January 2012 Activity - DietBet Progress Report (Amy's version)

Dear Friends, Fans and Stalkers of the Dilettante Club—

Greetings from Amy… “the quiet one,” (ed. Ha ha "the quiet one") as I have never in my life submitted a blog post.  Hey!  That should count as my January activity, instead of this stupid Diet (dear DietBet, she is only saying that because she's hungry and cranky. DietBet is awesome.) I got roped into.

If you are following our blog, you know that the three of us are participating in a weight loss challenge through the DietBet website.  For someone with a firm 50-minute attention span, this four-week challenge has been extremely tough. With 2 1/2 weeks into this diet, I have made three important discoveries.

1.       Unlike my summer diets in college, eliminating beer from my diet no longer has an effect.  I am not sure whether to be happy or discouraged about this.  Over the years I’ve been on so many diets that I have slowly eliminated many of the “bad foods” from my daily meals.  Butter—long gone.  Cokes and diet cokes—not in years.  Rolls of raw cookie dough—nada.  Beer is my last diet vice—in that I am drinking my calories.  And I like real beer—not that watery Bud Light crap. (ed. the Dilettantes bond over a love of good beer.) So my original strategy was to cut out the beer for the four weeks, and watch the fat melt away.  Nope!  Two and half weeks in and I weigh the same as I did the day after Christmas—and the 24 beers of Christmas challenge (which was way more fun than this stupid diet).

2.      DietBet sends daily suggestions for losing weight during our challenge.  As I mentioned, I’ve tried them all—Weight Watchers, Jenny Craig, marathon training, Cindy Crawford’s  workout video—and they all boil down to the same thing: eat less, exercise more, drink lots of water.  But yesterday I learned a new tip—the 3-day juice cleanse.  I wonder if a three day beer cleanse would work just as well? (ed. If it does, I've found my new weight management tool that I will be able to maintain for a lifetime.)

3.      Stephen Hawking will want to explore my third discovery.  After having a baby in late August, the remainder of 2011 raced by.  Visitors, holidays, parties, work—I wished I could slow down the days.  Well, I now know how to slow time—dieting.  I can’t believe it is only January 20^th!  I have never before looked forward to the month of February.  But bring it on, extra day and all! (ed. February 1st will be the best day of our lives. with the exception of Oktoberfest 2007. That was a great party.)

So with 12 days to go, I am not confident I am going to successfully complete this Dilettante activity by losing 4% of my body weight.  Here is my final stretch strategy:  3 day beer cleanse, diuretics, and a new scale.  Wish me luck!