Time for a pop quiz! I hope you’ve all been paying attention, since this test represents twenty-five percent of your final semester grade.

1. When a friend presents you with a box of Cheez-Its, do you…

1. Politely refuse with, “No thank you! I’m watching my girlish figure!”
2. Take a handful, because, well, you know, mustn’t be rude?
3. Take a hand off as you embark upon a shark-like feeding frenzy?

2. Your coworkers bring three dozen Krispy Kreme donuts to work (and they’re still warm). Do you…

1. Politely refuse with, “No thank you! I’m watching my girlish figure!”
2. Watch and drool as others partake, greatly tempted to grab one for yourself, yet you somehow resist?
3. Shout, “Hey, look! There goes Elvis!” then grab thirty for yourself as all heads turn?

3. Your family takes you to Red Robin (home of the “Bottomless Fries” basket) to celebrate a minor event (such as the arrival of Friday). Do you…

1. Order a salad with extra spinach and a teaspoon of dressing (on the side, of course)?
2. Get your usual meal but save half of it for lunch tomorrow?
3. Cause Red Robin’s stock price to plummet as you deplete their current fiscal year’s supply of potatoes?

4. You wake up one morning absolutely starving. Do you…

1. Fix two pieces of whole wheat toast with a light coating of I Can’t Believe This Cheap Substance Isn’t An Actual Dairy Product?
2. Eat a Strawberry Pop-Tart?
3. Cause Cap’n Crunch’s stock price to soar as your breakfast actions exceed analysts’ third quarter estimates?

5. On the opposite end of the day, it’s eleven o’clock and you’re about to go to bed. But for some inexplicable reason, you’re still hungry. Do you…

1. Brush your teeth and hit the sack, full knowing that filling your belly right before sleep is the worst possible thing you can do?
2. Eat a Strawberry Pop-Tart?
3. Build yourself a four-foot-tall Dagwood Sandwich in the hopes that in doing so just this once, you might fill yourself up for a week and therefore actually turn this disaster into a positive experience?

Give yourself one point for every “a” answer, two points for every “b” answer, and three points for every “c” answer. How do you rate…?

0 — You are amazing. You shall weigh 80 pounds the rest of your life.
1 to 17 — Not bad but could be a little better. Try cutting down on the time you spend awake.
18 to 155 — Not only is your Switch in the “off” position, it’s actually been disconnected by the utility company.

At the end of week one, I find myself with a quiz score in the eleven to thirteen range. I’m definitely no longer eating twenty-seven thousand calories of Pringles each week, but I’m still not what I would consider “on”. Yet. That said, I did find myself at a Dairy Queen two nights ago and I ordered: nothing. Yes, even with the Blizzard’s Twenty-Fifth Anniversary in full force, I celebrated with a sixteen ounce cup of air. So at this point, a couple days into Week Two, I will go with “cautiously optimistic?”

How about you? How’d your quiz score turn out?

Last week I reiterated my theory on how a successful weight loss plan is under the complete control of The Switch and that you have absolutely no say over The Switch’s position. In spite of that, fortunately (or unfortunately, depending on your point of view) flipping The Switch on can be greatly influenced upon finding yourself stricken by some life-altering event such as diabetes or suddenly having to buy yourself an entire row of airline seats when traveling. Once that happens, you find it much easier to spring into action, and thus the illusion of control is created. But who cares if it’s an illusion if it’s working, right?

I’ve had this happen to me several times over the last couple decades and each time it’s always led to a period of spectacular weight-loss. What a great story this would be if it ended there, but as we all know, once I meet my goal and stay there for a few months, weeks, or even hours, it’s immediately followed by a period of spectacular gain-it-all-back.

The last nine months or so have been a bit difficult. While I’ve hoped The Switch would flip itself on several times, I’ve instead found myself flipping it off in anger and disgust. That said, I have a feeling—and it’s just a feeling, mind you—that I might have fixed that this past weekend. And unlike other times, it wasn’t just one thing that got me. Here’s a list:

• I’m all out of clothes.
• My back is starting to hurt (again)
• My knees are starting to hurt (for the first time)
• I can’t walk two flights of stairs without feeling winded
• I got a blood sugar reading of 148 after losing a valiant battle against a bucket of buttered movie popcorn
• I’m back up to 39% body fat
• And more…

Funny enough, not a single one of those is enough to pull my hand out of the Cheez-Its box. And collectively they’re still probably not enough to flip The Switch. No, there’s one more thing I left off that list and it’s almost certainly the straw that broke the camel’s back. For the first that I can ever remember: the top part of my back is touching the lower part of my back. I can feel it when I walk around. I can feel it when I sit. I don’t like it. I don’t like it at all.

