Someone asked me about the meaning of my blog header. I responded, “The Beginning” represents a new way of eating or living. Each day is a fresh start. I cannot change how much or how little or what I ate yesterday, or the day before. I can only affect today and tomorrow and the next and so on. That is one thing I like about this new diet. There are no cards that say how many proteins I can have or that I can only eat cheese and no bread, or that certain beverages are off limits. I am allowed moderation in my life. I learn that the biggest enemy to me losing weight and keeping it off is not my favorite dessert, but eating too large of a portion of my favorite dessert. After my personal diatribe, that particular person told me they were actually wondering where I came up with the name of my overall blog. Maybe dieting and blogging are going to teach me a lot more than I thought.

After my first day on the Zone Diet, I have realized that the two hardest parts of this diet are going to be the smaller portions eaten multiple times a day, and the preparation of the food for each day. I begin my work day at seven am, so I have modified the eating times a bit to fit my work schedule. The meal plan called for waffles for breakfast, which sounded great, but proved pretty hard since I usually eat when I get to work. I had some microwave waffles in the freezer, so I took them to work. I got the light syrup on my hands and then on my shirt. I smelled like breakfast all day. My snack consisted of lite yogurt, which got me to a late lunch. Lunch was easy with a chicken salad that I only ate half of to cut down on portion size. Low fat dressing was not my favorite, but I will live. I ended up eating the rest of my salad as a snack later on in the day when I got hungry. Dinner was eaten a bit later that evening, consisting of grilled tilapia with lemon squeeze and pepper and broccoli. I think I ate too large of a dinner.