A long time ago in a universe far, far away I ordered a lil’ blue “Just 10″ wristband from the Doctor Oz show. I ordered it so long ago that I do not remember how I heard about it or when I filled out the web form requesting it. I do think they said shipping could take 6-10 weeks, so I’m evidently incapable of remembering anything before October of 2010. How was Labor Day, y’all? I can’t recall.

The wristband is part of The Just 10 Challenge started by Doctor Oz (or more likely a producer of his TV show). The program motivates overweight people to lose just 10 pounds because even that small amount of weight loss can lower your blood pressure, reduce your risk for a stroke, ward off dementia, lower your risk for uterine and breast cancer, and lower your cholesterol up to 10%. So says the web site anyway, and the Internet would not lie to me, not the sweet Internet that sings me to sleep with digital MP3s.

The blue “Just 10″ wristband was free, but it looks like the program is over because the web page to order one on Zapppos.com is now redirecting to their main site. Sorry! It also appears there are a few available on eBay if you don’t mind paying for something that’s supposed to be free.

Anyway, I’ve always thought these little wristbands made of rubber, plastic, or alien, space-age materials were rather dorky. I’ve seen the yellow LiveStrong wristbands and they rarely match what the person attached to the wrist is wearing (which might be the point: to stand out). I’ve also thought they make the wearer seem a bit smug and morally superior, as if they are flaunting their do-gooder-ness for a particular cause. But I am an evil girl who is going to get nasty comments, so you don’t have to bother telling me what hell smells like because I’ll find out on my own eventually.

I felt like a dork ordering this wristband, but I did it anyway because I do want to lose weight and I figured it wouldn’t hurt me, only the environment, because we don’t have enough plastic/rubber/space bracelets in the landfills as it is. How will future civilizations now about our weight obsession without going through our trash and finding this thing?

I’ve had it for three days now and…it sort of helps. When I was at the National Figure Skating Championships earlier this week, I walked past a cotton candy vendor and thought, “Mmmmmm, cotton candy.” But then I fingered by wristband and snapped it against my forearm once or twice and thought, “God damn you, Doctor Oz!” And I walked on.

Then the other night I was laying on the couch, my headache was amped up a bit, and I was seriously thinking of driving to the grocery to get some ice cream. Then I fingered the bracelet again, and I stayed on the couch cursing Doctor Oz instead.

The bracelet fits snugly halfway up my forearm. It doesn’t hurt, but it’s tight enough that I do notice it’s there once ever few hours. I like how it says “Just 10,” too. It’s the “Just” that’s endearing. It’s not, “Holy Shit, 50 pounds? For real?” or “Realistically? One year to goal.” It’s like an optimistic yet not overly perky friend who’s breaking down a big task into small parts for me. Just 10 for now! We’ll figure out the rest later.

So, yes, I like the dorky blue bracelet! I plan to keep on wearing it, at least until I forget it’s there or it cuts off my circulation and turns my whole hand blue to match. Either way, I plan to keep on hating Doctor Oz for awhile.

I can tell it’s weight-loss season because I’ve gotten more emails asking for weight-loss advice in the past two weeks than I did for the last two months. I think some people are finding this site and my email address after they purchased my book Half-Assed: A Weight-Loss Memoir. If so, thanks for buying the book! I truly appreciate the support. Eighteen months ago I quit my job to freelance full-time as a web designer and writer. (That’s right. I stuck it to the man! And the man has yet to stick me back.) So, I depend on book royalties to pay rent and buy lots of chocolate healthy veggies. I guess that means it’s really my landlord and Food Lion that thank you.

In the interest of full disclosure, I want to reiterate a fact that I’ve blogged about and posted on my About page, which is that in the past three years I’ve gained back about 50 pounds from my lowest weight. This was mainly due to a never-ending headache from hell, but eventually apathy and boredom snuck in there, too. So much so that for the past few months I haven’t been eating that healthy, nor have I been exercising regularly. So, when people write me asking how to lose weight (or “loose” weight, because the only thing worse than too much weight is tight weight) I’ve felt an urge to reply, “I dunno! Ask someone else! And bring me a cookie!”

