Jennie Smash

Last night, I made chocolate chip cookies and only ate three. This is the first time this has ever happened. Usually, I eat them until they’re gone, shielding the plate with my arms like I’m guarding my dessert in a prison movie, and snapping at everyone’s hands as they try desperately to grab one or two.

I’m still not 100 percent sure how much I lost, but I think it’s around 15 pounds. Hopefully, it’ll stay off. I feel great, even after a day or so of not eating strictly on-plan. I’m a confirmed label-reader now, and I haven’t had fried food in so long, I don’t even crave it anymore. So maybe that’s more important than the actual weight loss. It’d be great if this diet made a healthier eater in the long-term. I still haven’t had any coffee or Diet Coke.

This morning, when I was making my breakfast, my dad said that it seemed to him that the best part of the diet was that it reined in my portion sizes.

“It’s easy to go from eating just a little bit of butter on your toast to eating ALL THE BUTTER on your toast,” he said. This is totally true.

Then, my mom got up and admitted, when I accused her of looking skinny, that she’d lost three pounds in the week I’ve been home. Which is great, except that she doesn’t need to lose weight and so we hate her, of course. (I mean, love … but hate, you know?)

Today, we’re all going on a day trip to the Cape and I’m still going to pack a million snacks. It’s good for my metabolism, but also, it keeps me from getting low blood sugar, which pretty much ruins my personality.

And now I will leave you with this amazing photo, courtesy of my friend Melissa and the site Retronaut.com. It is, according to the site, “an apparatus for measuring metabolism”: