Weight Watchers is a crock.

Yeah, I guess pretty much everything you try to lose weight with is a crock really.

How are you today, Steve?  Good I hope.  It's a snowy day here, but luckily I've put some snow tires on the car so I feel a bit safer.  Regardless of what anybody else thinks, in my humble opinion, Mercedes really aren't the greatest cars in the world.  Florence bought it brand new in 2002, and now I drive it daily, but she keeps saying she wants to give it to me.  I tell her HELL NO, I don't WANT a car that you have to pay $85 bucks for an oil change every time.  It's ridiculous.  I'm too practical-minded for that.  Give me a good, dependable Dodge Neon any day.  I loved that car!!  Never had to put any major money into it, until it got to 150,000 miles.  Then the timing belt had to be replaced. Other than that, it was awesome. This Mercedes, however, gives you a big red !! (exclamation point) whenever the wheels slip, and you can't do anything but sit there until the !! is gone, meanwhile you're sliding even further downhill while you're waiting.  Too many quirks, too many gadgets, too many things that could break or go wrong. BLEAH.

Ah well, back to the weight loss thing. Yeah, so I decided as a new years resolution that I'm going to rid myself of about 60-80 pounds if possible. (It would be MUCH easier to eat donuts every day and GAIN 50 pounds to get the Gastric Bypass surgery, dammit).  So, I figured instead of eating processed, microwave food every day on Nutri-System D, which costs $300 a month---utterly ridiculous---and that CAN'T be good for you to eat microwave processed crap all the time, I don't care WHAT they say on the commercials.

Instead, I joined the ONLINE version of Weight Watchers...it's only $55 for 3 months, so I figured, what the heck, that's the cheapest diet thing I have found so far, might as well give it a try.  Well, the problem I'm finding is that I have a hard time sticking to it.  So, I thought I should maybe show up at the nearest Weight Watchers office and attend one of their meetings, just to see what they're like.  Today, I attended one.

However, I learned at the end that I am really not WELCOME there, because I'm not ALLOWED to attend the meetings, due to the fact that I'm an ONLINE member only.  Unless I "upgrade" and become a full-fledged member, I will not be given the "Points Plus" details of how to track food and exercise.  I won't be given the helpful booklets either.

So, needless to say, I'm rather annoyed at this Weight Watchers thing.  I think most people at this point would say, "Screw you bitches, I'm done."  But, not me.  I feel like saying, "Screw you bitches, I'll do it on my own WITHOUT your sorry fat asses to help me.  I don't NEED you, and I don't need your BS."  I guess I have enough self-esteem to just tell them to bite my ass, and shove my OWN way of losing weight back into their fat faces.

The one thing I was really the most curious about in the meeting, was if they would actually talk about psychological reasons behind dieting and difficulties with sticking to it.  As I mentioned yesterday, my theory is one that I don't know if any other doctor or dietary organization has ever really addressed fully.  If they have, I need to find those resources and do some reading about it.  I just want to know how to get over this mental block I seem to have.  I guess knowing I have it is half the battle.  But NOW WHAT do I do, to get over it?

The meeting did not address this issue, or any other issue that I really found helpful or of interest. In fact, it was all about "moving."  Yeah, get a pedometer and move around more, walk up stairs instead of taking an elevator; park farther away in a parking lot than you normally would; stupid shit like that.  I mean, come ON, I'm not THAT stupid...that stuff is common sense.  It's NOT a weight-loss "revelation," or "secret," so why preach something (and make me pay to HEAR) that I already KNOW??  I was rather annoyed when the woman leading the meeting had a plastic hand-clapper toy in her hands, and every time someone said, "I've lost 2 pounds," she waved it, as an "applause" sign in a studio audience or something...then she handed the person a STAR STICKER.  Yes, a STAR STICKER.  You read that right.

I haven't had a STAR STICKER since elementary school.  How friggin' STUPID.  Like a star sticker is going to motivate me??  I think not.  Shove your stupid stickers, lady, let's be adults here.  Don't insult my intelligence like that, it only pisses me off.  I just shook my head and looked down at the ground, wondering what possessed me to think that middle-aged fat and spoiled rotten bitch-women would actually HELP me with anything.

So, I guess I'm on my own, to do it my way, and to be in charge of me.  On one hand, I have enough self-esteem in my little pinky to choke a horse...but on the other hand, I'm also submissive, so "taking charge" of ANYTHING is rather daunting and scary too.  I mean, what's the point of having "daddy issues" if you can't find a grown adult man to take control of me when I need it?!!  That should be the pot of gold at the end of my childhood rainbow, ya know?  A reward for going through a lot of daddy issues would be nice.  But instead, I gotta rely on ME, and frankly I don't trust ME to stick to it.

Vicious cycles really annoy me.

I've always been a "self-help" type of person, because 9 out of 10 people are friggin' idiots, so why should I ask THEM for help doing anything??  I can run circles around people when it comes to common sense, practical and logical thinking, so screw them, I will just rely on ME, MYSELF and I.  So I apologized profusely to these women about "sneaking" into a meeting---the NERVE---and I bought a Weight Watchers magazine and a pedometer, just to smooth their ruffled feathers a bit.  I still don't know a thing about this "Points Plus" idea, so I have no idea if the points I'm currently adding up really work, now that they've discarded that older version of their diet plan to the "online" program.

