While I still have 8 pounds to go before I hit all my goals, I am ready for this to be over. It definitely had its highs and lows. First, I didn’t anticipate how much more competitive it would be than other times I’ve done it. I liked the trash-talking, which was motivating. The outright cheating and policing people, as well as herding my (delightful) coworkers was not. I just want to work a little bit without the extracurriculars for now, and can’t wait to get back to that.

But lately, I have been getting some awesome feedback. People have regularly been coming up to me and either saying that they want to be added to the list the next time we do this. People not in my office are starting their own contests, both within the company and without. And I think it’s a credit to what I like to think is my (relatively) smooth handling of it. Could I have done some things better? A million times yes! Overall though, I am now on the side that maybe this was successful rather than the abject failure I was worried about two weeks ago.

I’m proud of my coworkers and this has really cemented how much I really like them. Added bonus: I now fit into all my suits!

Not since Naomi Wolf’s “The Beauty Myth” has such a compelling argument been made that basing a woman’s worth on her physical attractiveness is incredibly destructive. From the beginning of the book, we see the reinforcement of the Queen’s (and Snow’s) goodness reflected in the eyes of men around them. The Queen’s abusive father hated her and bullied her with taunts that she was an ugly hag and therefore unlovable. The king never compliments her on her thoughtfulness and kindness. It’s always how beautiful she is. Snow White isn’t a bright child full of empathy, she’s a beautiful little girl with perfect white skin (another aspect of this book I found disturbing). In this world, being beautiful equates to being loved. Or worse, being worthy of love. Which is interesting, because that is a bit of a running theme in Disney. Ugly characters are evil, good ones are beautiful. This book draws a direct line to this philosophy, creating a twisted and wicked queen. Then it takes that line and beats you over the head with it.

One thing that I’ve always wondered about Disney is, why don’t they have a line of Wicked Queen line of merchandise and apparel for kids like I was? The ones that lived Daria in high school? I would have made the best damn Maleficent you’ve ever seen. It would also cater to all those goth kids who get sick of pastel, sparkly dresses. I know I could have rocked it so hard.

My immediate goal was met this morning when I tried in the pants of my smallest suit… and they fit! I was so pleased, I did the Dance of Weight Loss Happiness. I now fit into all the suits!

This presents me with a little bit of a conundrum. If I lose another 10, will I not be able to fit into my suits again — this time because I am so small? I suppose it’s a nicer problem to have.

I still don’t think I’m going to win the contest. The guy behind me started at over 200lbs, and is now going on a juice fast. But I’m going to keep trying. This feels good.

There are a couple of rules to potlucks though that I think everyone should follow. If you ever catch yourself organizing one, definitely do the following, it can make your final table much more interesting:

1. Organize what everyone is bringing, to keep people from bringing the same thing. If two people bring a dozen muffins for eight people, everyone will be muffined-out.

2. Tell people not to bring drinks or desserts. Everyone wants to be the person to bring the dessert or the soda. Someone will ignore you completely and bring them anyway, so you don’t have to worry about not having any. But what you will have is an actual dinner and not just a bunch of dessert.

3. Do not worry about having enough food. If you ask people to cook for four, they’ll generally cook for more than that. I’ve never been to a potluck where there wasn’t a massive amount of food left over, even if 50 people were there and some brought nothing. The trick is to minimize, not maximize.

4. Some people won’t bring anything. It might be because they are a mooch, or perhaps they can’t boil water. If they come empty-handed, they need to contribute something. Whether it’s a story, help at the end cleaning up for those that cooked, or sent out for party favors. It keeps moochers from mooching and helps those who can’t cook calm.

These are just simple steps people can take to avoid potluck snafus and have a great party.

It could be the type of exercise too. Conventional wisdom says that lots of cardio helps drop the weight. But conventional wisdom also said a high protein diet would do the same, when the opposite is true and I just needed more veggies. Maybe what I need is something like Pilates, with some weight training thrown in for bone health. It would be a relief – I hate cardio with a passion. I would rather do anything than ride a stationary bike or run on a treadmill.

I was finding that my approach was a little disordered this past week, and all for nothing. So, I’m staying on plan but not religiously tracking calories. Hopefully I’ll do better at the weigh on this coming Tuesday.

However, in the Peace Corps, I used to make some great dishes. My scrambled eggs are really fluffy (it’s not me, the secret is sour cream instead of milk in the eggs), french toast with homemade jam, and I made my own breakfast cereal since that didn’t exist in processed form. The other thing I made was an oatmeal clafoutis that I adapted from chocolateandzucchini.com.

I like the term clafoutis. It sounds fancypants. This isn’t just baked oatmeal with fruit, it’s a clafoutis! I never knew what an actual clafoutis was supposed to look like, until I looked it up. Apparently, it’s a cherry pie with pancake batter instead of crust. Oops. That’s not how I make it.

But now I’ve got my experimenter hat on, so this dish could go either way. At the end of the day it won’t be a hard fix: but I’m interested to see what the cherries look like.

So I have this drug that I’m a bit hesitant to use. This morning I ceased the pill for the week because of some spotting. Figuring this drug couldn’t interfere with something I wasn’t taking, I gave it a shot.

Holy energy, Batman! Is this what being awake feels like? I’m rather fond of it.

When I first took the pill, it was a little odd. All the colors seemed brighter and I noticed them. Then my heart beat fast for awhile, but I sat down with my smoothie and it was alright. Now, I just have a ton of energy. Actually, maybe too much. I think I’m going to stay in my cube and not talk to too many people. I feel like today will be a productive day!

Alone, by myself, this isn’t much of a problem. If I lived in a bungalow on the beaches of Thailand with no job or friends, I would probably have no sleep debt. But I live in a city with a job and some friends. Friends that like to do things at night. So, if I want to get up at a decent time for work (which is 6am) AND not fall asleep there, I need to go to bed at minimum at 9pm. That means no dates, few dinners that last past 8, etc.

Luckily, the medical establishment recognizes that I may have a life at some point in the future. So I was prescribed a drug to keep me awake when I need it. It’s not perfect by a long shot. Biggest downside? It eliminates the effectiveness of contraception. Great googly moogly. I hope my mom is ready to help me in those first few postpartum months.

This guy was hitting on nearly every woman on the block I was standing on. He would ask them for help with something, they’d turn around all helpful and he would say something I couldn’t hear, but by the looks of disgust, it wasn’t good.

He didn’t accost me, but I didn’t take it personally, I was giving him my Zombie Death Stare. I probably looked like I was stone cold, which is mostly accurate. That’s one thing I have going for me: I have one magnificent bitchface.