No knitting news. If you are here looking for knitting news, today is not your day. Tomorrow might be better. I will not be working as early as I was the past couple of days, so Bardot should see some action. I need to get a move on, I did promise before God and everybody that I'd have it done by the end of the month, and today is - eeek! - the 15th!

Bess and I are doing some sort of entirely unrehearsed duet on body issues these days - maybe it's a Perimenopausal Phase. My contribution for today is how I learned to cut back on carbs and quit being hungry all the damn time. I get so annoyed when people call a low carb diet a "high protein diet" and go on about how bad it is for your kidneys and nobody can stick to it and insert the latest carping here. A low carb diet is not a high protein diet - I may eat a tad more protein than "normal" but certainly not enough to damage a healthy body! Today I consumed two eggs, two vegetarian "sausages" and coffee with half and half for breakfast, two cheese sticks (great for mid-morning hungries) and a chicken breast, half at lunch, half at dinner. Around that were lots and lots of veggies, a big salad at lunch, and a stir fry at dinner. I do not feel the same kind of hunger on this diet. I really don't. Cutting out things like bread and rice and potatoes and pasta really does affect feelings of hunger. I may feel like "wow, I haven't eaten since noon, I could use some food..." but the urge to grab candy or chips or something to "tide me over" is a thing of the past, because I now know they do NOT tide me over, I still need real food.

The carbs and hunger thing was proven on the road last week - Boss is an on-and-off South Beach believer, he's generally pretty good but he REALLY wanted paella for dinner, and it was for two, so I humored him and said I'd eat the protein (shellfish and chicken and sausage) out of it and skip the rice. (Yes, I know that's very weird, but I did it.) He ate the normal portion, with rice, I ate around the rice but ate a nice serving of seafood and chicken, I was not hungry afterward. He reported the next morning that I was right about carbs and hunger - he was hungry again by 9:30. I had eaten far less than he had, (and we are about the same size) but I was fine until my nice omelet with cheese for a later-than-usual breakfast, which held me until the small lean grilled steak and salad at a late lunch, etc. This business about carbs' effect on your blood sugar ain't voodoo or hype, and the effects are real. And I repeat, I do not eat 12 oz. of chicken at a time, or steak and 4 eggs and a stick of butter for breakfast - which was the spin on the Atkins diet, though even Dr. A. modified his diet and made it quite user friendly after years of study. I eat normal portions by any standard, and I don't eat much more fat than WW allows, but by cutting out certain foods my body feels different and much better. And the South Beach Diet is a piece o' cake - I don't follow it to the letter - give up real coffee with half and half in the morning? I'd rather die, and probably would! I know it says decaf with lowfat milk, but give me a damn break. Some things are non-negotiable. My Motto: Give Me My Real Coffee with Half and Half, or I'm Gonna Give You Death!

But I need to buckle down on the Pilates. (And I'm only on the baby steps level, Kerstin, I do this beginner DVD and am almost ready to survive a small portion of that Denise Austin torture session I described the other day.) Anyway, I need to get my exercising ass in gear, because I now have two end of the month goals. Today Boss received a card inviting him/us to some sort of afternoon "reception" thrown by some law firm we've never freakin' heard of at a posh resort. They are probably shmoozing work (which we do not have to give) but if there are free drinks we're in - we have to be down there for work anyway, free booze and cocktail shrimp are a bonus. So this is a fancy-schmancy South Florida Law Firm holding an event at a chi-chi-poo-poo resort, so if we do go, I will be damned if I will show up looking like the Country Mouse from Redneck Land, even if that is what I really am. I felt very Country Mouse in the tall downtown Miami building last week. I need to upgrade my wardrobe. I must find attire that is both chi-chi and poo-poo, and feel good in it, if I'm going to go rub elbows and make nicey-nice with the Really High Billing Rate crowd.

Shortly after that is a company picnic - I may or may not attend, but I'm using it as incentive to visualize myself in sleeveless and capri pants. Yes, we do wear that here even in the dead of winter. Sorry.

I can do it, yes I can. (Sorry, channeling Bob the Builder for a moment....)