Finis
Final Weight: 163
Total Loss: 10 pounds

Well, it's done. It's over. No more weekly weigh-ins, at least in front of coworkers, no more starving mini-lunches and guilty late-night bowls of ice cream.

Actually, the general consensus around the office is that this is just the beginning. As Boss said, he wants to make his final weight a ceiling rather than a floor. It's a good point.

The winners were Miss Competitive for greatest percentage lost (18.49 percent/27 pounds), and Big Loser (15.9 percent/41 pounds). There was a little tension Monday at the final weigh in when no one could remember the ground rules dictating who got the cashpot: the one with the biggest percentage or most weight lost. So Boss (who came in third with 9.1 percent/17 pounds) made the executive decision to split it in half.

I followed these weight-loss divas (yes, that means you, too, Boss) and came in fourth with 5.8 percent lost. It's not a big number, but it's something to be proud of. I don't lead many of the other competitors by much, though, so no matter what the percentage lost, we should all be proud for trying.

Even though it sounds like a load crap to say we're all winners for playing the game, and before you think I'm one of those touchy-feely types who says crap like that (I'm not really, despite my penchant for making people think otherwise), let me list a few of the ways why we all won:

• Whether you lost a size or more, or your pants just fit looser, we no longer fill out the asses of our jeans. (Although, if you frequent meat-market night clubs, this might not necessarily be a good thing.)
• Why alcoholics gravitate to the newspaper business, I have no idea. But its a fact that they do, so those of us with drinking problems were forced to curb our liquor consumption for a few months. Anybody want to meet up at Wild Wings later?
• Miss Competitive brought cookies. (I think it was her. If not, correct me. Were those homemade?)

I also asked the rest of the competitors to give me their thoughts on this experience. Here's what they said.

How do you feel about the results of the contest?

I figured that I had gained more since I went to Ruby Tuesday's last night and ate like I had not eaten in months! - Girl With Seriously Nothing to Lose

Not surprised-I knew after week one that my heaheart wasn'tasn’t in it to win-just wanted to be in on the game. - Big Boss

I am not happy with my results. I lost 7.5 lbs. but feel like I gained 10 lbs. I belive my goal was to loose 30 lbs. - Bushes

1. I feel a little more motivated after the contest, I haven't been
at this weight in a long time! Maybe there's room to loose more
weight! - Other Girl With Nothing to Lose

I am content and inspired to continue. I lost about as much weight as I set out to lose, and now I hope to keep on track and hold the line, if not lose a few more pounds. -Boss

Of course I'm pretty happy with the results, but I've been happy with the way things have been going since the first week or two. Sure, I had good weeks and bad weeks, fat weeks and skinny weeks just like everyone else, but I never doubted that I could drop 25+ pounds in three and a half months. I've done it before, and I knew what works for me (and what doesn't). It was just a matter of sticking to it. And it was easy to stick to it with the whole office watching and encouraging it. I'm thankful to whoever came up with this idea....I would have never bothered to start a weight loss project on my own without having the fanfare and challenge of doing it publicly (and for money:). But with my sister's wedding coming up this week (involving a tiny dress and two other tiny bridesmaids), the timing couldn't have been better. I wasn't ever dissatisfied with my size or appearance before, even though I was at the top end of my suggested weight range (to put it nicely). I just really don't ever think about things like that. Now, I feel a little better about how I look, and I do feel a tiny bit healthier as well. - Miss Competitive

I am proud and thrilled and motivated to keep going. - Big Loser

What affected you the most during this contest?

