Well, I’m now 26 days into the diet program, and I have to say it’s not getting easier. In fact, life events—a relationship setback of sorts (coupled nicely with the approach of my absolute least favorite day of the year, Feburary 14th), a week of icky weather, general school stress (exam writing, prep time, the typical bizarre student issues, trying in vain not to bore my students to death), and the parade through campus of people angling for “my” job that begins in two days—have conspired to make things thoroughly unpleasant. It doesn’t exactly help that my general strategy for dealing with stress is to eat large amounts of food, something that I can’t do on my diet.

On the “up” side, I’m sleeping a bit better, probably because I’ve sharply curtailed my caffeine intake. And I’m sticking to the diet, even though the only real effect I’ve noticed so far is that my watch is even looser than usual, to the point it’s too annoying to wear much of the time.

Colby Cosh talks about a guy in Canada who’s eating nothing but McDonald’s food and still losing weight. Colby asks:

Is it some kind of heresy to suggest that McDonald’s may not necessarily be a temple of doom for people who want to eat right, and are prepared to go about it armed with common sense?

Clearly, yes.

Incidentally, the diet is going reasonably well; I lost about four pounds last week, with four days of 30–40 minutes of aerobic exercise, about 15 minutes a session on various pieces of weight-training equipment, with limited changes in diet that mostly add up to “don’t eat all the time.”