Last weekend, since it was my first “mini-vacation” in ages, I decided I wasn’t going to count calories. I wasn’t going to worry about what I ate. I was in a luxury hotel with room service and free Happy Hours, and I was going to enjoy myself.

Friday night’s dinner: a Reuben sandwich and French fries. And cocktails. Many, many cocktails.

Saturday’s meals: cheese omelet with fruit; turkey club sandwich with fries; steak with garlic mashed potatoes and steamed veggies. Three “Red beers” instead of cocktails. (Hey, they’ve got tomato juice and that’s “good” for me!)

Sunday’s meals: bagel with smoked salmon, cream cheese and red onion; a bacon-mushroom-Swiss burger with curly fries; green salad and grilled pork chop with pineapple rings. Iced tea.

I stood on the scale this morning a little worried about the damage done over the weekend — not that I’d change a thing; it was lovely not worrying about calories.

The result? I lost a pound.

I. Lost. A. Pound.

I ate like a freakin’ pig and did little more than lounge around in my hotel room, reading and watching TV, and I lost a pound.

It’s enough to make me crazy!

The National Weight Control Registry (NWCR) project, which began in 1993, has tracked some 4,500 people, all of whom have lost at least 30 pounds and kept the weight off for a year or more. The registry has been trying to find the “key” to their combined success — a trait or similarity, if you will, that could explain their success when so many other dieters fail. In doing so, they tracked magazine reading habits, foods they preferred, exercise programs, even the music they listened to.

While the report tries to present yet another “novel view” of successful weight loss: that methodical, hyper-organized people do better losing weight, so to the key to losing weight lies in becoming methodical and hyper-organized.

Bull.

See, within the report is an even more important finding, one that I’m afraid will be lost in all the hooplah over whether you’re a “Quadrant A” or “Quadrant B” thinker.

What the registry really discovered is that successful weight loss is about quieting the mind and not obsessing.

“All the subjects had incorporated some meditative element into their lives,” Treitler says. “It might have been walking or yoga, but it was self time, a white space where they could disengage from the old, obsessive behavior.” This transformation of identity appears crucial in keeping weight off. Without a new self who’s clearly different from the old, overweight one, it’s too easy to revert to former unhealthy habits.

Out with the stress, in with the calm, off with the pounds. Hmm… I think I’ll go spend some time contemplating my navel now.

A little over a month ago, I started taking Alli as part of my effort to lose weight. Here it is, 33 days later and my 30-day supply is out. By that you can probably figure out that I didn’t take it every single meal on every single day: I skipped taking the pill when I knew I’d be eating something high in fat.

As a result, I didn’t experience the “unwanted treatment effects” that frighten so many folks from trying the pill. (Well, with the exception of one night when I turned over cooking duties to my husband, who’s ignorant of what constitutes “dietary fat.”)

That’s the key — and I can’t emphasize the point strongly enough: if you want to avoid the ick factor while taking that pill, don’t eat more than 15-17 grams of fat per meal. Period.

And the weight loss? Oh, it was wonderful at first: seven pounds lost in two weeks. Who wouldn’t like that? The last time I lost weght this fast I was taking Miracle burn, but I’m a bit too cautious with my health these days to dabble with thermogenic supplements now.

Since that seven pound loss… nothing. Not one more pound. Not. One.

Even so, I don’t feel like Alli failed me. In fact, I give it credit for doing something I hadn’t been able to do myself prior to taking it: I’ve learned to eat low fat simply out of fear of those “treatment effects”. After a month of eating that way, I feel physically better than I have in years.

I have more energy, my skin is clearer, I sleep better at night and I’m not sluggish and tired by 4 p.m. anymore. Yes, some of that may also be due to exercising a bit more regularly these days, but I have no doubt the dietary change has also helped.

Now, although I’d love to have lost a bit more weight by this point, I know seven pounds in a month is a respectable loss. I’m happy with it. I really am, although I’d secretly hoped for a “miracle” in that little pill… some magical alchemy that peeled off 20 pounds with no real effort from me. Some near-instantaneous fix.

But perhaps I did get one, at least in part: I’ve made a switch to a far more healthy way of eating, and I’ve had a chance to realize how much good that does my body. I doubt I’ll buy any more Alli — though I won’t rule it out — but now I know how to eat right for my own sake, and not merely to avoid the “ick factor.”

Younger women seem to know all of the latest dieting tricks to pare off pounds quicky, whether it’s for an important date or Spring Break. Back when I was younger, I was no exception: faced with my upcoming wedding I jumped on board the Grapefruit Diet for two weeks and watched as ten pounds vanished almost instantly.

