My food baby's name is Coco Brie O'Cheesy

Alrighty.  Let me just start by saying that I think it’s completely unfair that google taught me how to make really good hashbrowns, AND I actually have a few potatoes left, AND I have to start my diet.

That said, I’m now going to reveal everything I ate since my last post.  Some days were better than others.  You know how it is… but I wasn’t on a diet yet.  Today I am.  And sort of yesterday, too.  Except I must wane myself off of my beloved CHEESE a little at a time, or my entire system may go into shock.

12/30 - Road trip to Phoenix:

Jelly poppyseed cookie (Sugar Mamas)

¾ Lemon blueberry tart (Sugar Mamas)

1 coconut macaroon (Sugar Mamas)

1 large fries (it was only polite - we had to stop at McDonald's in Camp Verde to pee)

Dinner:  3 taco supremes (bastards skimped on the CHEESE!)

1 medium root beer

12/31/11 - New Year's Eve:

Jelly poppyseed cookie (Sugar Mamas)

¼ lemon blueberry tart (Sugar Mamas)
(If you're wondering about the recurring references to Sugar Mamas, it's this: sugarmamasflagstaff.com.  My friend Nancy makes the most AMAZING stuff there.  Like, all the time.  It's torture.)

1 cup watery hotel room coffee w/ 1 creamer, 1 packet sugar

Western CHEESEburger at the Burger Studio – complete with green chili and guacamole

Homemade potato chips

Handful of sweet potato fries

About 5 onion rings

Iced tea (unsweetened)

Gary, looking smug just before our uphill battle.

Let me just interject here that we actually hiked all the way from our room at the Pointe to the Burger Studio on 7^th Street – which, according to google, was 1.3 miles each way.  Up hill.  Both ways.  I kid you not.  No – really.   

We started in Tapatio Cliffs and hiked all the way UP to the top in order to get DOWN to the city, and then the hike back was mostly UP, UP, UUUP.  And THEN later that night we had to hike back UP to the top of the cliffs to get to the Terrace Room for New Year's Eve.  SO…

This photo does NOT do this hill justice.

Total exercise for the day: 2.6 miles, plus whatever it took to get to the Terrace Room.  So I’ll just round that up to, say, 5 miles total.  (Okay, it was probably more like 3 total.  But may I remind you, it was UP HILL, BOTH WAYS.  And why don't YOU try hiking up a very steep walkway at night, after 2 vodka Perriers + 2 scotch & sodas, in 2” fabulous heels.  I double-dog dare you.)

View from the Terrace Room.  WAY down past that little hill on the right: The Burger Studio.  Just sayin'.

Food Baby Conception, Cont’d (yes, we’re still on New Year's Eve):

½ caramel almond brownie (yep - Sugar Mamas)

2 cherry vodka Perriers with a twist of lime

2 Glenlivet & sodas w/ lime

Crab spinach fondue (OHMYGOD!)

Veal spinach ravioli

2 cups reg. coffee w/ cream

1 glass champagne

I'm actually eyeing that caramel almond brownie...

At one point over the holiday weekend, my belly got, like, distended.  Seriously.  I mean, I was dangerously close to some poor unsuspecting slob tapping me on the shoulder and saying “Happy New Year, and congratulations!  When are you due?”  And then immediately judging me for drinking champagne when I'm OBVIOUSLY at least five months preggers.  Thank the gods for the Edwardian waistline.  And thank the contemporary gods for the 60s shift dress….

So my food baby was cleverly disguised as we rang in the New Year atop the sprawling city of Phoenix, just outside the Terrace Room at the Pointe.  As we dreamily watched several makeshift fireworks displays turn into a couple of 3 alarm fires all over the city, I reflected back on the year.  BOY did I eat a bunch of crap after I got back from New York.  Compensating, perhaps?  Comfort food?  Lord knows, I had my share of comfort food in NYC, but I had to WALK back to my 10^th floor room on the Upper East Side (and I actually preferred the stairs to the lift).  And I had to at least WALK to the subway to get to that greasy pizza joint at Union Square.  Or WALK 3 blocks to Central Park to get that gelato.  Here in Dragstaff, Arizona, elevated 7,000 feet above anything remotely reasonable, there is no walking.  Not when it’s 25 degrees out.  Not for me there isn’t.  Nope.

