Dieting sucks.

I haven't talked a lot about dieting, because I don't like to do it. I hate dieting--I hate the idea of altering your nutritional intake so drastically just to lose ten pounds and have them all come back when you start eating normally again. It's dumb.

However, in my attempt to be healthier, and let's be honest here, look smoking hot when I am laying out in my bathing suit in Vegas (more on that later), I have decided to start watching what I eat. *GASP* Shocking, I know. No formal diet, though, no crazy (and expensive) juice cleanses (although Gilt is having a sale right now), just more awareness of what goes in my belly.

The Goal: Low end of normal for my height by Vegas-time (4 weeks).
The Progress: 3 lbs left according to my bathroom scale (which MM says is off by 10 lbs--THANKS FOR NOTHING, HONEY. So maybe 13 lbs.)

This is what I have learned so far from this harrowing experience.

1. Holy shit serving sizes are small. As part of my "awareness", I have started loosely keeping track of calories. One of my biggest weaknesses is portion sizes, and one the easiest ways for me to control this is to limit myself to one serving (unless it's some ridiculous increment) per sitting. This has made me realize how small some serving sizes are--yeah, cereal is only 120 calories...for HALF A CUP. Do you know how small half a cup is?? I guarantee you, I used to eat like three servings of cereal for breakfast.

2. You don't have to eat what your boyfriend eats. When cooking for two, it's so easy to prepare a meal, then just split it down the middle for the both of us. One steak for me, one steak for him. Then I realized, do I really need a 16 oz steak? Two huge spoonfuls of mashed potatoes? No, probably not. He has more height to distribute all that food, and I need to realize our plates SHOULD be uneven. And it's okay to have leftovers. That's why they invented tupperware. This leads to...

3. You don't have to eat WHEN your boyfriend eats. MM likes to have his "wind down" beer at the end of the night. Sometimes this is accompanied by "wind down" snacks as well. I can never resist eating when he's eating. Even when I'm not hungry!! This needs to stop. Especially when he comes home with late night tacos from Big Star. Mmmmm....but honestly, who's hungry when they're awoken after an hour of sleep? Not me. Did I still eat two tacos? Yes. *for shame*

4. If it's not in the house, you won't eat it. Up until maybe a month ago, I wasn't buying chips or crackers when I went grocery shopping. Did I miss it? Maybe a little when I was having a sandwich, but honestly, we did fine without having those things in the house. Then I caved, bought a bag of chips, and it was downhill from there. Last grocery trip, I tried to be better, and came home with a bag of pretzels. Still not great, but at least they don't have the grease of a bag of Lays. My only exception to this is probably chocolate. I tried to keep it out of the house, but then my craving went crazy and I ended up buying 3 bags of chocolate chips and immediately making a batch of chocolate chip cookies. Note to self: keep small amounts of chocolate in house at all times.

So that's it for now. With my loose calorie counting, I figured out I was consuming about 1800 calories on an average day. To lose a pound a week, you need to cut 500 calories a day, so I've been trying (again, only loosely counting) to keep it around 1200 per day. Combined with the running, hopefully I will be able to reach my goal!

Anybody have any helpful weight loss strategies to share?