A friend of mine informed me of the food list challenge that she saw on Facebook. We both filled out the list to see if either of us had tried more than the 20 foods the list-makers expected most people to have eaten. The list had 100 foods. She had tried somewhere in the 30s, I had tasted 46 of the foods.

I don’t know if the list means I’m worldly or that I like to eat but, being in the I-need-to-lose-weight phase that I’m in, I of course assumed that I’m a pig because I had tried so many of the foods.

The food list got me thinking about the number of diets I have tried. I’m not unaware of the idea that losing weight, and maintaining weight loss, is a lifestyle, not a phase. I’m not afraid of working out, and, unfortunately, I’m one of those people who actually can gain weight when working out hard. I’m extremely jealous of the people who can walk and drop pounds. But my biggest weakness easily is that I love to eat. I like to eat a lot, and a lot of food at a time.

So I’ve tried a lot of diets. I’ll begin my list and edit as I think of more. Feel free to add comments if there is a diet you have tried that worked, didn’t work, or just blows your mind looking back on it that it was something you tried.

1. Calorie counting. I lost 30 pounds counting calories, shooting for a 1,600 or less daily intake. I just had surgery on my knee and was going to physical therapy twice a week which counted as workouts in my mind. Prior to the surgery I played flag football twice a week, played softball twice a week and played sand volleyball about once every two weeks. I still don’t know how I had 30 pounds to lose but I shed it pretty quickly.

2. Body builder diet. I dropped about 20 pounds using a strict, protein heavy, eat-six-times-a-day diet. Twice a week there were carb days, which meant a banana, sweet potato and brown rice. I was never hungry and had plenty of energy to work out.

3. Weight watchers. In order to get away from the body builder diet, I switched to weight watchers and tacked off another 10 pounds or so. After eating lean meat and greens for a couple of months, it was glorious to have fruit as a “free” food.

4. The Master Cleanse lemonade diet. I bought the entire package and the book to tell me how to make the liquid diet. After I got the package, I created one of the drinks, took one look at it and decided against it. Zero pounds lost.

5. hCG diet. After reading several reviews of the hCG diet, I decided to go rogue and skip the ‘medical’ weight loss centers and buy the stuff on the internet. The diet called for a loading phase, where I basically got to overeat before I begin placing a few drops under my tongue. The drops were supposed to make me need only five or six hundred calories a day. It didn’t work. Knowing I could overeat, I basically just overate for several days.

6. Full bar diet. I purchased an entire package of full bars and ate accordingly. It didn’t work.

7. Slim-fast shakes. Who hasn’t tried this diet? It didn’t work.

8. Hydroxycut pills. I went through a phase of taking spin classes nonstop, partially counting calories and popping hydroxycut pills. I dropped a few pounds, but not enough to counter the cost of the pills.

9. Alli. Unfortunately, I actually fell in the overweight zone that qualified for this diet pill that was formerly a prescription drug. I was constantly in a panic that I would go in my pants, but I didn’t. I also didn’t lose enough weight to counter the cost.

10 and 11. Detox. I decided once to do a liquid diet, which literally meant no solid food. It lasted about five days but I don’t remember losing much weight. I also took part in the SlimQuick cleanse and detox. I did drop a few pounds on that, but I think it was because I drank so much water it was ridiculous.

12. Hoodia. I tried those pills during the ‘hoodia works’ phase that was so popular a few years back. It didn’t work for me.

13. Metabolife. A few of colleagues had bought in to the metabolife craze and were losing weight so I went for it as well. I didn’t lose weight and I was stuck with half a dozen bottles of metabolife. I think it worked for guys but just didn’t do anything for women.

14. No bread. After moving to Cincinnati, I began drinking a lot of beer and eating a lot of pasta with bean-less chili and cheddar cheese slathered on top. So I joined a running group, did away with pasta and bread, and shed a nice 15-20 pounds. Oddly, my favorite non-bread dish was salami with cream cheese rolled up into a nice bite-size kibble. Salami is crazy fattening but, for whatever reason, it worked.

