>For the month or so leading up to the wedding, my Trying-To-Fit-In-My-Gown-While-Breastfeeding diet was haphazard at best. I had days where I ate pretty well. By that I mean I opened the day with one croissant instead of two and limited my chocolate chip cookie intake to less than four per hour. But most of the time I was less inclined to care, putting away pizza, potato chips and any number of other tasty treats with the spirit of someone who believes that the world might turn into a giant block of tofu tomorrow.

So it wasn’t really a diet. Just toned down pregnancy binge eating. Which worked out fine because, as I’ve noted many times before, I’ve been fortunate enough to inherit my mother’s stellar metabolism. Thus when it came time to put on the dress, I did it. I didn’t breath much during the ceremony, but the 30 or so pounds that I needed to shed came off with little to no effort on my part. Win!

But now here we are. I’m married, post-honeymoon – a holiday which saw some EPIC binge eating, the highlight of which was when I tried to eat 3/4 of a lemon meringue pie by myself (and totally would have succeeded if we hadn’t had to leave) – and still about 20 pounds overweight. Or rather, 20 pounds more than I’m comfortable with being. Not a big deal but something to be dealt with, if only because I’m cheap and don’t want to buy new clothes. The thing is, I’ve never had to really deal with weight issues. I mean, in highschool, I was the kid who could pack away a medium pizza every day and actually lose weight. For most of my adolescent and adult life I have stayed the same size, a respectable 120-125 lbs. Indeed, the only time in my life I’ve ever had weight issues per se was when I lived in Toronto and was consuming at least three pints of Guinness each day along with a fantastically unhealthy diet of McDonald’s, take-out Thai and croissants. At that time I was about 20 pounds more than is comfortable for me but I never tackled it. I just so happened to find myself in a financial position which made it necessary for me to work three jobs and eat very little; I was therefore able to simply overwork and stress the weight off. Healthy, no?

This time, I think I might have to put a bit more effort in. My age, post-babyness, and disinterest in working three jobs while eating nothing must be factored in. As must my general inclination to eat whatever passes by my face. I have zero will power because I’ve never really had to have will power when it comes to food. Hmmm. I dislike the idea of dieting, in part because I’m breastfeeding and that’s just plain unhealthy, but also because I’ve never liked the idea of eating boring low fat food or worrying like crazy about every fat, carbohydrate and protein calorie consumed. I’m also not a fan of breaking food down like that. Seems unnatural. I don’t like the idea of looking at a tin of black beans and instead of seeing a wonderful salad, seeing x number of protein grams. Boo.

But I do need a strategy of some kind to keep me on track. I think I’m going to go with portion control and careful consideration of whether or not I’m actually hungry and not just in need of water. We’ll see how that goes for the next couple of weeks. Because I’m not in the mood to give up my 18% fat yogurt. Or my croissants…