Man, this week is gonna kill my diet. I'm home (San Diego, for all you suckers who don't live in the Greatest City on Earth) for a conference on using computers in the educational realm. My parents, while supportive of my weight loss attempts, don't help and never have when it comes to my eating habits.

Let's see...when I got in at the airport, we stopped at a restaurant called Bread Bites (made by the same glorious people who created Pat and Oscars, so the food all tastes similar) and gorged on fried chicken, Greek salad, and the second greatest breadstick-things ever (the greatest are still at aforementioned Pat and Oscar's, and are probably trademarked or something, but these were similar). Too much food. Sunday, my mom treated me to a full-on turkey/mashed potatoes/dinner rolls/berry trifle kind of meal (nobody does turkey like mom). Again, way, way, way too much food. I tried to hold back, but I'm so rarely home for this kind of meal that I overdid it. Today, I'm attending the first day of my conference. We were given a fabulous lunch of chicken salad (very good), rolls, pasta salad, fruit, cookies, and chips, of which again I ate too much. Then we took a break and had more chips, more cookies, more fruit, and some lovely soul brought a bag of mini Snickers/Three Musketeers/Milky Way/Twix candies. Argh. Tomorrow night (after what I assume will be a similar food kind of day during the conference), they are taking all of us to Karl Strauss' (mmmm, beer). Mom keeps asking what foods I'm craving. I'm sure we'll go out with my brother and his girlfriend one evening. And Friday I expect to go out with one of my best friends from high school, which will probably involve food and/or alcohol (I promise I'll behave. I miss my snugglebear something dreadful already).

So you can see where my problem is going to develop. Lots of food. I'm thrown off of my "little meals, regular snacks" schedule. And I'm eating all kinds of wonderful things that you should never, ever eat. (Chicken and rice casserole with a can of cream of chicken soup and half a loaf of Velveeta cheese? Heaven!)

I did try to do something good. I went to the 24 Hour Fitness website and downloaded a ten-day trial membership, thinking I could just run down the street from where my parents live and work out. Well, when I went in to redeem it, I discovered that they REALLY want you to commit to a membership when you do this. I didn't want to. I have a club membership at home that I'm reasonably happy with, even though I don't use it as often as I should. So I sat through the guy's sales speech, lied through my teeth and said I'd "check with my husband about switching clubs and I'd call the guy back of come back down my nine o'clock" and then of course never did. I do have the ten-day membership card now, so I can go down there, but now I'm afraid of having to confont the sales guy with my fib and say no, I'm not interested. I at least did gerbil yesterday for 30 minutes. That had to help at least a little bit.

But I'm doomed. I was at 183 when I left home; we'll see what the damage is when I get back...