Day 8: Down Temptation Creek, with no Motivational Paddle

By far, this was the most rock bottom day I had. I was THIS CLOSE to giving up. In desperate need of a motivational pick-up, I visited my fellow sufferer in crime to have lunch.

Eating out is supposedly not encouraged on Mr Kirsch's regime but honestly, I think it makes getting through this whole thing a lot easier. It makes you feel...normal. Like a person.

We had lunch at Manhattan Fish Market - yes, admittedly not the best choice but with careful scrutiny of the menu (something I used to do anyway), you can actually have a not-bad-for-health but most importantly within-the-rules lunch.

We gave detailed instructions to the poor waiter - order went something like this: grilled platter for one, no rice, no chips, salad only, with no carrots (repeat: no carrots) and grilled salmon, no chips, no rice, salad only, no carrots - got it?

Our waiter gamely nodded but when he delivered our food (sans the carrots and with the greens), to our horror, we had forgotten to tell him not to splush any of that gorgeous (okay, I lie - it's not THAT gorgeous, but remember, I haven't seen the sight of dairy for 8 days) garlicky-buttery creamy sauce on our stuff. Fortunately, it didn't actually cover that much of the fish and was the skin side only.

So all through lunch, I bitched about how bored I was with having exercise rule my life. It's not the food that bugs me - I mean, yes it bugs me in terms of limiting my choices but it doesn't REALLY bug me. I was getting to the stage of what the Singaporeans call 'TU LAN'.

TU LAN = something very rude in Hokkien but roughly equates to sick and tired and absolutely fed up to high heaven.

I was fed-up with having to exercise every day. I was bored with the whole situation. And I guess, I was having some of those 'oh, I've already lost a bit of weight...I'm not at my target but I've done pretty well' stage. I was ready to fall off the wagon.

The bitching was good. It was helpful. I felt much better and a lot more motivated. Moral of the story: never do something this crazy, alone!