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I wonder how many times that old pun has been used? Oh well. Here are three quickies.

* Yesterday was day four of our nine-day meatless detox period, although I have to admit we’ve snuck tiny amounts of meat into two meals now. To give you an idea of our mindset, the other night Susan fixed some “vegetarian fajitas” (for lack of a better word) and in with the mix she diced up half a chicken breast and threw it in — and afterward, we felt guilty for eating it. That’s wrong. Last night I had a salad from Sonic for dinner that contained some grilled chicken, and I felt naughty for eating it. This diet’s messing with my head. Eating grilled chicken in salads is not contributing to my weight problem; eating cookie dough and sitting on my bootay all day long is.

* Yesterday Susan and I went to Panera Bread for lunch. We each got their 2/For lunch special and got a soup and salad combo, and then a side dish of fresh fruit. (Side rant: with drinks, lunch was $21. That’s just stupid.) With our meals came a hard piece of wheat bread. I asked Susan if wheat bread was on the diet and she said not for the first nine days but I decided to eat it anyway. During the first bite I heard this noise in my head and thought, hm, what was that? Well, it was a tooth breaking off. It’s one of my wisdom teeth, which has been rotten and drilled out for years. It had a filling in it a decade ago that fell out within weeks of putting it in. It doesn’t hurt … yet … but a dentist trip is planned anyway. It’s about time, I suppose.

* As I mentioned, yesterday Susan and I had lunch at Panera Bread. On the way out the door I got a refill and took my cup with me. When I got back to work, two co-workers were walking out the door to go shopping for network stuff, so I turned back around and left with them. After shopping, they wanted to eat lunch and decided to go to … Panera Bread. So when we got there, I carried my cup back in and just got a couple more free refills as they ate. Is that wrong? Probably. I felt like the biggest criminal in the world for stealing a couple of .85 cent refills. I’d make a terrible criminal.

This weekend, Susan picked up Dr. Ian’s (host of VH1′s Celebrity Fit Club new diet book. I haven’t read it, which, by the way, does not appear to be a prime requesite for being held to its rules — one must merely be married to someone who has read the book, which is my fate.

The diet begins with a detox period lasting 9 days, during which one can only eat fruits and vegetables, beans, eggs … I think that’s it. Oh, and oatmeal. So, breakfast consisted of a bowl of oatmeal, and lunch consisted of two plates of salad with a lot of eggs, a bowl of beans, and a bowl of mixed vegetables. The idea is that the first leg of the diet is supposed to trick your body into wanting to eat right again, or some such nonsense.

All I can say right now is that my body has not been tricked, and right now my mouse is looking pretty tasty.

The funny thing about diets is that although they start at a specific point in time, they never end at a specific time. When you start a diet, a line is drawn in the sand. “By God I’m never eating a cookie again — starting tomorrow!!” But they never end that way, do they? I can’t ever remember saying, “starting next Tuesday I’m going to start eating crap!! It’s chocolate cake for me at every meal, baby!” It’s always easy to know when a diet starts, but it’s harder to tell when exactly you fell off the horse.

For a diet to work for me, you have to remove the “choice”. If a choice is involved, I’m going to make the wrong one. I’m never, ever, EVER going to pick steamed vegetables over chocolate cake. EVER. If there’s a choice involved over food, I almost always make the wrong one. The only way to correct that is to eliminate the choice. If you go to a salad bar for dinner or only stock the house with wheat bread, it gets tougher to choose poorly. But when I go to a Mexican restaurant for lunch and they serve free cheese, free chips, free tortillas, and free sopapillas with every meal … the only choice becomes, will I have seconds, or thirds?

I’ve decided that when it comes to dieting, it’s an “all or none” situation for me. Reason being, if you only do it half the time, you end up not losing any weight and you’re still miserable half the time. If you do it all the time you’re still miserable but at least you lose weight.

For lunch yesterday I had the all you can eat Soup, Salad and Breadsticks special at Olive Garden ($5.99). It wasn’t bad — I ate a lot more salad than I did soup or breadsticks. The service was actually pretty good this time. Last time we tried it, apparently Olive Garden had decided that one round of soup, salad and breaksticks was “all we could eat.” For dinner, I had chicken chow mein and white rice. White rice is kind of like fried rice, except tasteless. The chicken chow mein was good; it had enough chicken to keep the chow mein interesting.

Had a friend stop by the house this past weekend. Immediately I kicked into “hospitality mode”, which basically means “where would you like to eat?” I hate making excuses for not sticking to the diet, but that’s exactly what happened. “Oh, we can’t diet this weekend, we’re having company!” So instead of eating well or even sensibly this weekend I pigged out over several meals. Blah. Oh well, can’t learn to ride a bike without falling off a few times I suppose.

The diet began on January 3rd, 2006. Why? Because January 2nd was a holiday, so we didn’t come back to work until the 3rd. On the 2nd I had one of those new Mushroom & Swiss burgers from Sonic along with a serving of tater tots covered with cheese — SO good. Ah well, I considered it a farewell present to myself. Farewell, yummy food! Hello exercise and salads! Whee!

I experienced my first food crisis at 7:30am on January 3rd. A co-worker brought in a pan of 12 cinnamon rolls … for 3 people. Why would you do that? I was able to “just say no”, but it wasn’t easy. Instead, I had a bowl of oatmeal (which, by the way, sucks when compared to cinnamon rolls), and a salad/pretzel combo for lunch. Go me!

Today, the 4th, Susan and I brought our lunch. I can’t say I’m not full; we had turkey sandwiches (on wheat of course), fruit (a banana), vegetables (carrots), and a bowl of soup. That isn’t to say it didn’t suck — it did — but I’m still full. It was no mushroom and swiss, let’s just say that.

One of my many New Year’s resolutions this year is to lose weight. Original, I know.

I’ll be documenting how things go this year in my “Diet Log”. To follow along, simply click on the “Diet Log” link on the right (listed under “Categories”) and you’ll be able to monitor my weight loss throughout the year. Or hey who knows, maybe I’ll get even fatter, have a stroke, and we’ll all have a good laugh over the whole thing. Either way, guaranteed entertainment.