Topp, die Wette gilt...

Hello, lovelies.

As usual, it's been far too long. I've had all kinds of time, especially this weekend. I've been feeling a bit under the weather, so I cleared my schedule to recover. I did important things like paint my finger- and toenails two different colors, sit on my balcony for hours, make chicken and rice for dinner, watch oodles of HSE and visit two markets.

Anyway, I've been up to all kinds of interesting whatnot since we've heard from eachother last. I got booster shots and an international immunization pamphlet from my Doc, got an EKG to check on my ticker, sworn off of watching Germany's Next Top Model...all kinds of terribly important things, as you can see.

Perhaps my most interesting undertaking has been to make a bet with my Schatz. Or the fact that my Schatz made a bet with me. Not of the nicest sort, I must warn y'all. As is known to my friends and acquaintances on the interweb, said Schatz is spending six months working for the Swiss in Zürich. He was here visiting over Pentacost (in the homeland of Protestantism, one gets long weekends for such things) and we got talking about my Great Loves. For example, pizza. I don't really care whether it's good, bad or frozen. I could eat it 8 days a week, 52 weeks a year, for the REST.OF.MY.LIFE. This presents a certain...problem for my figure.

I said that I would certainly be able to keep things under control with diet and exercise and not go all hedonist just because my Teutonic Half isn't around. He said I wouldn't.

I'm a lot of things, one of which is prideful.

This makes me an easy mark for bets of this nature.

If I manage to lose 5kg before the Schatz comes back at the end of September, I get to pick out a pimp electric toothbrush.

If I lose 7kg (which is about as likely as me going vegan), I get a kitchen aid mixer.

HOWEVER...

If I lose the bet, I have to do all the housework for 6 months...to the Schatz's standards.

I HATE cleaning. I'm not even good at it.

So.

I obviously have to win.

To my (dis)credit, I have never dieted in my life. I've never had to. I was a distance runner in my teens, and during college I was much too preoccupied with other things to be worried about my weight. Once I arrived in Germany, I was busy starting a new life to worry about losing weight. My weight has gone up and down in the last few years, but really all by itself. I've wondered at it, contemplated it...but never really tried to influence it one way or another.

Now it's game time.

I've been keeping a food diary, keeping track of everything I eat. It's embarassing sometimes, because it's never really been how I roll, but so far I'm doing an all right job. I get why people say that writing everything down is the first step. It's an epic pain in the ass to write down every cookie, every square of dark chocolate, every shot in my coffee. So you do less of it. It's easier that way.

It's Summer, so it's easier to skip the carbs and load up on salads and veggies. Still, I love noodles, like a fat kid loves...noodles. So I'm trying to cut back and when I do indulge, it's whole grain.

The other thing I'm trying to do is get the word out. If my friends don't know, they'll accidentally sabotage me. If they do know, they serve me whole grain noodles and/or brown rice when I'm there.

Other than that...I'm trying to not to inhale trucker-sized portions of everything.

...kinda thinking that might help a little.

We'll see.

In the meantime, I hope those of you who made the pilgrimage to Gambier played safe (& hard) and I also hope that my lymph nodes stop feeling like they're going to explode out of my neck.

Till then.