Annual New Year Detox

I forgot to mention in the post about Christmas presents that the best thing I received was some sort of super human metabolism. I weighed myself after arriving home from the States in order to judge the damage and nearly keeled over from the shock as I had actually lost weight over the holidays.

Now to put this in context, not only was I participating in the the traditional Christmas Eatathon but the night before we left, my mother organized a bit of a going away dinner and made a gorgeous meal- my Grandmothers spare ribs, cheesy hashbrown casserole, and rum cake for dessert. Not only did I do justice to the meal by taking seconds of everything (knowing full well it would be months before I would taste any of those things again) but, acting on the same prinicipal, I stuffed my face all day long with Christmas cookies, chips, dips, basically anything I stumbled across to give me energy for the monumental task of packing our bags. When I stepped on that scale, I was crossing my fingers and hoping that the number would atleast show less than a 5 kilo gain.

This is truly a Christmas miracle, right up there with the Virgin Birth. Two helpings of cheesy potatoes, people. I can't explain it. Could it be that my miracle diet is the Cheesy Potato Diet? Good bye, South Beach. It was nice knowin' ya, Slim Fast. Its nothing but sour cream, chedder cheese and hash browns for me from here on out.

Which reminds me- yesterday morning we went for brunch at Breakfast in America on rue Malher and I ate a fantastic omelette with chedder cheese and salsa with fried potatoes on the side (or atleast part of one, their servings are huge!). Should weigh myself now, because if my theory is true I must have dropped another 2 pounds . The place was packed- clearly I am not the only one on the Cheesy Potato Diet- but we did manage to get a booth after only a 10 minute wait. Plunked Ella down in the corner with her Dora DVD on the portable player- the miracle weight loss is great but I am still most grateful to Santa for the DVD player, I think, since this is the first meal out with Ella that was not a 30 minute wrestling match.

What is it about diners that is so great? We hadn't hardly cleared the door and I was already telling B that we would have to make plans to come back for lunch and try out the sandwiches. I just spent 3 weeks in the States so I can't be needing an injection of Americana already. It did get me thinking about my favorite diner of all time- the State Street Diner in Las Vegas New Mexico. I used to go there all the time when I was in boarding school. It was so cool, it looked like they hadn't changed a thing in the place for atleast 40 years (including quite possibly the donuts under the glass on the counter. Seriously suspicious looking...) It had the most brilliant dusty, gloomy atmosphere which seems impossible in NM, where the sun was always shining. It was the perfect place to hang out after classes and make plans for a cross country road trip. I've got to be inventing half of this stuff because the image in my head just seems too Hollywood perfect to be real. But there you go- it wouldn't be one of those perfect places if it wasn't a little bit idealized. I can't believe I didn't manage to visit again when I was at my class reunion. Would be nice to go back next time I am in town (15 year reunion? Are you with me Pammie?) with enough money in my pocket to actually buy something other than a bottomless cup of coffee. Who knows, maybe I'll even test out those donuts.

I've gotten completely off track. January Detox. Despite the weight loss, I think that a thorough detox is necessary. Its going to be something fairly superficial, I think. None of this 2 weeks on nothing but water, 'The first two days were hard but now I am absolutely floating on air, its glorious!" nonsense. No caffeine, no sugar, no processed food, a few trips to the sauna or maybe a daily dose of Bikram Yoga. I was reading in a magazine about all these detox drinks you can buy at the pharmacy and I may give that a try as well. To be honest, I am so lazy that I have to try and make this as simple as possible to be able to stick with it for a week. Am also trying to get B to book our spring holiday ASAP (hopefully 2 weeks in the Maldives although if we end up having to take Ella with us, I will cry.) so that I have another reason to keep myself motivated.

Oh- just realized that I might have to put this off til next week. I can't start a detox during the first week of the sales. Finding a black Chloe paddington on sale in Paris is going to take strength and ingenuity and therefore I need to be well fed for the battle. Skinny is nice, well-dressed is better. Besides, those bags are big. If I have one on my arm, I can definitely hid a few extra pounds.