Why put so much energy and stock into what a person you don't even know thinks? Has this person ever seen you?
Your friends see you all the time. The dieting you have been doing is working. You exercise as much as you can--there is nothing wrong with being lazy once in a while. You have to make time for the things that are important to you--gardening, photography, ect. Yard work is exercise too. But you don't need to beat yourself up over what one idiot says or thinks, or that you didn't exercise enough this day or that day. One day at a time. It is okay to get angry...just don't waste too much energy on it. Of course, you know what I'd tell that person :)

Hi Diana...
Manhattan Offender is a horrid little man. Trust me; I've experienced him first-hand. He writes posts at odd hours and while on pain medication He glosses over details that a first-time reader of his site might not catch: that he lost 50 pounds a few years ago and that his philosophy toward diets is that 'plans' are not the best for all people as the lead to compulsion, but at the same time realizes that his own commitment issues prevent him from such ritualization and that there is a larger issue with food in this country in that food has become overly corporatized and the industry in general is more interested in profit than nutrition. And he never reveals that he feels really bad if his hastily written post were to cause anyone harm. He basically just did a search for blogs mentioning "breakfast burritos" - which just happens to be a regular feature for his site in which a bunch of disparate links are rolled together in one morning post.

Oh, and the fact that he sort of follows many of your routines as daily practice just increases the irony. And when he looked around your site and saw the pictures and stories you post he knew that by quickly glossing over the above he was sort of being a dick.

I'm so not having sex with him tonight.

Best regards and apologies...
Rod
aka
Manhattan Offender

haha. nice :D

i do agree with his "low carb snacks from biglots are not diet food" sentiment, because i've long felt that the "low carb" label on a snack does not make it Good For You or Okay To Eat. :P

but you have your vices/alternatives to vices and i have mine. if i'm gonna eat a snack that "seems bad but isn't as bad as the real thing" i go with organic. organic "oreos" have the same junk only they have Real Live Sugar instead of HFCS and no partially hydrogenated oils. so i'm gonna eat an Oreo-like cookie come hell or high water, but i can at least make it one my body doesnt immediately store as fat from the chemically altered bullshit :P

and as far as breakfast burritos go...one from McDonald's is not diet food. one made with eggbeaters (or 2 whites + 1 whole egg), a whole wheat tortilla and all natural (no surgar/HFCS) salsa and/or hotsauce IS. :D so long as it's portion controlled. :D

your diet IS working. i can tell when i see you. i remember when i was(and sorta still am) doing something similar, the scale barely budged at all. yet time after time people kept saying they could see it working. :D

oh and Rod, i also VERY MUCH agree with your profit vs. nutrition idea. i also think that the TRUE profit comes in making crap foods more widely available and cheaper, thus making the budget-concious fat and then compulsed to spend money on weightloss products.

and then..and THEN...in order to get food the way Nature Intended(tm)...you have to pay more. I have to pay MORE to get a box of cereal that does NOT involve processed corn and just has the sparkling goodness of sugar. i have to pay 3x the cost of a loaf of white bread to get a loaf of bread that does not involve transfats and DOES involve ..you know..a decent dietary fiber?

So both industries benefit. the crap food industry can be fueled by the "diet" industry.. and the "organic" industry can charge whatever they want, because people who really want it will pay it. so you're f'ed either way.

I know that I do enjoy my organic breakfast cereal made with organic cane juice (or something like that) instead of HFCS. I also know that I do feel better when I eat food that's closer to having been pulled out of the ground (or the animal having been clubbed upside the head).

I'll have to do some research on the body's reactions to all-out real sugar vs. HFCS vs. Splenda vs. sugar alcohols and present the results on my podcast... assuming I don't podfade (aka quit podcasting) before then.

BTW? Violet Crumbles are made with Real Sugar, and are so, so tasty. Look in the British foods aisle.

Oof. Let it go, hon. Your reaction is natural, we all get it, but don't beat yourself up about it. YOU know what's right for you, just find that space and be there.