This was difficult for me because I love brownie batter. Also brownies, cut correctly spew many, many, huge juicy crumbs which I like to eat. I managed to get enough batter into the pan to make a batch and enough brownies onto a platter to qualify as dessert. The crumbs were delicious...

The great thing about this practice Thanksgiving dinner was that the hub and I got to find our stumbling blocks. Mine is mostly the whole dinner. I'm a carb lover and Thanksgiving dinner is like my version of heroin. A kilo of stuffing, a kilo of potatoes (sweet and mashed) and don't get me started on the pies.In addition to the carbs, I can totally snarf a good pound of turkey and the odd thing is that if you weigh everything I eat on Thursday and add gravy, I guarantee I will put at least twice as much flab on my hips as the weight of the fix (I mean food).

They say that the average person will put on 10 pounds between Thanksgiving and New Years. It takes 3500 calories over and above what you burn to gain one pound...that's freaking 35,000 extra calories! Dang. I'm gonna have to watch it. Not like I used to watch it - straight down my gullet. Plus, we're having a contest in Fat Camp. Everybody who wants to puts in $5 and the one who loses the most (unlikely that everybody will lose), or if everybody gains (likely as heck), the one who maintains or gains least wins the pot.

Competitive weenie that I am, I'll try to win. My desire to triumph over my adversaries will help me avoid temptation. My need to win will trump my desire to stuff myself with cookies. But then, that may have been the plan all along.