However, it’s the new year, and the resolution I made six years ago (Dear God, has it been that long? Am I really 30?) worked out pretty well, so I thought I’d make another one. My resolution isn’t to start a diet or run another half-marathon or anything like that, it’s just to make better food choices and to work out at least three times a week.

There is a part of me that looks back on the time when I was exercising 6 days a week for 30-60 minutes and cooking dinner every night and thinks, “You should jump right back into that again!” But there is a more realistic part of me that thinks it’s silly to go from 0 to maniac in a day. Working out 3 days a week is better than working out none. I also think diets are silly, so I prefer to frame my new eating behavior in my mind as “making better choices.” If I make better food choices, choices that do not involve buying Krispy Kreme donuts at 10 o’clock at night, than I’m doing better than I was before, even if I’m not eating as healthy as I did at my peak. Really, it all comes down to choices. Everything in life comes down to choices, outside of what we can’t control like earthquakes and tsunamis and neighbors who play bagpipes.

I’ve been keeping a food diary, recording my weight on the wall calendar every day and then writing my exercise for the day down next to it. (And if you haven’t done Pilates or lifted weights for over a year, be prepared not to be lifting anything for three days afterward. Or sitting up.) So, I’ve got a plan, I’ve got accountability, and it’s been going pretty well for the past week. Then I’ll make it through the next week and the week after that, just like I have with my headache. One day at a time, people.

Most important of all, besides the optimism and hope of change that comes with the new year, I feel like I’m more mentally in the game right now that I have been for any time in the past few years. In that time I’ve had to deal with an ongoing medical problem, learn how to manage my own business, and I moved to another state. There was a lot of shit going on, and weight loss honestly wasn’t that important. I still weigh over 100 pounds less than I did at my heaviest, so it’s not like my weight has been making me miserable and trapping me in my home like it used to. I’m not back at square one, I’m back at square 50 out of 200. It’s been manageable, if not optimal, which might be why weight loss hasn’t been the primary occupation in my life like it was when it was destroying my life.

Right now I’m feeling my freelancing groove, I’ve settled into my new home, and my headache has been staying pretty steady at a 1 out of 5 on my latest medication cocktail. (Unfortunately it has the side effect of making my heart skip beats occasionally, which the doctor says is not a big deal nor is it the life-threatening, call-911-NOW-PLEASE!!! condition you would immediately assume it is when you feel your heart pause and then make a big THUMPing jumpstart. It’s freaky, but better than a headache!)

So, here we go 2011! Here’s to better choices! My heart’s already skipping a beat in anticipation.

Today has been a rather BLAH day. I just now finally got up the will to reply to some of my emails that have been sitting in my “Respond To” folder for days. And that is only partly because I got my ass out of the house and drank a tall coffee at the Barnes & Noble cafe (although the barista always lets me know I can have a venti for only 22 more cents because he is an upseller his boss would be proud of). So I wonder, do I feel like this because of my headache? Is there something else wrong with me? Or does everyone have days like these? I don’t know.

My usual techniques for coping with days like these is to exercise or get out of the house. I tried exercising, but my left leg started to hurt after 8 minutes, so I stopped because I want to be in good shape to run my race on Friday. The thought of doing anything physical sounds totally unappealing, but the thought of doing anything sounds totally unappealing, which means I probably really need to do something.

Life is so annoying like this. Plodding on day by day, never getting any easier. *sigh* At least I haven’t binged on anything and I turned down the upselling barista’s suggestion that I try something in their pasty case. Hopefully tomorrow will be a better day. That’s all I can really wish for.

