Archives for September 2010

This is sponsored content from BlogHer and The Laughing Cow.

When I went off to college I felt pretty good about my weight. Granted, I wasn’t thin by any stretch of the imagination, but I was healthy. I liked how I looked in my clothes.

But – and you know the drill – it didn’t take long for me to start packing on the pounds. And while I’d love to tell you a kicky little story about how I went home for summer vacation bound and determined to kick the freshman 15 in the teeth, the fact of the matter is that I was waaaaay past “15” at that point. I’d passed “15” sometime around Thanksgiving. Something about eating cheeseburgers and fries really late at night and developing the misguided mentality that a two-piece fried chicken dinner (with red beans and rice, French fries and a biscuit) constituted a perfectly healthy lunch.

Needless to say, I was big friends with elastic the summer after my freshman year.

I lost a little bit of weight that summer thanks to a whole lot of exercise, but since I was working in Atlanta and eating out a ton, the weight didn’t fall off like I’d hoped it would. So flash forward to the end of my sophomore year, when I was still carrying around some of that excess freshman baggage plus a few pizza-related pounds from my sophomore year. I wanted a diet that would give me results. And fast.

This was right around the time when liquid diets became wildly popular. Lots of people bought different flavored shakes in the grocery store, and other folks favored a liquid diet that was supervised by a doctor. I decided to go the doctor-supervised route since I was such a bastion of maturity and responsibility. After all, I had once tried to lose upwards of 15 pounds over the course of 4 days by eating nothing but popcorn for my meals.

Be sure to let me know if you’d like any other diet or fitness tips!

In retrospect I’m not entirely sure why I thought a liquid diet would work for me; after all, I’ve been known to crave the texture of certain foods so much that I’ll plan a whole meal around them (I’M TALKING TO YOU, GUACAMOLE). But since the liquid diet promised big results, I figured I could endure it long enough to drop those pesky extra pounds. And I figured that if I was really desperate to chew something, I could go to town on some sugarless gum.

Extra Wintergreen and I became very close that summer. Inseparable, really.

The first week of the liquid diet was fine. It actually felt a little bit like detox, which wasn’t a bad thing given all the junk I’d eaten during finals. I don’t necessarily know if our bodies are meant to consume a two-liter of Mountain Dew and a bag of Cheddar and Sour Cream potato chips in one marathon-study sitting, so I kind of enjoyed the break from sugar and your various and sundry simple carbohydrates. And after about seven days, I felt GOOD. Sassy, even.

The second week was a little more difficult. I wasn’t just hungry. I was HAWNGRY. And even though there were a few “foods” I could eat – chicken or beef broth, for example – they didn’t really have the crunch or texture or, you know, flavor that I was looking for. But I was a good little dieter, and I felt so encouraged by the nurse and the doctor who were supervising me that I was resolved to keep on keepin’ on. With my Extra Wintergreen by my side AT ALL TIMES, DON’T YOU EVEN THINK ABOUT ASKING ME FOR A PIECE.

At some point during the fourth week I made a trip to a big discount store with my mother. By that point I’d lost about 12 pounds, I think, so the good news was that my clothes were fitting better than they had in awhile. The bad news was that I was weak as a kitten. Mama and I hadn’t been in the discount store more than five minutes when I had to find a patio set on display so that I could sit down for a bit, and Mama knew me well enough to know that I just wasn’t feeling well.

I’ll never forget how she leaned over me with a look of concern on her face and said, “Is there anything I can do for you? Anything that would make you feel better?”

And y’all, I will never forget my response. My 19 year-old self looked up at my mama and said one very important word with determination and clarity: “Meat. MEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAT.”

I kid you not: we left that store, drove home, and Mama cooked me two petite sirloin steaks right then and there. Cooked them in the cast iron skillet. And if you’re wondering how I remember that, it’s because OH MY LANDS IT IS A PRECIOUS MEMORY.

I learned a great lesson that day: any weight loss plan has to have balance at its core. I continued with the liquid diet for the rest of the summer, but I also ate small meals with real food. It took me a few weeks, but I finally figured out that man should not live by liquid alone.

Or, for that matter, popcorn.

If you’d like to win a $150 Visa gift card, leave a comment on this post that answers the following question:

Share a funny diet or exercise story, video clip, picture, etc. in the comment section and you will be entered to win $150. Please keep your comments G-rated as any profanity or offensive content will automatically disqualify you from sweepstakes entry. You should also visit The Daily Laugh hub to read funny content each day and for weekly chances to win $100 at the “Play For Laughs” game. If you share something really funny, we may even use it in The Daily Laugh!

And don’t miss the other bloggers’ posts – you have 11 other chances to win each month!

Questions about the sweepstakes? Check out the official rules.

Happy Laughing, everybody!

This giveaway is now closed.

This is sponsored content by BlogHer and Kellogg’s.

It always starts around mid-July. Always. And it seems like there’s nothing I can do to shake it.

Nothing.

Now contrary to what you might think, I’m actually not talking about Alabama’s stifling summer humidity, though that definitely kicks in full-force in July and makes me long to live atop an ice block on a planet called Cold.

But the real reason for my summertime apprehension is that mid-July brings on the first feelings of dread about our back-to-school schedule. Granted, in mid-July the prospect of having to wake up early is more than a month away, but please understand that one of my most favorite pastimes is to obsess about things over which I have no control. It’s sort of like a hobby, only without any of the fun or tangible rewards.

Despite my fretting, I’m usually pleasantly surprised by how easily we transition back into our school schedule. We try to gradually work our way back to a school night bedtime over the course of a week or so, and by the time school starts, we’re typically in a pretty good place.

I wish I’d known to dial back the bedtime gradually when I was in high school, because back then my idea of transitioning into a school schedule was to go to bed five hours earlier than normal the night before school started and then toss and turn while I wondered, WHY, WHY CAN’T I SLEEP, WHY, I DON’T UNDERSTAND.

In addition to our sleep adjustments, we do something else to make the back-to-school transition fun: SPECIAL TRADITIONS. That means that the back-to-school breakfast is absolutely and totally our little boy’s choice – whether that be grits or bacon or a favorite cereal or a peanut butter sandwich. It also means that when the first day of school is over, we’re going to meet some of our favorite friends and do something fun to celebrate.

This year it was a trip to a local yogurt place. And the kids had a blast.

In fact, by the time we got home that day, I was ready to wake up early all over again. As much as I dread being tied to a schedule during the summer, the predictability of our days becomes sort of oddly comforting once it’s school time again.

So what about you? What’s something fun you do to help your little one(s) get back in the swing of a school schedule? Leave a comment with your answer, and you’ll be entered to win a $100 Visa gift card (and come back next week to enter again – because these giveaways will continue for the next 6 weeks).

And be sure to visit the BlogHer.com Kellogg exclusive offers page – you have 24 other chances to win $100 every single week that this program is running!

Mom’s Breakfast Club was started to help educate moms and families about kids’ cereal and share the scoop on their nutritional benefits and ingredients. To learn more about the program, visit www.loveyourcereal.com.

This giveaway is now closed.