I don’t know if I’ve ever mentioned it here, but I am a food nut. Seriously — I love food. And when I was a Sophomore in college, I loved food a little bit too much, if you know what I’m saying. (It was a stressful year. As most tend to be. …Shut up.) So that summer, I decided to try Weight Watchers; I lost 25 pounds in three months, and I fell in love. Thus began my  infatuation with portion sizes and POINTS values, and to this day, I cannot look at a chicken breast without mentally superimposing a deck of playing cards on top of it.

In the five years that it’s been since I gave the program that first try, I’ve gone through “pudgy periods,” as I like to call them, but I’ve never actually “put the weight back on.” Weight Watchers sparked not only a love for their program, but a love for healthy eating in general; when you’re someone who needs to don a pair of boxing gloves everytime she looks in the mirror on the best of days (and who deals with panic/anxiety on the worst of them), it’s sort of intoxicating to suddenly not only LOOK better, but to FEEL better — solid nutrition does wonders for not only your waistline (and skin and hair and nails and and and), but it improves your overall health, your energy levels, your ability to handle stress (ding ding ding! we have a winner!), and your immune system, among many other things.

But don’t get me wrong: while I was completely gung-ho back in 2003 about writing down every single thing I ate (“You bite it, you write it!” ain’t just a pretty rhyme), it’s begun to seem far less glamorous. It’s not easy to have that kind of self-discipline, so I’ve gone through many periods of “mentally tracking” my meals, and let me tell you — IT DOES NOT WORK. Forget your best intentions, you WILL conveniently forget to budget for that cupcake, or that Snickers bar, or those M&Ms. Writing it down holds you accountable, and I’ve been a lazy, responsibility-shirking sod for years now.

That’s not to say that I haven’t also gone through periods of super-diligence, because I have. I’ve tracked meals online, through LiveJournal, and in addition to keeping me accountable for my eating habits, those journals are a handy reference for putting together some pretty healthy grocery lists.

Anyway, I decided last week that, after all of the mental boxing I’ve been doing with myself for the past 11 months, I owe it to ME to once again start being accountable for my own health. This means that I’ve started tracking my food intake again, and writing it down (especially publicly) keeps me accountable, which keeps me thinking about it, which keeps me making better choices.

…And, as it happens, keeps me away from that fourth gingersnap cookie, for example, now that I’ve held myself accountable and plugged the recipe (swiped from AllRecipes via Teej at Smells Like Happy — thank you!!) into the Recipe Calculator at SparkPeople.com.

I’d be more than happy to send out the LJ address to any who might be interested — just drop me a line, and I’ll be sure to get back to you. Now I’m off to shower and get to work — big event tonight, and I hope these people like the gingersnap cookies. If not, more for me! (Though at 2 POINTS per cookie, they’re not bad, but not overly snack-able. See what I did there? See it? I’m so accountable. …And yes, now that I’ve finished this entry, I hate that word, too. Thanks for asking.)

Stay dry, all — the weather in New England is gross today!