One small step.

Today was day one of the challenge.  Just to put the details out there, I will be following a Zone diet (look it up...I'm feeling too lazy to find a link) for the next four weeks.  I am allowed 12 "blocks" per day.  Not only will I be following the Zone requirements but I will also be eating "real" food...so, no processed garbage.  Also, no sugar or sugar substitutes, no gluten and no alcohol.  And I have to work out pretty much every day.  Basically, zero fun will be had by all.

In all seriousness, day one went pretty darn ok.  Breakfast was easy -- eggs and some sausage links as well as a modest amount of steel cut oatmeal mixed with banana (<--really yummy). Totally a normal breakfast for me...bigger than normal, really.  I did notice that while I was cleaning up the kitchen after the kids went to school, I almost reached for a banana on the counter just because it was there.  Pre-Zone Sara would have TOTES eaten that banana.  But yes, I had no banana.

So then my mid-morning snack.  Let's just say that 1/3 teaspoon of peanut butter looks like a little turd on your plate.  I'm so tempted to not even bother with it because of the ridiculousess of it.  I mean, just look at my plate:

Did a baby monkey just crap on my plate?  No, wait, that's just one block of fat.

Which brings me to lunch.  Oy.  Jeff and I decided we would do big salads with grilled chicken all week.  And we kind of had been dreading the damn salad because we knew how large and in charge it would be.  Our fears were realized when the salad became a reality and looked like this:

I'm looking at YOU, Mr. Salad.  Oh, crap...you're looking at ME.

 Good.Lord.  Jeff couldn't finish his.  I finished mine and was really full for a few hours at which point I suddenly became so I hungry that I could have eaten one of my kids.  I e-mailed my friend Megan, who is doing the challenge as well, and she said she was in the process of gnawing her arm off.  I offered to bring her three f*&%ing almonds when I saw her at the gym to round out the fat portion of a one-block snack that would include a Fuel for Fire.  The scene upon arrival at the gym was classic.  I made her hold out her hand in front of the entire class as I carefully doled out 1-2-3 almonds.

3 for me and 3 for Megan.  Go nuts with yer donuts, kids.

I kind of felt like I was going to die while we warmed up for class, but then Mel came over to me like a magic Zone fairy and gifted me with an extra block.  "You should do 12 instead of 11," she pronounced.  Why? Because I am so darn good looking.  That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

Dinner was fine.  Turkey burger plus what we have come to call "ROO" -- rice, sauteed onion and olive oil mixed with salt and pepper and some garlic powder -- which was actually quite good.  But it's 9:30pm now and I am hunnnnnngggggrrrrry.  Ok, maybe just plain hungry.  Ok, no, HUNGRY.  But this is where the magic happens, right?  Hunger is fat leaving my body?  I'm going to go to sleep now, mostly just to avoid eating, and then I will wake up and promptly make love to some blueberries in the morning.