At first I was motivated to start working out and to eat healthier, but that lost its luster after two months! - Girl With Seriously Nothing to Lose

What affected me most was the feeling I had after a week I actually lost weight, walking to the board and reporting a negative number. - Big Boss

In the beginning I was so in to the contest. I've always needed something to motivate me and this was it! I was dedicated for the most part. My husband was losing, my best friend was losing, the office was losing. I was doing well. Then I had family issues that affected my progression & my attitude. I just didn't care anymore. I had done so poorly that I felt I couldn't get back on track. Even today, I am not "dieting". I'm very disappointed in myself. - Bushes

2. Competitiveness. I saw how great the other players were doing and
I wanted to do the same! - Other Girl With Nothing to Lose

The looming fear of the weekly weigh-in was my prime motivator. Most of the competition was self-directed, though the peer pressure definitely helped. -Boss

Despite my blog moniker, I really wasn't approaching this in an overly competitive way. For myself, yes. But not in competition with the rest of the contestants. It's just fun sometimes to keep things stirred up, and go along with the label you're given. If everyone wanted to call me the competitive one, and use me to get themselves fired up, that's cool by me. I sure had a good time with that character, even if it wasn't really me. I think 'snowed under by Snickers' describes me perfectly. See, I've got this thing for sweets. Always have. It's the reason why 14 or 15 of my teeth are fake, swear to god. If I get started on a bag of chocolate, I might as well give up and admit that I'm going to polish it off in one sitting. I will lick my ice cream bowl, and I don't care who's watching. So the key for me was just keeping those things far, far away. - Miss Competitive

I was motivated by the mirror, by other people's comments and by the way my clothes got too big! - Big Loser

If you had won/did win the money, what would you have done/will you do with it?

Put that towards a vacation. - Girl With Seriously Nothing to Lose

If I had won the money, I would have probably taken my honey to Motor Supply for a great evening of food and drink, and oh yea-big desert. - Big Boss

If I had won the contest, I would have bought new clothes. - Bushes

I think I would put a payment on an eliptical machine. That way I
can continue working out and losing weight. - Other Girl With Nothing to Lose

I would probably just eat a huge celebratory meal and then use the rest for bills. - Boss

I'm not sure if I'm in the running for money or not (since the judge and record keeper has repeated refused to come up with a concrete way to award the prize (or prizes)). First, it was 100% of the pot to the person losing the biggest percentage, then it was 100% to the person losing the most pounds. Then there was talk of splitting it 50/50. And still no one has made a ruling. Sigh. If I win any money, I'm doing lunch for all of the competitors plus Kevin.....the quality of the lunch will of course depend on the quantity of the cash:) - Miss Competitive

I spent it on my hair! - Big Loser

What should the winner do with the money?

Go on vacation! - Girl With Seriously Nothing to Lose

Take a half day off work, go buy a new outfit, then go out and have a great dinner that ignores whatever diet plan you were on. Ex.- If low carb diet go have pasta and bread. - If low fat go have something soaked in fat. And by all means after the great dinner, go to Café Strudel and have one of their great homemade deserts with coffee loaded with real sugar! - Big Boss

The winner should spend the money on something that makes them feel good about themselves. They deserve it! New clothes, a spa day / makeover, a weekend trip... - Bushes

I think the winner should use the money for either new clothes or a lot of Ben & Jerry's...can't decide which is better! - Other Girl With Nothing to Lose

I hear at least one winner is talking about taking staffers out to lunch. That's very generous, but if I were in their shoes I would spend it on myself ... they have earned it. - Boss

If the winner is Lisa, she should go buy herself something fun, because she has worked her fucking ass off these past few months:) - Miss Competitivetiive

I probably should have used it for new clothes--I have very little to wear now! - Big Loser

And that's that. Here's to all of us continuing to shed the pounds. And shout out to Kevin for putting up with our early-morning dashes to his cubicle. It wouldn't have been as much fun without you, man.

Two Weeks to Final Weigh-In

Previous Weight: 163
Current Weight: Keeping It A Secret

So I've thought about it, and I've decided not to share my progress during this month on my own before the final weigh in.

I will share my struggles and triumphs, however, considering that's what this blog is for, after all. First, the struggles (because I want to end on a high note): I have been uncontrollably ravenous lately. I attribute this to the feasts spurred by Easter and my nonexistent self composure. It also doesn't help that my grandmother, who retired from the Oakdale, Calif., Hershey plant more than a decade ago, always sends boxes and boxes of Hershey chocolate to my home for any given holiday. People, I moved 3,000 miles away from the woman in the hopes of getting away from all that chocolate. But rather than avoiding Grandma's chocolate, my move actually made the situation worse. Now she sends me more chocolate than she would have normally, because, according to her logic, I'm so far away and who knows how long I'll have to go between chocolate shipments.