15. Atkins. My parents had a lot of success on this diet, probably because my mother had the time to prepare meals. A friend of mine had also done this diet and was so skinny she didn’t have boobs. My dad lost so much he was at his high school weight. I knew it was risky, bacon and mayonnaise on a regular basis can’t be good, but I figured why not. I got the book from my parents, bought a few bars, and ultimately, chickened out. It may have lasted a day.

I’m not sure how many diets are out there, but it seems like I have tried my fair share.

Today my running group started - again - and the tone was similar to a gym in January. There were tons of people. It was a perfect day for running, it was cool and the sun was shining.

I decided to join the 11 minute pace group because I’m so sick of the 10:30 group that runs closer to a 10 minute pace. And the coaches of the 10:30 group never want to turn around for the people training for a half marathon. So I ran with the girl I did most of my half training with last season and she has some new running buddies that made time pass easily.

I turned at two miles to head back and no one came with me but I assumed it was just like the 10:30 group - no coaches actually wanted to turn around so no runners did either. But, fortunately, I was wrong. I turned and looked back and a huge group was just behind me. I guess I should have waited a few seconds longer.

There was refreshing chocolate milk for us when we finished. I had a couple of cookies, some milk and water and then hurried home. I switched out of my running attire and in to some hooping gear. I grabbed a cup of coffee, got my gym bag with my ball and drove down I-71 to my next workout - basketball.

We had plenty of people and I got on a team that won four straight games. That took about an hour and I was starting to get tired. Rather than risk an injury, I asked for a sub in the last game and wrapped up in some warm clothes to return home. 

I stopped at a deli and got a sandwich and chips. Then, I napped. For dinner I had a barbeque pizza and my sweet snack was a banana-chocolate protein shake.

My legs are so sore from the bootcamp I did on Thursday evening. I imagine today’s activities will only increase that pain tomorrow. I’ve already signed up for two bootcamps next week, plus the Wednesday running group should kick off this week.

Hopefully I have done enough to officially begin a routine that will ultimately result in some weight loss. That would make me happy.

Today I went to work and other people were there! It’s been a while since more than two or three of us were working at the same time.

I did pretty good with my weight watchers tracking, although I was/am pretty much starving all the time. I hope my strong hunger pains doesn’t cause me to go out and eat a big hamburger and onion rings later in the week. Man that sounds good right now.

Today’s exercise was bowling. My team won (with the handicap) and I bowled a season high (I think) 180. A guy on the other team bowled a 290. It was amazing. Even more amazing, we beat them. Our handicap is huge.

In an attempt to not waste one of the Groupons I purchased in September, and to avoid buying a bunch more Groupons because they appeal to me, I signed up for a boot camp on Thursday after work. I can only go to that class 10 times, then I have 10 visits at a different gym, and after that, 10 visits at another gym. I’d like that to jump start a nice workout routine on my own at lunch. Right now I skip those workouts and half the time it is because I talk myself into believing I don’t know what to do. It’s sad, but taking some classes might help.

When I joined the corporate world I hoped that in time I would be allowed to adjust my hours away from the standard 9-to-5. Of course, I learned quickly that the corporate world isn’t 9-to-5, it’s 8-to-5. That in itself was a huge change from working in athletics. Back then, I rolled in to work around 9:30 or 10 a.m. and 9 a.m. was really early. But I often worked 10 a.m. to 10:30 p.m. on Friday, 5 p.m until 2 a.m. the next day, and 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. the following day. That all happened after a week of 10-to-5 hours from Monday until Thursday. It sucked.

So I was completely happy with the 8-to-5 lifestyle simply because it didn’t involve weekends or evenings. However, my hatred of wasting time has not left my personality and sitting in traffic tests all particles of my patience. After the right amount of time had passed on the job I mentioned to my boss the irritation I have of sitting in traffic and he promptly offered up the hours of 7:30-to-4:30. Huge! Switching my day by a half hour easily saves me an hour every day.