How-EVER…

While I was in Phoenix, I did manage to order my badd self a pair of derby skates.  Yes, that’s going to be part of the regimen.  Roller Derby.  For several reasons: 

1. I’m a wimp.  Never broke a bone, never did anything physically dangerous.  It’s time to break something.

2.  It’s GREAT exercise.

3.  The women I’ve met there so far are pretty damn cool.  I coulds uses me some more cool women friends.

4.  I need to toughen the frak up and start facing my fears.  Of breaking something.  Because I might.

Oh yes.  They WILL be mine.

My brand-new skates should arrive at my door some time early next week.  I can’t wait.  I hear that the derby girls skate around Bushmaster Park sometimes, which is SO incredibly awesome because at one point during my young & impressionable years, I wore skates more often than I wore shoes, and Bushmaster Park saw a lot of those miles.




Alright, enough of the digressions.  Back to the situation at hand: 

1/1/12 - New Year's Day:

Watery hotel room coffee with 1 cream, 1 sugar

Large peppermint café mocha: skim milk, whipped cream (go ahead, laugh.  I'll wait...)
.....

Egg, chorizo and CHEESE burrito with jalapeño cream CHEESE

Rosemary red potatoes

Cinnamon roll w/ cream CHEESE frosting

Late night Big Mac (don't ask - this one's Gary's fault.)

1/2/12 - LAST DAY OF FREEDOM:

Starbuck’s egg sausage & CHEESE sandwich on English muffin

Cheddar CHEESE/poppy seed bagel w/ cream CHEESE

Grande Peppermint Mocha

2 chili dogs with CHEESE (they were yucky)

4 mimosas.  (Don’t judge me: the chili dogs were yucky.)

I said that January 3^rd would be the first day of my diet.  Yep – I followed through.  Starting out with a nice saltwater cleanse that I learned about from my Middle Eastern Dance instructor back in New York City.  So here’s what I consumed on the First Day of the Rest of My Life: 

1/3/12 - DIET DAY 1!

2 cups coffee w/ 1% milk (and a splash of chocolate milk)

Salt water cleanse

Bowl of ½ cup oatmeal w/ butter, brown sugar, 1% milk (yeah, I could've nixed the butter, but WHY?!)

½ box Kraft Macaroni and CHEESE

Where did my amazing willpower come from, you ask?  Quite simple.  I came down with some kind of 24-hr virus yesterday that made me just want to curl up under about 10 blankets, crank up the heat, and wait to die.  So I was kind of cheating, in the sense that when you’re sick like that, the mere sight of real food makes you wanna hurl - sort of like a reverse-bulimia.  The macaroni and CHEESE only happened once my fever broke and I could stand up long enough to boil water.  But still – considering my eating habits up until yesterday, wouldn’t you say I did pretty darn good?

As for today, I’ve just now poured myself a 2^nd cup of coffee, complete with a mixture of 1% and chocolate milk.  My stomach hasn’t quite woken up yet, and the food baby will be hungry soon….

Okay, so here’s the weight spec.  I’m apparently still 5’10”.  (Dammit.)  When I got back from Phoenix, I was surprised to see that I’d only gained a pound – I was up to 169 as of Monday afternoon.  But that wonderful virus (and probably the saltwater cleanse) got me off to a GREAT start, because this morning I stood on that beautiful, marvelous, fabulous scale and do you know what he said to me?  Yes.  He said, “166”.  Wa-HOOOO!

If only I could get a virus every day and not feel like making real food.  But alas, there are potatoes in the pantry.  And there is CHEESE in the fridge.  And google told me how to make really good hashbrowns…