Another problem is that I have no freaking control. On Saturday, I shopped Publix for something good and fresh and healthy to cook for Easter dinner -- I eyeballed the hams and the lamb shanks and the fried chicken and walked away from them all (the Harbison Publix has the best fried chicken I've ever tasted in my entire life, by the way; I don't really care for fried chicken all much, and before you die-hard Southerners gasp at my lack of good taste, consider that I do hail from the West Coast where usually the only fried food available comes from KFC). I also checked out the fish -- but Publix isn't known for having the freshest or cheapest fish -- and eventually settled on a couple of whole chickens. I figured I could roast a couple of birds, grill some green beans or snap peas and bake a baguette and be done with it.

And that's what I did. But here's where it gets embarrassing, not to mention disturbing. On Sunday, we ate dinner and lounged a bit before I jumped into the pile of dirty dishes, and as I was scraping pans and rinsing plates, there it was -- that chicken carcass just sitting there staring at me with all that leftover chicken meat. Anyone who has ever had to put away the leftover turkey after Thanksgiving will know what I'm talking about. For some unholy, disgusting reason, bird carcasses are wonderful things to gnaw on after supper, even though after fowl feasts of this nature, you're usually stuffed to the , well tailfeathers, I guess.

Just so you can get a mental picture of what happened (I'm totally laying myself out for ridicule here), something similar happened a few years ago. In my teens, after high school before I went back to college, I moonlighted as a number of things to make ends meet -- web designer, legal assistant, phlebotomist, waitress -- and housecleaner (OK, maid). One of my first jobs (I think I was 15 or 16) was cleaning my grandmother's neighbor's house. She had a herniated disc in her back and could move around -- and cook -- but little else. I'd clean her house and she'd make me lunch. She was a good cook. She'd leave cakes out on her kitchen counter for me to hunk a slice off for a snack after work and let me nibble on the candy she kept in little glass jars all around her house. Anyway, one day she baked a chicken for lunch. We sat out on her covered porch and ate chicken and sipped iced tea (FYI, there's no such thing as sweet tea in California). After lunch I went back to work, and was also given the task of cleaning up the kitchen.

And there it was. That damn carcass. The house was dead silent. My grandma's neighbor was supposed to be napping in her bedroom. Supposedly, I had the house, and more importantly, the kitchen, to myself. So I started nibbling. And picking. And gobbling. At first, I'd just take a quick bite between spritzes of Endust and Windex. Finally, I put down my cleaning supplies and set to cleaning up the carcass.

And that's when Grandma's Neighbor walked in on me. She caught me mid-motion, hand halfway between the bird and my mouth, chicken piece dangling from greasy fingers. She looked at me for a long moment, silent as the house, and then, finally, she said, "Honey? Are you still hungry?"

I couldn't say anything. I just shook my head and put the chicken down. After she left me alone, I threw the carcass in the trash, and for years after, I refused to bake chickens in my own home because it reminded me of how embarrassing it was to be caught eating the disgusting remains of a dead animal in somebody else's kitchen.

So here I was, 15 years later, no baked chicken-rule thrown out the window, meaty carcass sitting there on my counter looking at me. At this point, the story gets fairly anticlimactic. Yes, I picked at the damn carcass. Yes, I was ashamed, having learned nothing from past mistakes (or present loads of weight-induced food guilt).

It's been rough going the last couple of weeks, because incidents like this one have been the norm rather than the exception, thanks in part to a box full of Hershey Symphony bars (350 calories a piece), and in part to a false sense of security since there haven't been an weekly weigh-ins scaring the crap out of me (and thus motivating me to exercise and starve myself) Tuesday afternoons.

But that leads me to the good news, or just something I'm proud of anyway. I've started early morning walks (yay!). It's not as much fun as I remember. I used to love to walk and used to live in a downtown area in the Sierra foothills where I could walk to everything: the grocery store, the post office, the video rental store (remember those?). But I'm so out of shape now that it's taking every last bit of will power I've got to get my ass moving. I'm doing it, though, and that's why I'm proud of myself.

