"Cheese, glorious cheese! La-da-da-da-DA-ta-da-da!"
I was singing this in my head when I woke up yesterday morning.

The diet is not going well. In the first place, I had no idea how dairy dependant I had become. Though I haven't been a vegetarian for many years, I've never been "big on" meat. That whole thing about a portion size of meat being about 3 oz. was never any sweat for me.

But cheese is a different story. It's got everything going for it, the 3 C's of food for women: Calcium, Convenience, and Conscience. The calcium part I know is self explanitory.... there's nothing easier than taking a block out of the fridge, slicing off a few bits, eating it with crackers and calling it lunch....and while doing so, it's not exactly like you're sitting down to some opulant lunch while children in Africa are starving. For some reason, the less fortunate of the world tend to really be on my mind at mid-day - often causing me to skip lunch all together...if I'm metally organized enough to remember that I ought to be eating it in the first place.

Anyway....

Then there's the issue of wheat, specifically bread. There has never been any doubt in my mind that I ate way too much bread to be healthy. I could cut my consumption of bread in half and probably still be eating too much of it. It would be nothing for me to eat toast for breakfast, cheese and crackers for lunch, a bagel for a snack and then have pancakes for supper. If people don't live by bread alone you couldn't prove it by me.

At first, I just quit eating it. And, let me tell you, I was really hungry!! So hungry that it woke me up at night....but, wait.....that meant I was asleep. At night. And THAT is the only reason I am trying to stick with this horrible meal plan that puts the "die" in "diet" Because, almost right away I began to sleep through the night and wake up rested in the morning.

Could be just a co-incidence...after all, I'm working hard enough to tire myself out. But still, the idea that I could be doing something that helped me sleep is enticing.

Okay, I thought to myself. What's the compromise? The middle way? The Golden Mean? There must be other kinds of breads or crackers that aren't made with wheat. There are, for instance, rice cakes. Taste like cardboard. Wasa bread. That's just rye and salt. The Hub tried one and spit it out, "That tastes like something I you ought to nail on a roof!"

No potato bread. No corn bread. Both those things are forbidden for us ancient race type O's on the blood type diet. So I did what I do best...look around, do some research, read the labels. Enlightening, sure, but in this case, not empowering. What do you suppose the main ingredient in Oat Bread is? Not oats! If you guessed wheat - gold star. Ditto all but the most "hard core" rye bread, and many crackers billed as "rice crackers". I even went to an Asian market....where I learned that I don't read any Asian languages and am not smart enough to figure things out by looking at the pictures.

All right. So I went with the oat bread...figuring that, after all, if it's at least partially oats it can't be all wheat. There's oatmeal, there's rice cereal ( that really is made of rice!) I've had some potatos. Okay, I even had some pancakes...but only once. I've really cut back.

And, as a reward, it's a little after midnight and I'm TIRED. I'm going to bed. Takes a lot of fortitude to face that oatmeal first thing in the morning. Believe me.