Happy new year friends. Today I would like to talk about choices.  More specifically terrible, self destructive choices.

Today I spent a whopping $36 getting my nails done. I spent about 15 minutes choosing a color and then another 40 while waiting for the 23 year old nurse in training with a fake tan and glue on eyelashes as she told the manicurist that she was still drunk. At 4 pm. On a Monday. And this woman is going to be in control of people's medical treatment. There has to be some protection against this in Obamacare, right? RIGHT?!

Anyway, so I finally settle on a vibrant peach, because neither mint green nor lilac seemed professional enough for my super professional-professional life. As I'm sitting there I think to myself, "self, this is $30 that should have gone to your oil change." Which is about 2000 miles overdue. And yet I've deemed my peach fingernails more important. So tomorrow, when my car dies and I miss court, I can feel polished when I call AAA and the Court. Poor choice.

So then I got to thinking about the other choices that I made this week:

Figure out student loan deferment or research local nail salons? 

Poor choice.

Return client's first call or call ex boyfriend?
Poor choice.

Return client's second call or call ex boyfriend?
Poor choice.

Return client's text message or call ex boyfriend?
Seriously, Samuels. Pull your fucking life together.

Put together file for the morning or go to nail appointment?
Depends on whether you think the Judge will be more impressed with my organization or flashy hands. You all know which side I erred on.

Maintain some shred of dignity or text ex boyfriend?
You see how this (being my life) fell to pieces.

Now this bout of introspection had me hearkening back to my diet.  I think the beauty is the utter lack of choice. Because clearly I cannot be trusted to make good choices. (The list goes on, watch 2 full seasons of Downton Abbey, or get out of bed today, buy food or shoes, etc...) I mean, I look at my dinner options and it's scrambled eggs or poached eggs? Broccoli or Brussels sprouts?

What I haven't disclosed re: my diet is that I lost 7 inches as of a month and a half ago, at which point all progress stopped. BUT, I maintain said diet, because this is what I know: bad choices breed bad choices. So without Tim Ferris to stop me, it would be more like: text ex boyfriend, eat 28 cookies, call mom and cry.

And so, my friends, I have decided that in 2013 I am going to try to give myself fewer opportunities to make terrible choices. And stop calling my ex like an asshole.

Happy new year everyone. And put down the phone/cookie and do the right thing.

Today I have a love story to share with you all.

At approximately 12:20 this morning I was at the shopping center where my gym is located.  I parked my car and headed upstairs to Safeway.  I approached the stairs from the right.  From the left, a tall, handsome gentleman wearing a beanie was approaching the same stairs.  He was clearly coming from the gym.  He said hello, I gave him a quick head nod, and we both headed upstairs to the store.  I headed to the sports drink aisle to purchase my workout beverage and behold, the gentleman from the stairs was in the same aisle.  Flustered, I grabbed the purple can, checked out at self checkout, and walked outside.  I thought to myself two things. 1. "That guy was pretty good looking" and 2. "I didn't realize they made guava rockstar recovery."  They do not make guava rockstar recovery, for those of you in suspense.  I took one sip and realized that the delicious carbonated splendor could not POSSIBLY be legit.  It wasn't.  In my flustered state, I had grabbed a 140 calorie per serving rockstar-juice, not a 10 calorie rockstar-recovery.  I paused for a moment of decision.  I certainly am not going to drink 140 calories (I once had a nightmare that I was drinking diet coke and then realized that it wasn't diet coke and that I had consumed 300 calories of soda.  It was awful.  Also, Mr. Ferriss is adamant that one must not drink one's calories).  I thought about giving it to the friendly homeless man sitting on the adjacent bench, but I couldn't come up with a way to offer a homeless man an open rockstar energy drink with one sip taken without explanation.  And even with an explanation it would be insulting at best.  I thought about taking it back, but, again, even if the explanation was effective, I can only assume that they would not trade me my desired beverage for an open can.  So I threw it away and went back in.

Keep in mind that all of the above happened within about 2 minutes.  I tried to play it cool as I sauntered back to the sports drink aisle to purchase the correct, carcinogenic, delicious, rockstar.  As I approached the drinks a second time, the mystery man resurfaced.  This time he spoke.  He introduced himself as Christian.  I said hello and explained that I would love to chat, but that I had to get back downstairs to the gym or I was going to miss my class (after the mishap with the rockstar I was cutting it close).  He said we could chat another time if I gave him my number and casually pulled out his phone.  I balked and told him, "I'm here every Tuesday and Thursday at noon.  Come find me."  We shook hands and I ran downstairs.