The ridiculous thing is why I'm doing it. I've been getting up at 6 a.m. for the last couple of weeks out of necessity, and now that I'm used to waking up at the ass-crack of dawn, I can actually make use of my mornings by exercising. Why was I waking up at 6 a.m., you ask? To take my 13-year-old to his community service job, of course. (He was assigned 30 hours of dumping trash cans at the city parks thanks to his little brush with the law a few months ago.) But hell, at least I've turned something ridiculously depressing into something useful.

In the end, I won't win this competition. But I can't deny that's it's taught me a lot about myself, about my family, about how I interact in the world. What's winning compared to that priceless information?

Wednesday Weigh-In No. 12

Previous Weight: 165
Current Weight: 163

Total Cumulative Loss: 10 pounds

Even though it's taken me almost a whole week to find 15 minutes of downtime to actually post the results of the first leg of the contest on this blog, it wasn't for lack of anything to say.

The contest is ridiculously close right now. Big Loser has lost a total of 38 pounds. She's trailed by Miss Competitive (24 pounds) and Boss (17 pounds), but their percentage lost actually closes the gaps. I think Miss Competitive is something like 0.2 percent higher than Big Loser right now (forgive me for forgetting the true numbers ladies).

I could still take 'em. If I instituted a starvation diet between now the final weigh in on May 1. Ha, like that's going to happen. I intend to drop as many more pounds before that fateful day as I can, however, even though I know it's practically futile for me at this point. But you can't blame a gal for tryin'. (Boss should appreciate the profundity of cliches in that last paragraph.)

I think the rest of the crew deserves a shout out for the fact that all but one lost weight (Nothing to Lose Girl managed to make a total weight loss/gain of 0 over the last 12 weeks, but she weighs just a few pounds more than a century-mark, so in my humble but wide-backed opinion, she won by keeping her already elegant figure in check.) The only person to gain over the course of the competition is Off-Site Boss, who would fly/drive in for the weekly weigh-ins, when he could, and who, in the end, maxed out at a half-pound gain. I think that just goes to show what good, old-fashioned competition and in-your-face weekly weigh-ins will do for your motivation.

Speaking of motivation, I have absolutely none when it comes to exercising at this point. I'm very disappointed in myself, but I've learned that if this competition won't get my ass moving, nothing will.

At least I learned this about myself at 30 and didn't spend the next four decades torturing myself with guilt.

By the way, I'll keep blogging at least up until the May 1 finale, so visit me once in a while, huh?

Wednesday Weigh-In No. 11

Previous Weight: 166
Current Weight: 165

It's amazing what the loss of one pound will do to buoy a girl's spirits. I was sitting here pouting this morning because I was certain that it was a gain for me today. But, instead it was a loss. Not a big loss. Not a significant loss. But a loss that turned around my three-week slide and gave me hope that I could take that one pound and make it two, or three, or ten or twenty. OK, so I'm getting ahead of myself, but damn, what a mood change.

So I thought I'd give you a little example of what it's like around our office on Wednesday mornings. I usually get here right about 9 a.m. When the sales staff get out of their meeting shortly after, they'll trickle into the editorial department and mill around looking for the Scorekeeper, who often has early morning appointments that cause him to come in about an hour late on Wednesdays. I'll get first one question ("Where's the Scorekeeper?"), then another ("The Scorekeeper's not here yet, huh?"), then another ("Why isn't he here? I can feel the weight creeping back on as we speak!"). They'll mill around the cubicles and peek over the Scorekeeper's walls. They'll hug the front windows waiting for his arrival.

When the Scorekeeper finally shows up, we're all salivating to get on that scale. He's still dropping his bookbag onto a chair and flipping on his (obnoxiously loud) computer while we're forming a queue in front of his cubicle. It's a little irksome to him, to be honest. I mean, the man's a coffee drinker (have you seen that cup on his desk? It's like a science experiment testing the longevity of coffee stains on ceramic), and you don't mess with a coffee drinker who hasn't had his first cup of coffee in the morning, or even a moment to warm up his chair yet. He's been pretty good-natured about this contest, you have to admit, considering he's abstaining from participation other than to document the loss of ass around here.

