I’m not recommending that anyone start eating Splenda by the bagful. Even the sleaziest salesman alive couldn’t argue that it has any nutritional value, and I know a lot of people are squeamish about artificial sweeteners anyway for fear it’ll give them a 6th finger. (But you’d be an awesome piano player!) I only turned to the Splenda because I was stressed out about speaking publicly over the weekend at the Blog Indiana convention (more on that later) and I love to do me some stress eating. However, I started Phase 1 of the South Beach Diet ten days ago and I didn’t want to screw it up with a pint of mint chocolate chip. So, I looked around the kitchen for something to abuse, and a bagful of Splenda it was.

Phase 1 is going pretty well. It’s been easier to stick to then I remember. I believe that any nutritionally sound diet that results in you eating less calories than you burn will work. I just prefer South Beach because it’s my thing and it’s worked for me in the past. I also like that I have to make a big mental shift when I do Phase 1. I have a lot of rules to follow and I know that I’m going to aim for a calorie deficit for the next couple weeks. If I just try to vaguely start eating less or eating “better,” but still in a manner similar to what I do all the time, the mental shift doesn’t happen. I find myself doing a bit of cheating or deciding it’s okay to have a second helping. More than anything, it’s been good to pick a plan with rules and guidelines and stick to it for awhile, or at least until the numbers on the scale are back in a zone where I’d like them.

And it also leads to odd discoveries about Splenda.

It’s hard to be completely certain since a change like that would be subtle. I don’t think I look any older than I did a year ago. And a year ago I didn’t think I looked any older than the year before. However, I do keep aging and 20 years from now I’m sure I’ll look older than I do today. The skin however, is still somewhat loose, particularly under my arms, in my thighs, on my butt, and around my tummy. It doesn’t restrict my movement. I don’t have any rashes. But if I ever burn my forearm on the stove, I’ll have plenty of material for skin grafts. I know most of you would like to hear that the skin has tightened up like a Shrinky Dink, but my epidermis does not have the same properties as that space-age plastic. The skin doesn’t bother me, but I won’t be running in shorts any time soon, no matter how hot it gets.

On the bright side, I evidently have a great complexion that I have failed to appreciate for the majority of my life. Recently at least 4 or 5 people have commented on my great skin independently of each other at different events, so I’m starting to think, "Hey, it’s possible that I have great skin." The hermit lifestyle really pays off. No sun exposure! All those years of never wearing makeup probably didn’t hurt either. The sad thing is, I don’t care much about my complexion. My skin would be much more appreciated on someone who actually notices these things. Too bad I can’t sell off the extra square foot of flesh that I’ve got lying around.

I got several compliments on my hair in the last post too. Thanks, y’all. I am not used to all these “You are pretty” comments. It is bizarre. The hairstylist barely did anything to it either (and I have a witness who will testify as such), so I am comfortable taking all the credit for my lovely locks.

(I just now noticed I’m wearing green while sitting on a green couch, as if I’m trying to blend into the upholstery. Oops!)

Kate wanted to know what products I use. My secret is…conditioner. Dove conditioner if you want specifics, which I use because I like their ad campaigns. Um, yeah, I don’t use many products. My hair just…does that. In 5th grade two girls asked me, “Who does your hair?” and I told them “My mom,” because she was the one trimming my locks with scissors in the kitchen. They asked me again a couple other times during the year, but it was only a decade later that I realized they thought I had a perm.

However, it took me even more than that decade before I learned how to fight the frizz, as this picture from high school proves:

If you have curly hair, I highly recommend the book Curly Girl by Lorraine Massey. It taught me how to avoid frizz by shampooing only once a week. Wait! I promise I don’t smell bad! I rinse my hair more often than that, but shampoo dries out curly hair, so I only use it once a week. I also use conditioner. Other than that, I use a round brush and a hair dryer with a diffuser attachment to style. I also wind up the top layers of my hair and clip them on top to dry the bottom hair first, and then unclip them to dry the upper layers of my hair. Those are my secrets. Do with them what you will.

“Dieting” has a lot of negative baggage. If you’re on a diet it’s implied that someday you will go off a diet. It’s a temporary state of existence, like a month-to-month lease. Dieting implies another “d” word – deprivation. Dieters are accused of starving themselves and going hungry. It’s implied that if you break any of your diet’s multiple rules you are a very bad person indeed. Violators will have their knuckles rapped with their diet books and be sent to the corner to moan about what bad people they are as they suck their thumbs.

