It's Sunday Again...

Thanks to my nine year old who still likes to cuddle as if he's three, I woke early this morning with a head cold. Hand washing just isn't very effective against a relentless cuddler breathing and sneezing in your face. It's not a bad cold, yet, just enough of one to drive me out of bed while it's still dark out to get verticle so my head will stop throbbing and get something hot to ease to soreness of a throat that's been dripped on all night.

As the fog of sleep cleared and my mind came awake I realized it's Sunday again. "It's Sunday again" or something like it, is the lament of every dieter. It's the realization that despite a week of sweat, hard choices and temptation avoided, I still have nothing to wear. Nothing that makes me look like Kate Becknisale just for putting it on anyway. In the math of diet and exercise, it takes a daily deficit of 500 calories to lose one pound a week. Five hundred calories is a lot in the course of a day, but one pound isn't enough to change dress sizes or really even change the way my clothes fit. I gain more weight with PMS or a night of salty Mexican food. One pound is nothing. It represents no real, tangible achievement. Is there anything more defeating than the idea that the three thousand five hundred calorie deficit achieved by sweat, hunger pains, meal planning, attempts at distraction, and watching others eat with abandon while clinging to the hope of a thinner future is just one pound? It's no wonder at all that people chase quick weightloss fads so that their hope feels justified.

I'm generally an optimistic person, but I can't good attitude myself into believing that one pound feels as good going down as it felt bad going up. One pound does make a difference on the way up. My jeans get horizontal creases and I'd rather sit than stand so I can breathe comfortably. I find reasons not to go out which means not putting on make-up, being at home around the food all day, and preferring to stay in my sweats. Not real good self-esteem builders. Then you wake up one morning and realize a week has passed and "it's Sunday again."

Perhaps I'll spend today doing the meal planning I loathe. There is power to avoid temptation when you're anticipaing the next meal. It's a hopeful way to spend a Sunday afternoon. Constructive anyway. It still doesn't get me out of the Sunday morning lament.