Walking to work this morning, I relearn the fast walk of one who wants to smallen. Huff huff huff, I move my arms to get the blood moving. After a nasty case of stomach flu, I was down 7 pounds last week. I could feel the extra energy that down 7 pounds means. Not the best, ok the worst! way to drop the pounds, but I will take it.

A week later and I am back up the whole 7 pounds. I am dragging. My thighs are huge and I feel sad and slothy. Now that the sickness is over (all of us got it, whoohoo!). I get back to my point counting in earnst. I wonder how many times I will have to "get back to it" before it sticks. Before it becomes my religion again. Before it gets deep into my bones and won't let go. Last week, we were almost there. Almost there until the stomach flu took food away for 3 days and then I wanted to eat and eat and eat.

This is all just numbers, I tell myself. Weight loss, health. It is just numbers. This isn't about emotions, I tell myself. This is math. This is accounting. This is paying the bills. I am paying my body to run. I am filling the tank. This is just math, I tell myself again as my orange sneaker hits the pavement and I quicken my pace. Math, math math.

Of course, this is not true. Eating is about emotions and stress. I knew this while eating a rice crispy treat at 2 am. Rachel in her highchair saying babababababa and playing, me with the rice crispy treat and cherry coke. I want to be asleep, but Rachel doesn't and so I eat to not worry about it. I eat the last one, thankfully, and vow there will be no more.

So today, eating is about math. Lean Cuisine rice bowl = 6 points or 280 calories. Raisins = 2 points. Smoothie = 7 points. Strawberries, tiny cheese, diet dr. pepper. They are all numbers. There are other numbers and they are forbidden. Burrito, 24 points! I close my eyes and think about how my body can't afford these numbers. I close my eyes and feel my muscles work.

I close my eyes and know that 6 or 10 months from now the scale will free me from this math. I could be done. If I work hard today and tomorrow and every day for the next 200 days, I could be free. The could is the problem. I should say will, but I won't fool myself.

As I write about the math, I am thinking of brownies. It is sad, but true. I wish I had blogged at this stage in my last weight loss journey, but for some reason I didn't start writing until I was baout 40 pounds gone. I don't even remember how I got there now.

My hope is that I can remember how it felt to be down 7 pounds and how 20 or 30 or 50! pounds would feel so great. All the pretty numbers. They are my new path.