If that’s what you think diets are, then no wonder there are people who are anti-diet. All of the above behaviors are a pretty messed up way to live your life. I was always suspicious of diets because of all those connotations, which is one of the reasons I never went on one before.

I state on my “About” page that I follow the South Beach Diet. Maybe when people see that big D word they assume I fit into the category of people above. If I ever start taking on those behaviors, I give you all permission to tie me to a chair and force feed me cake. I’d prefer chocolate fudge cake if you’ve got it, but angel food cake is yummy too.

I do have guidelines that I follow when I make my food choices. I’ll always go for the slice of whole-wheat over the white bread. Sweet potatoes will beat normal potatoes in all my vegetable wrestling matches. I’m going to peel the skin off the chicken even if you call me a poultry scalper. But if I really, really want to eat something, I eat it. There is still a dried-up, sticky streak of mint chocolate shake residue on my car’s cup holder from my expedition to Steak N’ Shake a month ago. I haven’t cleaned it off yet because I’m lazy and I need to stick some more napkins in my map holder, but also because every time I see it I think “Damn, that was a goooood milkshake,” as if I am remembering the best sex of my life. I don’t regret the milkshake and if I ever get a big hankering for one again, I’ll go consume those 700 calories joyously.

I demand that I enjoy every single thing I eat. If I don’t, I say “Well, that was nasty. Let’s not stick that in our mouth again.” Recently someone asked me what I do when I’m hungry and I responded honestly, “I eat.” The idea that I’m starving myself or eating only raw Elmer’s paste is ridiculous. Paste tastes so much better when you add cinnamon and Splenda, duh.

Sometimes I still overeat. Last week I was lying in my bed after dinner with that sickly “Why did you eat the entire antelope?” feeling our cavemen ancestors must have had. I started to moan, “Geez, why did you have to eat all that….cauliflower?” This was completely ridiculous. I was guilting myself over cauliflower? Did I think tiny florets were going to spring up on my face like I had vegetable-induced herpes? I suppose that’s the biggest difference between my old way of life and my new lifestyle. These day’s I’m usually pigging out on little white vegetables that look like trees instead of entire pints of ice cream.

My way of eating and exercising has become natural part of my life. Planning what I eat is part of the regular maintenance required on my body, just like combing my hair, brushing my teeth, and showering. It’s just something I’ve got to do, less I be the crazy, smelly girl with fuzzy white teeth. It doesn’t mean I’m obsessed with dieting, not any more than I am obsessed with going to the bathroom because I have to pee 5 or 6 times a day.

I don’t want to say I’m on a diet, because this is a permanent change that leaves me satisfied and happy. I’m not suffering in any way because of it. The word “diet” makes it sound like I’m eating only protein shakes and vitamin pills. I also don’t want to say I’m not on a diet because I am following guidelines and actively managing what I eat. And I don’t live a life completely free of food guilt. There are still some days (like after an Easter binge) that I feel a bad about eating half a cake and I have to keep reminding myself to get over it already.

There are a lot of people like me out there. Wendy over at Pound refers to her lifestyle as “this thing I’m doing.” There was recently a survey that said less people were “on a diet”, and those who were dieting were “more likely to be on diets of their own making rather than following diets prescribed by physicians or by diet food marketers.”

I cracked open the aqua-marine cover of my South Beach Diet book last weekend to see how closely I was following the plan since it’d been about two years since I’d read the book. I discovered I have been eating the wrong kind of oatmeal, all the couscous I’ve been consuming hasn’t been Kosher, and that peas are starchy and I shouldn’t be raiding their pods so much.

Then I closed the book, put it back on the shelf and thought, “Well, that’s lovely,” and made some couscous and peas. What I’m doing seems to be working anyway. I don’t want to give up my Pine Nut couscous or my Baked Apple Instant Oatmeal. For the most part, I still am following the South Beach plan, but I’ve made my own modifications, picking out the parts I like best and rationalizing any indiscretions. It’s the buffet style approach, which is the same way many people approach religion. There are plenty of Catholics who use birth control despite what the pope might say. I guess I’m doing South Beach: PastaQueen Style.

Diet or anti-diet, I don’t even know what those words mean anymore. I’m just going to eat, drink and be merry. I’ll save a place at the table for you.