South Beach Diet Novices, et cetera.

We started the South Beach Diet today. And I feel pretty strange. Kind of tired. I suppose I’m not eating enough. But the good news is that I feel thinner. If that’s possible. If it’s possible to be thinner the first day. I’m sure it’s all in my head.

It’s not like Stoker and I need to lose much weight. If the scale we bought today is accurate, I weigh about 125, which is probably a decent weight for a girl with a relatively athletic build. When I started working a desk job (when I began keeping a blog), I gained a few extra pounds. Mainly noticeable around my waist. I’d just like to lose it. Plus I’d like to ingest less sugar and keep a healthy diet in general—hence the sugar purging. Stoker would too. We both figure it’s best to start now and try to maintain a good weight, rather than gain a lot of weight later because we drink Dr. Pepper and Coke and enjoy Lay’s potato chips. And chocolate chip cookies. And frozen pizza. I’m coming up on my thirties—a frightening prospect—and I don’t want to blimp out.

Speaking of blimping out, I heard the most awful commercial during a talk radio program, Dave Ramsey I think. It features an alarm siren and a voice saying something like, “Attention swimmers, please vacate the pool.” And then some swimmers say there’s a pair of thunder thighs on the loose, or the like, and those are dangerous. I don’t even remember what the advertisement was for. But it was disgusting, conjuring up grotesque images in my head of a pair of thighs, sans a body, floating in a pool. I mean, the commercial wasn’t even funny. Just awful. Who wrote it? Who writes that kind of crap and what were they thinking? Where were their parents?

After having worked in advertising myself, all I can think about when I see or hear terrible ads is that some copywriter somewhere wrote it, and I imagine their train of thought, how they got to the end result. Usually I think they were bored in their cubicle, hating their job and the deadline, feeling stumped for something good or classy, so they resorted to the dross floating around in their brain—hoping that if it truly sucked it wouldn’t get far down the production line before being pulled. That’s where I think ads like “loose thunder thighs” come from. Lazy writers, lazy bosses.

Another ad that got me all riled up was a La Quinta Inn billboard. It says “La Quinta Inn, Spanish for free high speed internet.” I’m not sure why it bugged me so bad, perhaps because I could imagine myself coming up with it, thinking it was clever but knowing it sucked. With the Spanish speaking population so high in the U.S. and many average Americans knowing enough about Spanish to know that La Quinta doesn’t mean free high speed internet, it just seems like a bad call on the advertising manager’s part to let it go to press. It’s a cheap language ploy. It’s like they didn’t want to simply say, “La Quinta Inn. Enjoy free high speed internet with your stay.” Because that’s not clever enough. They wanted to push themselves, demonstrate a sharp wit, but lacking that, leaned on a weak crutch.

I’m a super critical person, I know. It’s difficult to be around me for some people. Sometimes it’s difficult for me to be around me. Especially when my blood sugar is low. I’m really dragging here. Yesterday Stoker and I ate lots of carbs, in anticipation of today. I had several Krispy Kreme donuts—they’re better here than in Utah—and a baked potato and a Mountain Dew Code Red mixed with lemonade, and then later, a 32 ounce Dr. Pepper. In an attempt to be a tad healthy, we also had salmon with the potatoes. I’m not big on fish, you know. When you live inland, it’s tough to get good fish. Unless you go fishing yourself. I don’t enjoy fishing. Gutting them, you see. It’s given me nightmares in the past. So, I’m training myself to like fish. It’s a long road.