Wednesday Weigh-In No. 9

Previous Weight: 164
Current Weight: 165

Before you say anything (either an "ah" in pity or a "ha" in competitiveness), let me just say that I'm still proud of myself, even if it is a gain for me this week. I've been under a crazy amount of stress lately -- personally, not professionally, sorry I'm not ready to share with the public exactly what's stressing me out. But I feel like talking about it, even if I don't want to discuss details, because, when something really big happens, I use food as a stress reliever.

For example, the last time I was close to being this stressed I baked a couple of cakes. And ate one of them. See, when I first moved to South Carolina from California, I took a job working as a girl friday for this crazy man. No, I didn't realize he was crazy at first. But things started clueing me in to that fact. Like the fact that his customers kept calling me and asking if his business was legit. It was also my first introduction to the South Carolina "country" dialect. I remember one time, he was dictating something to me and he kept saying "are sea, are sea." So I wrote that down. He said, "No, are see." So I wrote that down. He said, "No! R.C.!" So I wrote that down. I still had it wrong so I asked him to use it in a sentence (since he refused to spell it out), and only then did I realize he was saying, "Or see." We Californians say "oar" not "are."

After a couple of weeks, I'd had it. The final straw was when his senile mother called me and accused me of being with the IRS and spying on her son. So I quit. I had no clue how I was going to make ends meet without a job, but I didn't care. I was too worried that my boss was going to take me out into the woods behind the office (the door to which I was required to keep locked at all times in case any sheriff's deputies decided to call on us), and make me squeal like a pig -- hey, keep in mind I'd just moved here from California and didn't know what to expect. Let's just say that I considered the experience my very own version of "Deliverance."

Anyway, the first thing that I did was go home and bake two double-layer German chocolate cakes. Baking kept me busy, so I wouldn't sit down and start worrying about the shaky financial move I'd just made, and the chocolate smell wafting through the house really perked me up. It also put the kids in a good mood, so I didn't have to deal with the extra stress of them bickering or being surly (a good mom learns all the tricks, let me tell you).

So now that I am going through another stressful time in another part of my life, I am realizing that there's a pattern to my behavior. Last week, I snuck out for a hamburger at lunchtime (and didn't admit it, even to myself, until today after I weighed in -- honestly, it was almost like sleepwalking). Last weekend, I took the kids out on Saturday to eat, and I cooked a couple of hearty meals -- diet be damned. Yesterday, I stopped by Burger King on the way to work and -- keep in mind that it's killing me to admit this -- ordered a breakfast sandwich (fried meat on a croissant, eek!) and a tall coffee with Half and Half creamer. So it's really no wonder I gained one whole pound this week. I'm lucky it wasn't more.

The competition is the only thing keeping me from diving off the deep end into a vat of ice cream, let me tell you. And I know I'm not the only one. There were a few people just as nervous as me who were hesitant to climb that scale this morning. I was one of the very few who actually had something to fear -- most everyone else lost weight -- but still, when you know you haven't been trying as hard as you should be, that damn scale is intimidating.

And you know what else is intimidating? Miss Competitive. She's skin and bones at this point, and if you think I'm exaggerating, go peek at her over her cubicle wall. She's still dropping weight (1 and 1/2 pounds this week). And today, the one day you could actually cheat on your diet since it's a full seven days until the next weigh-in, she's still consuming rabbit food for lunch. Yes, that's intimidating. That's hard core.

As for me, unforeseen circumstances have caused me to reformulate my competition strategy, which I was never able to truly start -- and it's not to my benefit. My biggest challenge will be learning how to live in an excited state of overwhelming stress and not eat my way through it. And you know what? If I can do that, I don't give a flying rat's ass how much I weigh in the end. I will just be glad to have survived it.

As an aside, I've always wondered if anyone has ever actually seen a flying rat's ass.