So what the hell did I really JOIN here, I wonder?  If I'm on my own, why should I pay THEM $55 bucks for 3 months of WHAT exactly? I get no peer support, I get no "how to" booklets, I get no real DIETING HELP here, so Weight Watchers is a load of shit if you ask me.

I've gone to Curves, which really didn't do much for me.  I've tried Atkins, and lost 35 pounds in 3 months...that was GREAT, except for always being hungry...but maybe that's what I should do instead or, in addition to, taking the African Mango pills that I just bought...and adding up points with the online program that I got suckered into with Weight Watchers.  Hell, why don't I just create my OWN dietary plan, with PSYCHOLOGY added into it?  Because if you ask me, THAT is the crux of the matter.

At least it is for me.  And since I'm on my own, that's really all that matters.

It's hard to be living in a house full of adults who like to eat, and try to diet.  My mom and mother-in-law both love going out for lunch at least 2-3 times per week also.  Since neither of them drive, guess who the driver is, and the lunch buddy?  That would be ME.  My step-son (24 year old) Nathan, started doing a diet on his own, mostly of eating only proteins and exercising for hours every day---and he was unemployed at the time, so SURE, he can spend HOURS doing that, but I can't---so he was motivating me a bit, when he lost about 50 pounds these past 6 months.  Now that he's working at Pizza Hut as a delivery driver though, he's eating more carbs and not exercising as much.

Life just has a way of getting IN the way whenever you really want to accomplish something. I think maybe that's God's warped sense of humor.  He really is a sick and twisted omniscient being.

Anyway, so I try to pry Florence's butt out of bed every day to get her active, but it's difficult sometimes because she's stubborn and doesn't WANT to get out of bed.  I tell her "if you don't use it, you're gonna lose it," (meaning muscle mass, ability to walk, etc)., but she still gives me a hard time about it.  So now I'm going to stop being so NICE I guess, and start being a mean disciplinarian type of caregiver.  I don't know really how else to get her to do anything.  Today, for instance, I told her I'd be back after my meeting and she should be dressed and ready to go to the assisted living place nearby to spend the afternoon.  I came home, and she was lying in bed, still in her pajamas.  It annoys the hell out of me.

So I've got sabotage going on all around me, all the time, with Pete grabbing a candy bar at the gas station for me, or my mom buying potato chips and honey buns at the grocery store, or Florence sucking the energy, patience, and life right out of me like a friggin' vampire.  Three strikes, I'm out.  Try losing weight when you're surrounded by codependent, dysfunctional humans, and see just how hard it is.

BLEAH.  I feel like having a donut now.  SEE?!  It's really just a friggin' impossible thing to accomplish when you have all these damned people around.  I actually preferred being alone and single, staying home doing my own thing, never reaching out to anybody, not having to be accountable to anybody, not having to plan AROUND anybody....I miss that.  I miss being single.  I really do.  Life was much easier, I could do so much more, and accomplish so many more things than I do now.

Today I wanted to talk with you about other stuff than this, (I dreamed about Steve McQueen last night, GAWD what a sexy beast he was)...and I wanted to mention old movies that I love...I am a total addict to Turner Classic Movies on t.v.  Last night we watched one of my favorites, "Topper," and I laughed my head off.  I just love that movie.  Florence had never seen the Little Rascals, so she says, but when a movie with them came on, she suddenly got her memory back and enjoyed it immensely.  She's never sat through a Laurel and Hardy movie, either, and doesn't really grasp the concept of "farce," so that didn't thrill her at all.  But I love those guys!!  I'm a sucker for the Three Stooges, Katherine Hepburn, Spencer Tracy, Cary Grant, Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall, Lucille Ball, the Marx Brothers, WC Fields and Mae West, Myrna Loy, the Thin Man series, etc. etc. etc....I just eat them up, these old movies...love 'em. I learn a LOT from them too...and people were actually more ADULT back then, than they are nowadays, have you noticed that?  Today's movies are cartoons with toilet humor, which royally sucks. I won't even go to a movie theater anymore when all they are showing are cartoon movies.

I mean, I loved Looney Tunes when I was a kid, but come ON....let's see some REAL movies, with REAL people in them, not animated shit, not computerized digitized crap, just REAL PEOPLE having REAL situations, drama, and even comedy if need be.  I mean, right now the only "real people" movie that seems interesting to me is "The King's Speech."  Pete, of course, wants to see the Green Hornet.  He still collects comic books and loves Batman, so that's pretty much a given.  I told him to have fun without me.  For some weird reason though, he won't just take me to the movie theater and have us each go see DIFFERENT MOVIES on our OWN...(which was MY idea).  He doesn't seem to like many of MY ideas, either.  He's one of those "my way or the highway" type of people...and so am I.

I guess being married is something weird that I haven't adjusted to yet.  Do we HAVE to be joined at the HIP and see the same damned movie, even if we don't LIKE it??  I mean come on.  What's the problem?  You go see yours and I'll go see the one I like.  Seems simple and smarter to me.  Why pay $10 bucks for a ticket if you're just going to grimace, cringe, and loathe the whole experience??  He wanted to take me to see Yogi Bear in 3D....what's with all this 3D crap lately? Have you seen those 3D t.v.'s?  LAME.  You have to wear stupid plastic glasses every time you sit down to watch a t.v. show??  How absolutely retarded is THAT?  No thanks.

Well, I'm just having one of those annoying and disappointing days today I guess. Happy Hump Day.

Talk to you later, gator.  Hope your day is enjoyable, relaxing, and great!!

Love, Rebecca