I had several questions for my primary care doc Wednesday besides the “What’s going on with my cycle?” one. My nails keep cracking, and the thumb nail on my right hand keeps splitting. (It’s been doing that for years, but it got real bad like it is now right before I discovered my hitchhiker.) But the biggie was: what’s up with my weight?

I weighed in at 187 in January 2008. That was it, my number that made me say, “Okay, I gotta do something.”

I started exercising more and cutting out the sweets. I dropped to 184. Then I had trouble budging the scale.

I’m not sure when I got down to 177. My mom got sick March 2008 and my life changed into a big, surrealistic, nightmarish blur. I sort of was aware I was eating less. (Because I have a bad tummy that tends to explode at the most inopportune times. I was running all over with my mom, who was so out of it I feared losing her because she’d decide to wander off while I was stuck in a restroom somewhere. Can you just see the headlines? I could. I don’t mind publicity but I don’t want that kind of notoriety!)

Anyway, by the time we took our Alaskan cruise in August of 2008 I was down to 170. And I can’t believe I’m going to say this, but I loved it. (I remember a time I almost puked when I saw the scale had reached the 170 mark.)

Not as much as I liked dropping to 160, then 155 thanks to chemo though. BAD way to lose weight, but hey. I had to enjoy something from all that misery, didn’t I?

But once I was off chemo, I sprung right back up to 168. That’s where I was last year for our Cape San Blas 4th of July beach vacation.

The scale has only climbed since. I’m now back to 188.

Yet, I really haven’t changed my diet much. (Well, okay from barely eating during chemo and throwing up pretty much anything I did, yes, that’s changed. But before that, like when I had gotten down to 170, no. My eating is about the same.)

Of course, maybe the cancer was eating up my flub then. That is one of the symptoms. Weight loss. And losing has never been easy for me.

But I do exercise. I walk Murph every day, I play tennis 2-3 times a week, volleyball is about 2 times a week. And sometimes I even walk without Murph. The past week I’ve been sneaking in some swimming too. (With plans to do more.)

Anyway, the doctor said if I’m not getting results I could always try phentermine. Most people have great success with it and lose fast.

Sounds great, except I’m not one to do drugs. I’m not on the pill and never have been because I think it just messes with the body too much. I’m more of a natural kind of girl.

Still, the idea of losing 30 pounds in 3 months with the help of this pill was awfully tempting.

My new plan is to ramp up my exercise and eating healthier regimen. One thing I’ve always sort of wanted to try is a mini-triathlon. I want to see if focusing on something like that, and putting the time in training, will help me drop pounds.

I don’t want to be stick thin. My ideal weight would be 160. If I could get to 150 that would be awesome. For my height I’d still be overweight, but I don’t look it as much at that weight.

Also, my driver’s license is due for renewal this year. I don’t want to look like the happy hippo I’ve been in this other one. I want my 170 face back. (At least. The less of a double chin the better!)

At any rate, I guess it’s good to know about this phentermine stuff in case I get very desperate. But I think I’d rather try a not cheating way first.

So…mini-tri training here I come!

For the last 20 years I’ve fretted about my weight. I’ve watched it do mostly nothing except go up. A few times I score a victory and see it drop for a bit.

But the trouble is I love food, I find a lot of pleasure in eating, and I detest counting calories. So the only watching of what I eat is watching it go in my mouth.

I’ve come up with a bunch of diet plan ideas the last few years. I’ve never stuck with them long enough to see if they’d work, but I’ve always thought if I could, I might find weight loss fame and fortune in addition to weight loss.

Here’s a few of my diet plans:

1. THE FIVE MINUTE PLAN: Set a timer for five minutes. Eat whatever you want in those five minutes. Repeat three times a day. Have two one-minute snacks throughout the day. (The thinking is, “How much could you really eat in five minutes?” Surely this would limit calorie intake and help you lose weight.)
2. THE SURVIVOR PLAN: I heard someone else talk about doing this once too, so it’s maybe not entirely fresh. (At least about eating like they do on Survivor somewhat. But the workout ideas are all mine.) THE FOOD PORTION: Eat only a cup of rice three times a day (tops) for 39 days. (If you can make out with only once or twice a day that’d probably help you lose weight faster.) You can also have coconut, mangos and bananas a couple times a day. THE WORKOUT PORTION: Like they do on the show, you can also have “Rewards” every once in a while. The Rewards are key to the exercise side of the equation of this diet plan. You want to do a lot of exercise. And having an “opponent” doing this plan would also be good. You can compete to see who wins the most weight lost every few days. Winner gets a predetermined award you’ve agreed on between yourselves. You can also compete in physical challenges: Whoever can walk the farthest in 30 minutes on a treadmill, whoever has the fastest time on a bike (stationary or otherwise), or even use the Wii and do Wii Fit things to see who has the youngest age or who gets higher scores on any of the aerobics or training games. If you don’t have anyone to compete against, you can modify some of the above for an individual and reward yourself if you reach your weight loss goal that week or get a certain score on certain Wii Fit Plus games.
3. THE PANERA’S DIET: First it was Subway, now Taco Bell’s got one, but Panera’s is really the most obvious of all the “fast food” chains to have food that could help with weight loss. Think about it, if you eat Panera’s every day for every meal (because they do offer breakfast, lunch and dinner), and you lose weight, you could be the next fast food chain spokesperson to claim weight loss fame and fortune! The only downside is both Subway and Taco Bell are a little lighter on the pocketbook. Panera’s could cost as much as NutriSystems or Jenny Craig for the food. (Well, maybe not that much.) However, if you’re successful, it’ll probably translate into compensation eventually. Likely from being a paid Panera’s spokeperson.

What kind of diet plans have you ever envisioned? Have you ever tried any of them?