During and after the weigh-in, there's a fluctuating amount of banter, cheers and moaning. Different diet busters are discussed -- from green beer on St. Patrick's Day to Cadbury eggs in anticipation of Easter -- and weight losses or gains are met with varying degrees of congratulations or sympathy. At this late stage in the game, the only person who meets with any sort of ill will is Miss Competitive, who continues to kick everyone's ass on a weekly basis (25+ pounds and counting), and the more competitive among us have a hard time taking this lightly. Add to her weight loss the fact that she's ahead in the office March Madness brackets, and you have a perfect storm for office envy. She seemingly has nothing left to lose, but continues to lose weight anyway. She looks fabulous: something like a lithe Greek goddess, if you will. But it's hard to be happy for her when you still look like a Disney's Fantasia hippopotamus in a tutu.

After the weigh-in, a small crowd usually forms around the Big Loser, who is transformed week after week. You can almost see her body tightening right in front of you. She swears she's been hit and miss on the treadmill, so it's gotta be the Zone diet that's working for her. (We're talking 35+ pounds, people.) I'm sure as hell not one to drop brand names on a whim, but she's a walking billboard so I almost feel obligated to give a shout out to the Zone. I've been reading the book and checking out the web site, but I've been reluctant to start the diet myself -- mainly because I'm really, really bad at following directions or doing what other people tell me to do, and that's what following a regimented diet always feels like to me.

I also wanted to note that we have a couple of Tortoises to the Hares on staff. A handful of us have lost right around 10 pounds each. And Boss has managed to drop 15+ pounds so far -- it's a lot if you consider that he wasn't overweight to begin with.

Weekly cumulative totals also tell an interesting story: for the first three or four weeks we were all on a roll dropping between 10 and 15 pounds total (for the whole office). On the fifth week, we had a cumulative gain of a couple of pounds, which seemed to shock us back into double digit weight loss the next week. But between week 6 and 10, we all slacked off (or plateaued out, however you want to look at it).

This week shocked us back into reality. Everyone lost weight this week. I think we are all beginning to realize we have a week left in the initial competition. One week to lose all we can before the last weigh in and the moment of truth. Those of us in places 4 and up really have no chance of taking this competition at this point. But it's anyone's game if you consider the final weigh-in is still a month off. The problem is that we'll have one whole month to ourselves. No weekly weigh-ins to motivate or scare the hell out of us. No Scorekeeper eyeballing us as he tabulates our paltry performances. No scoreboard declaring our successes and failures to the entire office to ridicule or champion.

It really feels like a T.V. show -- like what those people on NBC's Biggest Loser must feel when they leave the relative comfort of the ranch and move into the real world where work schedules and kids and carbs and alcohol and sugar threaten to undermine all the work they've done for the last three months.

But let's not think about that until we have to. Until next week. Till then, it's rabbit food and water, early morning jogs and late night crunches. Oh, who am I kidding?

Wednesday Weigh-In No. 10

Previous Weight: 165
Current Weight:166

Yeah, OK, it's been a bad week. No exercise. Pizza in times of crisis. A few glasses of wine here and there. And no exercise. One thing about gaining weight two weeks in a row: it has helped me to identify the catalysts in my life and the behaviors they cause that result in me gaining weight. Isn't the first step to recovery from any problem recognition that there's a problem? Well, that may or may not be true, but I'm thinking that in this case, knowledge is power. I know what I'm doing to myself and perhaps that'll give me the power to change it.

Whatever. I know what else I need to do: Quit having family crises!

That's one of the big reasons why I'm not getting in what little exercise I was getting in earlier in the competition. Like last night, I was on the phone most of the evening with my mother talking her down from whatever crazy conspiracies she had decided were leveled against her (this time it was the United States Postal Service that was in on it, but that story will have to wait for another day). It's not like I can hang up on her. Getting a phone call from my mother is an unusual and unavoidable event, considering she lives in the Sonoran desert of Arizona 100 miles from the nearest town and cell phone tower, and I'm not exaggerating, so taking her phone call and letting her say her piece is a necessary evil in my life because god knows when it'll happen again.

