Day 3 of 20/20, take two

I said on Saturday, before the marathon, that Monday morning I start back on a 20/20 diet.

I meant it, too! I allowed myself to not work out Monday and just recover from the race - my legs and back were sore, but mostly fine if I didn't sit still for too long.

But I did go straight to the Pro Club Monday morning and bought a case of ready-to-drink shakes and a couple of hard-boiled eggs, and started the new diet.

It works something like this, for me:

• 3 nasty shakes a day
• Nuts (1 teaspoon at a time)
• Strawberries (1 cup at a time)
• Protein (eggs, turkey, chicken, ham, shrimp...pretty much plain, maybe a tiny bit of mustard with it)

So, yeah, gross and boring. The shakes pretty much make me gag, and I pity the food that has to enter my stomach after it and share space with the nasty stuff.

But the amazing thing is, it works. I'm not hungry. I eat five or six times a day, little bits at a time, and reward myself with real food for downing the shake.

And my mood is improved and already I feel better about myself.

I saw the pictures Danielle's boyfriend took of us while we were running; they reminded me way too much of my fat pictures from "before."

I don't want to be a "before" ever again - and finally, I'm properly motivated to get back to where I belong. 135 pounds or less and a much faster runner.

I'll do this diet for a week, maybe two, and then I'll add vegetables back in. I don't think I'm going to add dairy for a while, and definitely not grains, beans, or other crazy carbs. I just want to focus on weight loss.

It's a slippery slope; now that I'm dieting again, I remember how easy it was to feel full on 1200 calories a day when I eat the right 1200, and how it took a few years before I had slipped back into poor eating habits (but never as poor as before!).

Now that I've had the slide, I think I know better how to prevent it. So we'll see what happens this time.