Prompted by a comment from Bullwinkle, who wondered if I’d followed through on my personal ad looking for an Accountability Coach, I thought I’d stop in after my long unexplained absence to give you the update.  

I am happy to report that I did.

Follow through that is.

I’ve hired Liz from Dream Garden Coaching who was the first commenter on that post (well, the first after MahoneyMusings commiserated about the guilty pleasure that is known as dill pickle chip dip). We have our second session this evening, which is really the first where I’ll actually be held accountable to something. Namely, recording what I ate–check, recording my workouts (I committed to three)–check and check, and filling out the SMART goals worksheet–uh, not so much. But I will before our session tonight, I promise Liz.

Oh, FYI, I’m using FitDay.com for recording these things. It’s pretty good, although I’ve had to go to my-calorie-counter to look up some stuff and then make a custom food in FitDay. I find it very strange that FitDay has a listing for Ground Hog, cooked (230.9 calories for 4 oz cooked with bone) but not any kind of Thai Dressing. But maybe that’s just me and my Pacific NorthWestness talking. I just can’t think that anyone who resorts to cooking up a ground hog for their vittles is the kind of person who is a) concerned about their waistline or b) going to be recording it on an on-line program. It’s me isnt’ it?

Oh, and here’s another peculiarity of Fit-Day. Their extensive activity catalogue has no listing for pilates, (the closest I could get was Hatha Yoga), BUT, happily, they do have 3 separate listings for sexual activity:

• active, vigorous effort (15 calories every 10 minutes)
• sexual activity 

  general, moderate effort (13 calories every 10 minutes)
• sexual activity 

  passive, light effort (kissing, hugging) (10 calories every 10 minutes)

And thank you Bullwinkle for de-lurking to check up on me. I think that’s delightfully charming.

It’s been an interesting week knowing that someone else would see what I ate and what I did for exercise. But I tried, despite that knowledge, to do what I normally would because I wanted to observe my default behaviours around food.

I swear this isn’t going to become a weight-loss blog because seriously — yawn. But of course I will continue to use it for free therapy, because really, what else is a blog for? Well, okay a blog is also for discussing cute celebrities and recording for the world the annoying things your my kids are doing, but PRIMARILY it’s for free therapy. And I will brook no argument on the subject.

So, back to my free therapy.

I’ve definitely got two conflicting lifestyle personalities: Granola Girl and White Trash Girl. I think these are self-explanatory but you would be wrong if you thought that their self-explanatoriness would stop me from further description.

Granola Girl eats organic, mostly raw foods, large green salads, multi-grain breads, fruit salads, nuts, yogurt. Her grocery list a list of nons (non-wheat, non-dairy, non-gluten, non-GMO, non-sodium). She meditates, does pilates, walks the dog and does her gym workouts regularly and thoroughly. She would like to do a tri-athalon.

White Trash Girl never met a white carb she didn’t like. She thinks potatoes totally count as a vegetable and claims she is way too tired to exercise but then stays up way too late sitting in the big comfy chair watching Law & Order. She would like to do a West Wing marathon.

Because I think we all contain these darknesses and contradictions, it doesn’t trouble me that I’m both these people. But currently White Trash Girl takes the day a little too often. She just lays there right on top of poor Granola Girl who despite her pilates-toned-core and sushi breath can’t yet bench-lift the weight of White Trash Girl.

So, my plan is to give one off-the-books evening a week to White Trash Girl. Let her hold court in the throne of the big comfy chair, and accept any and all offerings of bad food, good television, and Mike’s Hard Lemonade (125% of the RDA of Vitamin C, it’s a friggin’ health drink!).

Granola Girl gets the rest of the week. I hope she’s up for the challenge. Because I think White Trash Girl is going to throw a hissy fit. And we all know how those kind of domestic calls go down. Things are going to get broken. Words will be said that can’t be unsaid.

GG you gotta know it’s just the white carb withdrawl talking. It’s nothing personal.

So, comments. I will gratefully accept all “you go girls” and inappropriate imaginary dialogue inspired by FitDay’s somewhat bizarre catalogue. I don’t want any “try my proven success system” pitches and I don’t want any comments telling me I’m doing it wrong. I am becoming my own expert and figuring out what works for me, I don’t want “you should try” or “how dare you betray the fat sisterhood.” I don’t mind “I tried this and it worked for me” because I am curious what has worked for other people, unless of course you’re trying to sell me something, in which case, don’t bother.

Whew, I’m tired after that paragraph.

Pilates or nap?

I’m going to let GG and WTG duke it out.