Dear Lamont,

Be faster, grow stronger, eat smarter.

Right. So those are kind of goals in my mind. You wanna know what else is bouncing around in my mind? Your voice. Eat smarter is not even an option to ignore nowadays. I hear you saying "Fried macaroni and cheese? Thats crazy." and I just can't do it.

Tonight it was pizza. As you know, I had my Al's Cafe fix for the month this afternoon. So I had roughly 400 calories left for the day, in other words. The problem is that on Sundays we go to my grandma's and order take out and totally pig out and laugh at everything under the sun.

Tonight was a pizza night, and there was no way of getting around it, so Amanda and I offered to pick up the pies and on our way, dropped into the grocery and bought some leafy greens, cucumber and fake chicken. I didn't think I'd have the willpower to do it, we're talking Hawaiian pizza- food from heaven. But I remembered your no carbs at dinner thing and after staring longingly at the open box of saucy-cheesy-pineapply-canadian-bacony delight, I backed away and piled more salad and soy product on my plate.

And I came out 50 calories under my daily allowance. Can I get a hell yeah?

Thing is, I'm really liking that when I step on my scale it flirts just a little with 179 before it finally decides I'm 181. Those 170's have been elusive for years and I'm pretty amazed that I'm almost there. I'm excited that my 12's are requiring a belt and when those are gone I'll HAVE to shop because I have never worn anything smaller than a 12 since I was 12. And that fake chicken wasn't so bad, and at 80 calories for half a package I think its my new favorite thing in the world. So I was able to summon up the willpower at the end of the day that I didn't have earlier. I know that I'm going to slip up and make bad choices, but I guess that the whole point of adapting to a new lifestyle is letting myself making bad decisions, only being better at it.

Love,
Burly