My initial reaction to this whole interaction was similar to the one I have when people whistle out of there trucks at me.  Flattery and dismissal.  Then I realized I had made a huge mistake.  I almost ran back up the stairs to try to rectify the rejection, but (as with the rockstar debacle), figured that the result would be crushing awkwardness for all parties rather than a solution.  Here is what I realized:

As you may know, I have recently been experimenting with dating online and let's just say that it has been a mixed bag.  The point of telling you that is as follows: I clearly have no problem going out with a near stranger in a desperate attempt to forge human connection.

And after reflection, Christian may have been the one.

1. He too has a schedule in which he goes to the gym midday.  This could mean that he is unemployed, true.  It could also mean that he is independently fabulously wealthy and just looking for someone to spend copious amounts of money on after a shared noontime workout.  I will never know.

2. He too enjoys rockstar.  Now this may be a stretch, as I did not see him holding a beverage, but I can only assume his lingering in the sports drink aisle was because he could not choose which recovery drink to buy after his arduous workout.  It could also mean that he's a recovering meth addict trying to wean off the habit with caffeine and sugar. Again, a mystery we will never solve.    

3. (This one is most important) He watched me pick up a rockstar and walk to check out, and then mysteriously return 2 minutes later sans rockstar, pick up another one, and head back to the register.  And he still asked for my number.  Clearly this is a man who can roll with the punches. 

So here was a man with a flexible schedule, a like-minded view of fitness, a fondness for refreshments of questionable nutritional value, and a willingness to overlook extremely bizarre public behavior.  In short: the one that got away.

I would therefore like to make a suggestion to the world at large.  Clearly, as a society, we've given up on finding love via drawn out courtship and high school formals.  We are happy to replace traditional connectivity with hope and wifi.  So let's reevaluate our categorization of random hollering strangers as "scrubs"   and instead think of them as "matches."  Let's all be a little bolder in our flagrant public come ons and more accepting of those who can take a quest for love out of the virtual and into the physical realm.

In conclusion, I should have offered Christian the guava rockstar and taken a chance on love.  Next time, I'll be ready.

So to start.  A couple of points of clarification from yesterday.

1. Cottage cheese is allowed despite being dairy.  I do not know why.  And I do not care.
2. When I say I am a vegetarian, I mean pescatarian.  Sorry for any confusion.
3. I failed to mention that I get to drink red wine on this diet.  Two glasses per day.  Another HUGE draw.

Now onto today.  I started with spinach, egg, cottage cheese, and black beans.  At that point I decided that I was going to have to just choke down beans as a precursor to some meals, because they simply don't mix well.  So after breakfast I went to the civic center to take photographs for my website.  You see, I have recently started my new business.  I have not, however, done the marketing necessary to actually turn a profit.  So instead of hitting the pavement or buying ad space, or even calling my contacts, I decided that I needed professional photographs for my website.  See below:

The real question now becomes: What's next?  How will I use my new photographic arsenal to court clients?

I am not sure. The options, as I understand them include craigslist postings, which, to me, seems shady, but maybe I'm just picturing a bunch of lawyers writing casual encounters posts. Which is a nightmare, but probably not far off.  Well I would like clients well built, with a ton of money.  No penis pictures please.

But now, my friends, I would like to turn your attention to a much more serious issue.  From the time I began this post and now, I have bent the rules of my diet to breaking.  I managed to forgo samosas and paneer at lunch, chips, tortillas and sour cream, and sushi rice at dinner, but I was unable to say no to four glorious glasses of red wine.  I have rationalized this due to the fact that the first two were at noon. Which instead of being a relief, points to a more pervasive problem in society.

Am I an alcoholic? No. Can I stop anytime? Sure.  But the following statistics should be heeded by myself and all of you.  Watch yo-selves.

"Studies conducted in numerous jurisdictions have pegged the rate of alcoholism in the legal profession at between 15 and 24 percent.  Roughly 1 in 5 lawyers is addicted to alcohol."
(Drug and Alcohol Abuse & Addiction in the ... - Benchmark Institute)

This is compared with approximately 10% of the general population.  And it is terrifying.  I have since followed up to try to research the implications of being an unemployed attorney, and while I have found numerous blog posts, I will have to follow up on definitive and terrifying numbers in the future.  Suffice it to say, alcohol is a drug and do not ever forget it,  It will also make you fat. And no one wants that.


