2/6/04 10:30:24 AM

Wow, the month is going by quickly. This week in particular has been a strange one. For one thing, I haven’t worked out in a full 7 days. I am headed to the gym in a few hours to get back on track. I’m not even quite sure what happened. I worked out 8 days last week. I think that I got really sore last Saturday and Sunday and just didn’t feel up to it, and then my period struck, which further threw me off track. Whatever the reason, I regret letting so many days pass. I really do best if I work out 6 days per week, and perhaps I have to plan that and not go past that goal.

Again, the biggest thing for me has been the addition back of starches at each meal. What a difference that makes for me. I am still falling within the recommendations and it has completely cut out the cravings and longing for avoids. I feel really good.

Yesterday was a strange day for me. I am not much of a TV watcher, but happened to catch part of two movies that hit an emotional cord with me. The first was one of my favorite movies, “Breakfast at Tiffany’s”. I adore that movie, dahling. The part that got to me was just where they walk into Tiffany’s on their “day of doing things that they have never done”. There was this overhead shot of the main room, and it made me smile. I grew up with my stepfather in upstate NY, but my Dad lived in Manhattan for 30 plus years. I used to go and stay with him once or twice each year, and I would always walk around 5th Avenue. Eventually I would work my way over to Tiffany’s, and would go and look at the jewelry. I loved looking. I always imagined myself to be Holly Golightly. One year, when I was an adult, I took a love of mine into Tiffany’s. We went up to the diamond floor and looked around. That scene didn’t play out as I would have ever imagined, and that love of mine is gone. In his stead is my husband of 15 years. I have fond memories of walking around Tiffany’s, and seeing it again, even just for a moment on the television, made me smile and think of times gone by.

Last night I saw the last 30 minutes of “The Color Of Money” with Tom Cruise and Paul Newman. That, too, made me think about my life. I used to be a polo player. I was one of the best women players in the world. But I realized about 10 years ago that being the “best” at that game was fleeting. There would always be someone better than me, richer than me. I had the talent, but I was getting older. When Vincent throws the game against Fast Eddie and Fast Eddie thinks that he has won, I was able to feel that feeling of victory – in particular, the victory won when you think that it might just all be over. It is very bittersweet because inside you know how fleeting that moment is. When Vincent later tells Fast Eddie that he threw the game, I was there, too. I understood Fast Eddie’s realization that he wasn’t the best and that he was getting older. The difference is that I threw in my pool cue, rather than continue the battle. Fast Eddie hasn’t learned at the end of the movie that he is at the end of his game. At the end of the move, Paul Newman’s Eddie says that he will continue to play Vincent until he beats him because, “I’m back”. That’s nice in the movies, but I knew that the result would be the same – that is, until someone younger and sharper than Vincent comes along, which would eventually happen.

I don’t regret quitting my life as a horse trainer and professional polo player. It was the right time for me. I look at all of my battles with food and regret none of that, too. I feel that it is OK for me to walk away from the battle with food and to embrace it in a new way. I think that the BTD is really the right thing. I have said this many times before, but in my heart, each time I lost weight with Diet Center or with pills, I knew that I was still on the playing field fighting for the “win” of being thin. This time I have packed up that equipment and left the arena. I now am going for a walk with myself, instead of into battle. I’ll be thin if it is the right thing for me. If not, I’ll feel good no matter where I am.

It’s nice.