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Dinner will be brined and I will be pickled

It's cheat day in our house and I could not be happier.
Not that I'm complaining.
Last night, Scott made a luscious cod en papillote, basically fish in parchment paper, which was brimming with leeks and carrots. Normally, I don' t like fish much except for fish and chips which is a zillion calories. But ever since Scott learned the art of papering fish, I'm a convert.
Bring it on baby.
Over the past week, we've feasted on mushroom omelettes, Asian soups, beef stew and wonderful salads that do not include one hint of kale. I will not ever eat kale. I can drink it, but cannot eat it. Too bitter for my taste.
We've been on a diet for two weeks and Scott has lost one dress size. My results are not evident on the scale but the pants fit a little looser, so I suppose that's something. I've also been working out like fiend at the gymnasty, pounding the elliptical, lifting weights and rowing like there's no tomorrow.
I feel pretty great about all of this.

Our goal is not to be The Biggest Losers.
We've got that covered in other ways these days.
Our goal is to be a healthy weight, and okay if I were perfectly honest, to look good in my daughter's wedding photos and, dare I even pray for it, to rock a bathing suit for one last time in my long doughy life.
The diet we have chosen was designed by Chris Powell a man who has devoted his life to amazing transformations by taking severely sick and obese people and working them like farm horses until they can actually weigh themselves on the bathroom scale.
We are not severely obese, just slightly so, and that scares me. I do not want to anticipate a dramatic cardiac event or the amputation of a limb because of my lifelong bad habits. Nor to do I want to have to buy two seats on an airplane.
And I've seen too many of my friends on canes or in the hospital or in a funeral home in recent years.
I want to be that cool old lady who can still serve an ace in tennis into her 90s and make a turkey feast for the family, served at my own table and not in a fetid dining room in a nursing home somewhere.

We're on a fairly strict exercise and diet regime. Every other day is high good carbs and the rest of the week is low carbish. The goal is to continuously reset the metabolism.
Except for one day a week.
That's the cheat day.
And that, my friends, is today.
This morning, we're having French toast with maple syrup and bacon, then probably a light lunch. We'll finish off the day with brined chicken, created by PEI's Chef Michael Smith who is my new treadmill boyfriend. We'll serve that with roasted root vegetables. The grand finale will be real ice cream. None of that frozen yogurt shit.
Oh yes, dinner will be prefaced with cocktails in the side yard, weather permitting.
The dinner will be brined and I will be pickled.
That is my hope anyway.



 

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