Tracey’s Down To Two Meals A Day!

“Uh-oh,” Tracey exclaimed from where she was relaxing on our bed earlier this evening. She’d been hiding away in our bedroom to tend her bags and had then decided to input her latest meal into the app she’s using to track her intake. “I’m 40% over my daily points and I haven’t finished eating tonight yet. I mean I’ve only just had dinner!”

And I know she’s been trying because by her estimates that is about a third of her usual daily intake lately. Plus she’s been hungry-cranky all day.

While her surgeon seemed to be assuring Tracey she’ll shed weight like a Samoyed sheds its fur, that hasn’t been her reality.

And, as she’s been mumbling around the house, she’s been ‘dieting’ now for five whole days!

Tracey marched us firmly past the biscuits and packaged snack foods in the supermarket aisles today, and boxes of fresh fruit and vegetables were purchased in an effort to help get the scales moving in the right direction. Plus, she’s now tracking what she puts into her mouth using an app on her phone. It’s all been a lot of fun – right up until tonight.

She handed me her phone and I tut-tutted appropriately. Then I noticed something was missing.

I was almost too nervous to ask what I saw as a glaring omission, but this is all for her own good.

“You haven’t added in lunch yet,” I said in what I hoped was an apologetic tone. Still, I was poised to drop the phone and run if necessary. “We had ham and cheese croissants. Remember?”

But I had nothing to fear. At this point.

“I’ve included lunch in breakfast,” she explained.

“It might be easier to work out where you’re going wrong,” (eeek!), “can improve if you separate them out,” I suggested.

“I know,” she said. “But there wasn’t any clear separation of meals until after lunch.”

This is part of the problem when your work computer is less than five meters from the fridge – an insight which I might have shared with her if I hadn’t at that moment let a laugh slip out.

Rookie mistake. I mean, I admonish my children for this. ‘Laughing when you’re in trouble just draws attention to you,’ I tell them. And of course I was in trouble because Tracey was talking about being on a diet.

“You’re eating the same as me, but you’ve lost a kilo since Friday,” she said accusingly, like suddenly I was a suspected bulimic.

“But I’ve cut beer out during the week,” I pointed out. Tracey, on the other hand, has cut down to one sugar in her coffees. Although since she’s so dang proud of herself for that I haven’t quite worked out how to tell her the new Cafe Au Lait pods she’s enjoying so much have sugar already in them. Then I hit upon a brilliant idea. If you can’t magically lower the points you’ve eaten, maybe you can increase the points you’re allowed. “Can’t you add back points for exercise?”

She scoffed.

“I looked up going for a walk. It was only about 100 points, so stuff that,” she said. She crossed her arms and went all hoity-toity. “I don’t get out of bed for less than a muffin.”

Proving my girl has supermodel-type attitude. I don’t want anyone getting the wrong idea – Tracey is chuckling her way through this as well. She’s well aware she’s not doing it right yet, but she’s seeing the humour in stuffing it up. Mostly.

Still, it’s probably a good thing we’ve got another 11 weeks to achieve her goal weight.

And if not, maybe I’ll just sacrifice myself on the alter of love and go back to drinking the odd beer during the week again.

One way to at least guarantee she looks skinnier is for me to gain a few kilo. Tough break for me, but I’m prepared to take the hit for her.

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Raising a family on little more than laughs.