But I figured, no big deal, I'd just exercise this morning. Well, I forgot to set the alarm, and once I did wake up, there was another little problem to deal with: the cable bill came and someone ordered something they weren't supposed to on our cable pay-per-view, which required an hour on the phone with a idiot improperly monikered as a "customer service agent" who could not and would not help me resolve the problem.

I know what the bigger problem is. I have too much stress and no way to relieve it. I know what the solution is: Don't get married; never have kids; and ignore your parents.

Since the solution is, well, ridiculously impossible, I'm going to have to be creative in figuring out a way to make this work for me. Aside from divorcing my husband, shipping the kids off to California to live with distant relatives and moving to the mountains where my cell phone doesn't get reception, what can I do to make this work for me? (And trust me, all that stuff I just listed is always in the back of my head as a possibility.)

Yeah, OK, I could eat more fruits and vegetables (but, for those of you who have never moved from the breadbasket of the world - central California where all green space is taken up by fresh farms - to the backwaters of the earth where no fresh food can be found in any local supermarket for less than $3 a pound, I tell you this is harder than it sounds). I could rig an elaborate pulley and weight system that kicked my ass out of bed at 6 a.m. to do calisthenics. And I could buy a pit bull and pack some mace to go for a walk after I put the kids to bed at night. I could also start snorting crank. It's about as likely as any other plan (but guaranteed to make me lose weight ... and hair ... and teeth ... and my self respect).

So, I'm still looking for the magic cure. I'll figure it out one of these days. I really will. And then I'll blow everybody away. First and foremost, myself.

Two Days Before Wednesday Weigh-In No. 10

Current Weight: Don't Ask

I felt the need to drop a line about how terrible the contest is going for me right now. Last week I extolled the virtues and vices of eating for comfort during times of trouble. I thought it might be a little like counseling myself - perhaps cheaper than a therapist. Well, it's certainly cheaper. This blog ain't costing me anything. But it's done nothing to help the overwhelming desire I've had the last couple of weeks to consume anything and everything that crosses my path. Let's just say there was an incident with a butter-flavored cake on Sunday and leave it at that.

So here it is Monday, two days prior to the contest weigh-in, a good couple of weeks before the first leg of the contest ends, and I'm freaking. I've got so little to show for the last ten weeks of self-imposed torture. Less than ten pounds (and at this point I'm backtracking rather than moving forward). I feel like I should have taken better advantage of this opportunity -- been more competitive, made larger strides in my self improvement, seized this contest to use it as my will to power (sorry, I've been reading a lot of Nietzsche lately).

Instead I've balked (and shoved sundry foods inside my piehole at embarrassingly short-spaced intervals for no good reason) and I just needed to vent my frustration here because my will power has been woefully nonexistent. Can I turn this thing around in two weeks? Hell, didn't Big Loser drop twice my total weight loss in that amount of time? If she can do it, shouldn't I be able to? Perhaps, but let's face it. She's been a bit more dedicated than I have.

You know what worries me more than losing? What the hell am I going to do when the contest is over and I don't have anyone looking over my shoulder come feeding time?

And just so you all don't start thinking that I'm being hard on myself -- I'm not. I'm just sharing my deepest, darkest musings on this blog because I can. But before you start passing around a collection for a therapist for me, you should know that a lot of what I say is in exaggerated jest, even if it does have some twisted origins in the cognitive dissonance that is my daily life. I've just been curious if anyone else is having thoughts even remotely similar to mine. :-)

The most spiritual men, as the strongest, find their happiness where others would find their destruction: in the labyrinth, in hardness against themselves and others, in experiments. Their joy is self-conquest. Difficult tasks are a priviledge to them; to play with burdens that crush others, a recreation. They are the most venerable kind of man: that does not preclude their being the most cheerful and the kindliest.
-Friedrich Nietzsche from Quoteland.com

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.