It’s tempting, sometimes, to go back to that kind of weight loss approach. Not that I could do it any more, mind you: I’m psychologically accustomed to eating three meals a day. (Those meal replacement shakes don’t work for me, either.)

Turns out, my inability to subsist on grapefruit — or even swallow one single bite of the bitter stuff — may be good for my health according to a new report.

The report, from the Universities of Southern California and Hawaii, published in the British Journal of Cancer, states that eating it can increase the risk of breast cancer by nearly a third. The fruit is believed to boost blood levels of oestrogen, the hormone associated with increased risk of the illness.

The researchers claim that post-menopausal women who eat as little as one quarter of a grapefruit per day (or juice equivalent) could see their chances increase by 30 per cent. Most dieters would have been eating at least six times that amount.

It’s pretty common knowledge these days that eating grapefruit can counteract many medications, including immuno-suppressants and anti-depressants. But until now I wasn’t aware that grapefruit also affects the metabolism of estrogen.

At risk most: those with low estrogen levels, like post-menopausal women or those with naturally low levels. The concern is that the increased estrogen brought on by grapefruit consumption may trigger estrogen-receptive cancer cells, causing them to become active and produce tumors.

Hm. I always did consider that fruit rather nasty.

Monday marked the end of my first two-weeks on Alli, the weight loss pill that’s causing such an uproar all over the blogosphere. (Mainly, I might add, by those who have not yet tried it.)

In that time, I’ve skipped taking my Alli on four separate occasions. I either forgot — since I’m not good at remembering such things — or consciously opted out because I knew I was about to eat a more fatty meal than I should. I am, after all, a big believer in “diet-free days” since they short-circuit that whole deprivation-binge-guilt cycle for me.

As far as “unwanted treatment effects” go, I’ve told you about those: having learned not to let my husband cook, I haven’t experienced any other problems at all. Not one.

I’ve been eating Egg Beaters and/or toast and fruit for breakfast, along with Lean Cuisines and a small salad for lunch. For the first two weeks I’d also been eating the same dinner I cook for my family: I’ve just made sure those have been low-fat as well. Now, however, I’m sticking with prepackaged, frozen diet meals and a double-dose of steamed veggies for dinner. They’re more convenient, and I don’t have to endure the temptation to nibble while cooking.

And, yes, I’ve cheated on my diet several times. Since Alli has a 2-hour half-life, it’s out of my system before bedtime… my most dangerous snacking time of all. Those tortilla chips topped with melted cheddar and jalapeños were the best tasting thing I had all week, but they also ensured that the following morning was the first day I didn’t see any weight loss at all.

Total pounds lost so far: seven. That’s right: seven relatively effortless pounds.

This week I’ll be drinking even more water with lemon in it (for the additional health benefits). I’ve also begun exercising again, not because I like it — I most assuredly do not, and it bores me — but because even with Alli it all boils down to calories in and calories out.

I’ve set a goal to lose 10 more pounds in the month while my husband’s away on business. As a reward, I’m planning on a little trip to Victoria’s Secret. By then, I figure, I might just be able to buy a lace bra that doesn’t look like something my grandma would wear.

Courtney Love — widow of deceased rocker Kurt Cobain — is making headlines for her weight loss: a total of 42 pounds in three months. Three months.

After gaining 40 pounds on a macrobiotic diet, Love says she had a lock installed on her refrigerator.

“My daughter Frances has her carbs in one drawer. I don’t know where it is. I drink shakes and exercise my butt off. No carbs – two shakes and a fish meal. Fish and broccoli really does work!”

No word whether Love, a former stripper, worked the pole as part of her workouts… or how that nasty little heroin habit’s been treating her, either.

From the moment I begin a diet, I can think of nothing but food. Food, food, food. Food, glorious food.

On low-carb diets, I begin craving bagels — something I rarely eat but once they’re a no-no, they become just about the only food I crave. On low-fat diets, I dream of melted cheese: nachos dripping with cheddar, chunks of bread dipped in a glorious cheese and crab fondue, stuffed jalapeño poppers exploding in my mouth.

Oh, baby, I’m making myself hungry again!

That’s precisely why scientists are now contemplating whether being overweight indicates food addiction. Brain imaging and animal studies both indicate that, in some people, eating triggers dopamine release — the exact reason, for instance, drug users continue to abuse their substance of choice. It produces pleasure, a feeling familiar to anyone who’s had a Krispy Kreme.

