You know the diet's working when you can't go up a flight of stairs without blacking out.

Seriously, even with just a short flight of stairs, I need to take it slow. But I take that as a sign of progress.

And think stairs are difficult? Try going on the treadmill. I can only do half an hour now (power-walking, no more running), but I also take that as a sign of progress. As long as I burn off at least half of the calories I consume throughout the day, I can be confident that my diet is working.

Today, I ate: 1 bowl cereal measured (150), 1 cup coffee with half & half (20), 1 South Beach fiber bar (110), Lean Cuisine dinner (230); Total of 510. The treadmill told me I burned 266 cals, plus I did arm exercises and sit-ups. That rounds off rather nicely to a total of about 240 calories for the day.

5 days in, and I'm still an effing elephant.

I was going to try and hold off on the weigh-in until Sunday, to give my body a full 7 days to rid itself of Evil, but I was tempted by the scale. I still weigh 115 pounds.

So last night, my mother said she would take me out to dinner, since we both got stuck at work later than we would have liked. I love my mother, I really do (I still live with her, for God's sake), but it's too early in my diet to be going out to eat. Especially in a restaurant that serves all manner of deep fried deliciousness. I politely declined, as mommie dearest gets suspicious when we go out to eat and I order a turkey burger with a side salad, and eat maybe two bites of everything, and then strategically push the rest around my plate until it looks like I ate a lot more.

So far today, I ate: 1 bowl cereal, measured (150), 1 cup coffee with half & half (20)