In conclusion: Do not be an alcoholic or a lawyer.  Both are terrible ideas.

Goodnight.

Dear world:

Today I am starting a blog because my diet book claims that public humiliation will motivate me to lose weight.  My hope is that this also extends to all of the other shortfalls of my daily life, including but not limited to: working, working out, dating, watching the Vampire Diaries.

Today we will focus on eating, although you will also receive detailed and horrifying updates of all other facets.  So don't worry.  Overshares abound.

My wonderful friend Nora has loaned me the book: The Four Hour Diet.  Now I am typically not one for self help books, primarily because they take too long to read, but Nora assured me that as long as I would be willing to eat beans, this diet would allow me to eat unlimited pastries.   Now, I dated a Mexican for a very long time.  And I am a vegetarian. So in answer to part 1, yes. I can eat many, many beans.  But what really got me was the pastries.  Well, not pastries specifically, I like a chocolate croissant as much as the next compulsive eater, but the implications of this word, "unlimited" were staggering.  Even for one day, could this be true?  She must be exaggerating.  Or underestimate the shocking volume of butter soaked anything that I can consume in a sitting.

In any case, I was intrigued.  So I opened said book.  The diet plan is restrictive.  Nothing "white." So my daily bowl of fried rice is off the table.  That's cool, I can hang with legumes... No dairy, which means no cheese... This is more difficult for someone such as me, who if terminally ill would eat nothing but aged Gruyere melted upon fresh baked good until I preempted my impending doom with cardiac arrest.  But I kept reading, because the author, Timothy Ferriss, keeps alluding to a mythical "binge."

And after the arduous slog through how to preempt excess gas wile subsisting on nothing but beans, and Q&A's about whether one can have soy milk (no. because that would be delicious) and the dangers of derailing the whole thing on almonds (he actually told me the calories in a cup of almonds.  For which I will never forgive Mr. Ferriss.  I will not type it here, so that the rest of you can continue to eat smokehouse almonds like popcorn and pretend that 6 handfuls is a "serving.") I reached the true miracle of this diet:

QUESTION: DO I REALLY HAVE TO BINGE ONCE A WEEK?

ANSWER:
"It is important to spike caloric intake once a week.  This causes a host of hormonal change that improve fat-loss, from increasing cAMP and GMP to improving conversion of the T4 thyroid hormone to the more active T3."

Now, perhaps you understand what this means and can explain the difference between T4 and T3, or what cAMP and GMP is.  I do not and cannot.  And I do not care, because now, even after the almond faux pas, I am in love with Mr. Ferriss.

Unfortunately, to get to the glorious binge day, I have to somehow survive the other six days a week.  I also had to take my measurements.  He also recommended to go have your body fat measured, but... yeah... no. Negative.  I considered it whilst at the gym this morning, but I fear the judgment of the trainers.  Instead, I took my measurements in the privacy of my home office, wrote them on an index card, and taped it on the wall next to my envelope of unopened mail and coupons to buffets.  I will not be sharing those measurements, in hope that I look smaller than I am and that you all believe that illusion.

I'll keep you updated if I lose inches.  Otherwise, that will remain conspicuously absent.

Anyway, so to my food consumption:

bfast:

I microwaved eggs and then dumped cottage cheese on them.  You're supposed to eat 20+ grams of protein within 30 minutes of waking up and this seemed the most expeditious way to do so.  Tomorrow I plan to add spinach.  I'll be half asleep anyway, why not go for some leafy greens.

Lunch:

I went to Safeway after my body pump class and impulse purchased a bevy of non white food products.  I tried to picture what I would like to be eating and then removed all of the best parts.  So my lunch was a castrated burrito.

- Lettuce
-1 can of black beans
-1 cup of yellow corn
- 3/4 of an avocado
- pinch of Mexican cheese/dollop of sour cream (it's day 1. don't judge me)
- 2 blackened tilapia fillets (I know, tilapia is gross, but I am poor, stay tuned for a job-related post for details).

The result:

It was good. I admit it.  Probably from the 30 calories of wonderful white things.

So there you have it. Day one of my new diet.  Post one of my new blog.  One day closer to binge day.

xoxo.