4 pounds down in 3 days!

This is why I love the I-diet so much.  When you follow it and don't cheat, it actually works!

Livestrong.com, Lance Armstrong's website for health, also helps.  Over the years, I've signed up twice for on-line Weight Watchers  at about $35/month.  I thought that if I paid good money for weight loss help, I'd actually work at weight loss.  That worked the first time I tried, but it took me about 6 months to lose 10 lbs.  The second time it didn't work very well at all.

Livestrong.com is basically on-line Weight Watchers, only it's free, which to my Chinese soul is totally worth it.  I put in my weight every day I remember, and the graph of my weight fluctuations over the past 3 years looks like the Rocky Mountains.

You can also create your own meals and calculate their caloric count. You might be interested to know that an entire recipe of the very best bean dip, made with real fava beans (which I found by asking the Market Basket clerk--turns out they had them all along), is 4811 calories.  A quarter cup is 218.74.

I resisted Boloco burritos on Wednesday and brought bean dip and crudite for myself.

The very wine I bought

Of course, I cheated just a tiny bit yesterday.  After dropping all 3 kids off at swimming, I couldn't resist going to our local gourmet wine store and tasting their wine of the week.  I sipped 1/8th of a cup of Cabriz (at 21.25 calories), plus ate a tiny meatball with BBQ sauce.  The Cabriz got 90 points from Wine Spectator and was on sale for $8.79 so I couldn't control my impulses.

My nose's still stuffy, so I don't know that I'm the best taster these days, but I bought a bottle.

When I'm faithful in logging what I eat, following the I-diet, and having a spouse who's doing it with me and therefore not tempting me with dinners out and glasses of wine, it's amazing how it all can work.

Today I'm taking a colleague out for Chinese buffet lunch.  I don't think there's anything in a Chinese buffet that falls on the I-diet, not to mention that the salt & soysauce alone will make me gain 2 pounds.

I just might bring bean dip again. . .