I’m not sure that I’m comfortable with lumping eating problems in with more serious forms of addiction. Yet, having tried and failed on so many diets despite having the best of intentions, I’ve got to admit I feel a bit better thinking that the problem may not be that I’m a weak-willed, lazy creature. Looking at it as an addiction — something to struggle with while acknowledging the temptation — seems more empowering than merely hanging my head in shame.

It can strike any time — even in the early hours of the morning. One user writes: “(Y)a know how when you start moving around in the morning ya pass a little gas. Well, I did and then went into the bathroom and to my horror I had an orange river of grease running down my leg.”

Fellow cheaters advise each other on the best clean-up methods, and some even suggest using panty liners or Depends. One frugal user noted, “I’m thinking that infant diapers might be a cheaper way to go, just use them as a large pad.”

The gross side effects might scare away the less-committed, but some experts appreciate Alli’s very real, very immediate consequences of cheating on your diet.

“It forces you to eat a lower-fat diet — if you don’t, you’re violently penalized for not doing so,” says David Sarwer, the director of clinical services at the Center for Weight Loss and Eating Disorders at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine. “When they eat a little too much fat, they’ll learn not to do it again.”

“It,” of course, refers to the dreaded “unwanted treatment effects” of Alli — those nasty incidents that keep users honest. Or, at least, should do so in theory.

Having had one night enduring Alli’s “unwanted treatment effects,” I am definitely not putting my food preparation in someone else’s hands. Not at home, and not at a restaurant. Commercial food, after all, is loaded with fat, even when the menu makes it sound otherwise. So much so that even trained dietitians underestimate calorie content by 37 percent and fat content by 49 percent. And they’re the folks who analyze food for a living!

If they can’t get it right, what hope does a mere Chubby Mommy have?

Fortunately, this will work quite well for me over the next month while my husband is out of town on business. I can go back to “eating like a girl” — oatmeal or bran cereal for breakfast, salad for lunch, Lean Cuisine for dinner — without the yummy smell of “Man Food” tempting me.

And, sure, such a low-fat, low-calorie diet means I could stop taking Alli and still lose weight this next month. But why when taking a pill blocks half of that fat and doubles weight loss? Besides, knowing that any dietary cheating on my part might bring on that orange river of grease running down my leg is enough incentive to make me consider a Lean Cuisine a “real meal.”

Let us just say, to put things delicately, that whilst taking Alli it is not a good idea to let one’s husband do the cooking. Oh, I told him not to use butter. I told him not to use olive oil. I pointed to the veggie drawer and the ground turkey I’d defrosted, along with my shelf full of cookbooks.

I figured, hey, if he’s offering to cook dinner on a night when I had nothing planned, I’d be foolish not to take him up on it. Besides, his pending business trip means I better take advantage of opportunities to be pampered now, right?

He brought down a lovely looking plate filled with steamed green beans, mashed cauliflower and a casserole-type thing. Beans, cauliflower, turkey — all low fat, right?

Not when the turkey is browned in Wesson oil — the one thing I’d neglected to specifically rule out. Or when he’s added cream to the mashed cauliflower and Italian dressing to the green beans.

I woke him in the middle of the night complaining about Alli’s “unwanted treatment effects.” I knew I’d been good all day long, so only his dinner could be to blame.

“But there’s nothing in there that’s over 15 grams of fat,” he protested.

“That’s 15 grams total, with all the foods combined,” I explained.

“Oh. Say, how come you’re wearing different pajamas than when we went to bed?” he replied. I did not tell him.

But, let me just tell you this much: I will never, ever again look at greasy tacos without getting sick to my stomach.

I give it one, two months tops before someone decides to turn this notion into a full-fledged diet book sales gimmick:

“During war time if you noticed the apples in the bowl were getting a bit wrinkly, you stewed them,” Dr Stanton said. “Today you just chuck them out.” [...]

Meat was rationed to the equivalent of 900g a week, butter to 450g a fortnight; sugar to 900g a fortnight and tea to 450g every five weeks.

Converting to U.S. measurements, that amounts to:

Meat: 1.98 pounds
Butter: 0.49 pounds
Tea: Well, that’s calorie free. No worries on that one.

While that may seem like an awful lot of butter, consider that the “war time” they’re talking about was in 1940, long before hydrogenated oils, transfats or even olive oil was used in regular cooking. That 450 grams of butter? It’s the same 30 grams or less per day that Alli users are sticking with.