What I have noticed by being the first person to work each day is how my co-workers approach their eight hour work days. One comes in at 8 a.m., turns on her computer, takes off her jacket, changes shoes, pulls out her toaster and bread and makes some toast for breakfast. She eat her breakfast and then around 8:30 she boots up some programs and gets to work. Another co-worker comes in around 8:30 - if she’s early. She’s already got her coffee and she’s loaded down with bags and work she’s taken home. She drops everything, after carefully placing her coffee down, fires up her computer and starts working. And yet another co-worker comes in at 7:45, grabs a Pepsi, turns on her computer, arranges papers the way she wants them for the day, runs down to the cafeteria to pick up some food and begins working at 8 a.m. on the dot.

So I guess I’m wondering, how do you do it? Do you come in and start working, waiting for your computer to load (average loading time for our computers here is 10 minutes)? Do you come in early so your computer has time to boot up, allowing you to start working exactly on time? Or do you come in, eat, kick on the computer and start working about a half an hour in to the day?

I gained about four pounds over the last couple of weeks. Cookies are good. I rejoined Weight Watchers with the intent to watch my weight closely. Of course, the last two days have still had some hints of holiday but I hope things will slow down soon. And I hope I’m not starving all the time when it does slow down.

I signed up for a 5k on January 1. I haven’t done much of any exercise the last couple of weeks but I imagine I can still knock out 3.1 miles without any trouble.

Work has been quiet. When I worked in athletics during the holidays it was easy to notice there were fewer employees around and parking was super easy because students weren’t taking classes. But there were still games and a lot of work to do. In the corporate world, pretty much no one comes to work. From November until January, the place has been like a library and it’s been nearly impossible to stay busy because no one is around - no IT people, no salesforce.com people, no communicators updating the website - it’s really quiet. And parking is easy.

I began my 2012 Running Group on Saturday. It’s my second running group in Columbus. I wish I could say it is different, or better, than the other groups I have joined in the past. But it wasn’t. 

Day One should ALWAYS be about the newcomers. Day One should be an in-depth explanation about what is coming up, how great it is that everyone is in the group, and it should be a short, easy run just to keep our bodies warm. 2012 Columbus did a great job welcoming folks and one of the little dudes that talked did an outstanding job explaining who, what, where and when. Who are these people wearing green coats? When do we meet? Where do we run and what is our goal? 

We were told in the grueling long intro that when the group started 11 years ago there were four coaches. On Saturday, 42 coaches took the stage to be introduced. Fortunately, they had split the group into half and full marathoners - something they didn’t do in the last season - and I had high expectations for that. Because of the split, I went ahead and participated with the 10:30 group, the same I was in - and disappointed with - last season.

And as I stood waiting for our run to begin, our 2-mile, easy run, I immediately heard a coach tell someone that we were running three miles, unless some wanted to run two. Well - the whole day for newcomers just went out the window. The day of not scaring away first-timers - shot. Now that everyone has had a full explanation of what is to come, none of the THREE coaches in the 10:30 group wanted to run the designated mileage. Instantly, newcomers are confused and feel like they are doing something wrong if they ONLY run two miles. 

It’s awful that so much time and effort was put into a successful Day One. Three coaches in the 10:30 group blew it. I can only imagine what the rest of the coaches did. I wish I could run faster so I didn’t have to be in that group. I could always run slower, but that isn’t exactly my goal. I just think Day One the volunteer coaches should put away their egos, put away THEIR daily mileage goals, and think of those who showed up to run for their first half or full marathon. Those who took the plunge, came out on a dare, just wanted to see if they could do this - should be babied and loved rather than trying to kill them or scare them away in 25 to 30 minutes. 

Of course, I was fine and I found a newcomer to run with since our coach was running a 10:10 pace in a 10:30 group (she needed to get back out on the course to do some more miles so she was in a hurry). I ran with him, talked to him, told him what to expect and I felt like I had contributed to the good of what is supposed to be a welcoming initiative. 

Then I ate a cookie and returned home.