Right after I moved into my apartment, I went on a decorating bonanza. I signed up for craft store mailing lists and clipped coupons every week to buy picture frames and fabrics at 40% off to hang on my walls. I pretty-fied two and a half walls of my bedroom before I got bored. (And before I got my credit card bill. All that glitter paint and fabric dye adds up!) So, one and a half walls have been as white as the halls of a mental ward for the past year. I’d considered hanging a picture in front of my treadmill of a road disappearing into the horizon or of the M.C. Escher sketch of monks walking an endless path on top of a tower. But after the Hallmark conference, I was glad I saved my money and hung up this piece of swag instead:

I would never have bought this for myself. If anyone had given this to me as a present I would have said, “Oh, that’s nice. Thanks!” and rolled my eyes when they weren’t looking. I prefer the snarky demotivator posters to the motivator posters. I can’t seem to read an inspirational statement without wanting to mock it, no matter how heartfelt and true it might be. Items like this can seem like the adult equivalent of carrying a folder plastered with unicorns and rainbows. (Which I did in 2nd grade, but that’s completely irrelevant.)

However, the little canvas sign was free. And it perfectly matched the green and purple color scheme of my bedroom. And I did need something to stare at as I’m stuck inside running this winter. So I grabbed a hammer and nail and hung it up there right at eye level.

And I’ve been staring at it. A lot. I see it as I’m running intervals or going up hills or just jogging along at a steady pace. Once you’re literate, you can’t look at a piece of writing without automatically reading it in your head. You can’t look at letters and words without interpreting their meaning in your brain. “She believed she could so she did.” It’s been helpful when I’ve wanted to skim a quarter mile off my distance. It’s been good to read as I’ve been thinking of other aspects of my life that have nothing to do with my fastest mile time. It’s been putting ideas in my head, making me think I can do anything and be anything. It’s been, dare I admit it, inspirational.

I’m not stupid. I know believing you can do something doesn’t automatically mean you can. There are a dozen people out there right now who all believe they can be president, but only one of them actually will be. But if you believe you can do something, you substantially increase your odds that you can actually can. If you’re too stupid to know something’s impossible, you might just be able to pull it off. When losing weight, people focus a lot on meal planning and exercise routines. Those things are important, but it’s the belief in yourself that will get you through. No quitting, no giving up. Believe it and then make it happen.

And while I’m still a somewhat cynical person who has urges to mock sentimental wall-hangings, I’m much more optimistic these days. Doing something impossible, like losing half your weight, does that. It makes all those other impossible things seem much more likely. Maybe I will marry Johnny Depp. Except, he smokes, which is gross, so maybe I won’t. But I believe I can keep the weight off and I believe I can run a half-marathon and I believe in myself. And that’s all I need. Well, that, a good pair of running shoes. And a sentimental wall hanging. But no more unicorns!

Sometimes I wish I didn’t have to think about my eating and my exercise. I wish I could just take a time out. But I can’t. It’s something I have to think about every day for the rest of my life. When I think about it like that it feels so daunting and huge. Sometimes I’m so afraid of death that I wish I could live a thousand years. But then I wonder how I could possibly entertain myself for a thousand years. Maybe I’d get really good at ping pong? If I was granted immortality, the thought of having to manage my weight for a thousand years is grueling. Just thinking about how I’ll have to manage it through menopause and other life challenges is discouraging enough. But what am I going to do? Move to a place that doesn’t have food? I’d have to launch myself into space. And even if I was floating around the planet in a geosynchronous orbit, I’d probably find a packet of dehydrated NASA-brand ice cream that some astronaut tossed out the air lock and binge on that.

While I really love having this blog, there are some days when I ask myself, “What monster have I wrought?” Some days I wish I was the only one watching my weight and not a small portion of the blogosphere. Because I don’t want to let anyone down. I want people to be able to say, “Look, PastaQueen did it!” I don’t want to be one of those people who regains the weight. I have so much sympathy for those people and I totally understand how it happens, but I do not want to join the “I-regained-100-pounds” club. Please, keep your membership cards and keep me off of the club’s mailing list.

But I also know no one expects me to be perfect, except for myself. I do not owe anything to the blogosphere. The only pressure is the pressure I put on myself, which most of the time is not that much pressure at all. But on days when I eat too much vanilla yogurt and Go Lean Crunch I do feel like I’m slipping just a bit. Like I almost twisted my ankle and I’m waving my arms out trying to avoid falling face first, splat, onto the gravel path. I haven’t fallen over yet, but it could happen and I’ve got to keep waving my arms or gravity will have its way with me. And it makes me wonder, who is that girl on the blog who is so optimistic and motivated and inspiring? Because I do not feel like her today. Maybe she is out for a run right now and will return to my body tomorrow. Maybe I should read my blog and take my own damn advice instead of sitting around feeling blah.

So I was sitting on the couch watching Jennifer Garner take down SD-6 and decide she was going to quit the CIA. But it turned out the big, bad, meanie Arvin Sloane was still out there and she had to stay on the job for God knows how long and she said, “This is never going to stop.” She looked so sad and I was like, “Word, Sydney Bristow, word. It never stops.” Ah, the wisdom of early 2000′s spy dramas.

So even though I had no desire to leave my apartment, I went for a walk. There used to be a time in my life when I could eat four slices of pizza and not feel a smidge of guilt about it, but those days are over. Which is sad in some ways but mostly not. While I hadn’t eaten any pizza, I had definitely eaten more calories than I was going to burn today, even after I took my 4 mile walk, but at least the walk would burn off some of them and hopefully make me feel a little peppier. I hadn’t gotten even half a mile down the trail before I started thinking, “You could just turn around now and go home. You don’t have to do this.” But I knew there was no turning back. If I turn back, I am screwed. Going back is not an option. If I look back, I’ll turn into a pillar of salt and somebody’s dog will come lick me up. Every step of that first mile was drudgery and I wasn’t enjoying it, but by the second mile I started to feel a bit better and by the third mile I was happy to be out there in the world and by the fourth mile I was proud to be a person who could walk four miles at all. Especially when a one-armed man ran by me and I thought, “At least you can do something about your weight. That guy’s never going to grow back his arm.”

And I’ll still probably gain weight today. And I’m never going to like that. But I will do my best tomorrow and the day after that and the day after that and hopefully I will lose weight on more days than I gain weight. As my mom always says, “Onward!” Onward we shall go because backward is not an option.

The only answer I can come up with is, “Screw motivation.” If I waited until I was motivated to do my dishes, I’d have plates stacked up on my counter so high that I couldn’t open the microwave. Which I currently do. I’m never motivated to do my dishes. Yet I turn on the faucet and break out the dish soap anyway. It’s not because I want to have fun with bubbles, it’s because I have to. How am I supposed to make my morning oatmeal if the microwave has more restricted access than the Mexican border? My only other option would be to go to Goodwill every week and buy more plates, which I’d have to wash anyway. That store is dirty, y’all. I’m never motivated to do my laundry either, but I separate my whites from my darks and run to the bank early on Saturday morning to get a roll of quarters anyway. It’s cheaper than buying new underwear every week.

Maybe the reason so many people wait so long to eat better or exercise is because they are waiting to get motivated. When you hear about people’s weight loss stories you expect to hear about the time they had a huge revelation that kicked them in the fat pants. You want to hear about the time they couldn’t fit in the roller coaster or the time their uncle died from heart disease. But why wait until you’ve wasted $40 bucks on an amusement park ticket or you’re buying huge black pants for a funeral? You know what you need to do, so do it. We often wait for motivation to find us, but we need to go out and find motivation. It’s doubtful that you will get to the bottom of that pint of ice cream and find the message “You need to lose weight” written on the bottom.

Of course, like so many things it’s a lot easier to type about that concept than to actually apply it to life. I use a to-do list program online and there are several items on there that have literally been on it for years. I swear, I’m going to go to Europe before I’m 30 even if I have to sneak into a cargo hold and live in a shipping box for three weeks to get there. I’ve even added the item “Clean up to-do lists” to my to-do list in some circular, self-fulfilling list-making need. It’s hard to get unstuck. But it takes even longer to pull your feet out of life’s sticky gum on the sidewalk if you wait for someone else to come along with some Goo-Gone.

I get so excited when I read on other people’s journals that they are starting new jobs or moving to new cities or taking trips because I know how scary it can be to even think about taking such big steps. But it makes me happy to see people getting unstuck. I might even say it motivates me.