Hence: enough’s enough. Now, whether this truly turns into a flipped switch or not, only time will tell. But I’m keeping my fingers crossed.

So how about you? Feel free to leave any stories about what straw broke your own weight loss log jams. Feel free to mix metaphors.

If you’re new to my blog (and to be honest, I don’t know why you would be since my rabid fan base is made up of the same half dozen returning readers) then you already know all about The Switch. If by some great miracle you’re new here and about to become the seventh rabid fan of my blog, here’s a quick primer:

The Switch is a mysterious internal biological mechanism that determines whether you’re sticking to a plan or not. It can actually apply to anything in life: work, hobbies, etc., but I typically use it in the context of dieting. If The Switch is on, then you eat right, exercise, stick to your plan, bounce back immediately if birthday cake happens, and in general, the weight comes off. These are the times where it’s “easy” and you claim to have made that elusive “lifestyle change” and people flock to your blog with comments like, “YOU ROCK”, “I’VE BEEN INSPIRED”, and “I SO NEEDED THIS POST TODAY.”

On the other hand, if The Switch is off, then you’re doomed. You might start the day with the best of intentions but invariably you’ll end it in a bucket of ice cream. You’ll fall at the donuts Bob brought to work. You’ll collapse at the merest scent of pizza. Your “lifestyle change” was anything but and you realize that Sisyphus had it easy. In short, you’re doomed.

I’m following the exact same pattern as I did with Day One #99 back in April. I started off well. I had a great first week. I had a miserable first weekend, then completely fell apart after that. This can only mean one thing: The Switch is not on. And, as all you Cool Kids already know, The Switch isn’t something you can just turn on at will. It may turn on in response to something you do or experience, but you just can’t wake up and say, “It’s on today!”

Losing weight is easy. Weight loss is hard. The former simply requires expending more calories than you take in. There’s nothing “simply” about the latter. Unless, of course, The Switch is on. And that’s my problem: it just ain’t on right now.

But I’m not going to let a little thing like that stop me. After all, this boulder isn’t going to roll up the hill all by itself, whatever comes next.

Hey look, it’s me again. I didn’t actually intend to take this much time off. Like so many things in life, it just happened. May was . . . well, let’s just say May is behind us now and leave it at that. I may fill you in later, but what’s important now is I’m back.

One week ago, June 1, 2010, was a monumental day in my twenty-year career as a professional dieter: Day One #100. Yes, it was bound to happen sooner or later. This number, as some of you die-hard followers may already know, is derived by counting the number of rows in my Excel spreadsheet where the phrase “Day One” appears. I officially started counting out this number in public in this very old post. (Man, I forgot how ugly this site used to be).

It’s a funny number. In some ways I think, “Only one hundred? Sheesh! It feels like I’ve done this a thousand times.” But then I put my propeller hat back on and say, “Wait a minute, that’s one Day One every 2.4 months for twenty years. That’s flippin redonkulous.” I’m then reminded of the popular definition of insanity: “Doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.” (For some reason, the internet believes this is an Albert Einstein quote. I think I may submit that one to Mythbusters.)

So a week ago I said (for the 100th time) enough’s enough and decided to not eat something every five minutes of my waking hours (and every forty-five minutes while asleep). And, as usual, my body responded to this change.

At the end of week one, I’m down about three pounds. Now, this is where everyone posts a comment along the lines of, “Awesome!”, “Great job!”, “You Rock!” Before you do, though, take a moment and consider: this is how every Week One starts out. And given the fact that this is my one-hundredth Week One, I’m going to say that a good start like this is absolutely no indicator of long-term success. In fact, since I’m still wearing my propeller hat, I can go back, re-examine the data, and conclude that this type of performance is absolutely a predictor of failure. Maybe I need a Week One that ends in a ten pound gain? That would turn things around.

Also, as long as I’m still playing the part of Debbie Downer, I kinda screwed up over the weekend again. Although this is a three pound loss for the week, I was also down three pounds after the first two days. In fact, I was down four pounds after four days. Then the weekend hit and I went up another pound and a half. If anything that’s a predictor of long-term failure.

But, I’ll stick at it. I have my reasons . . . not the least of which is simply because I’m insane. Albert Einstein told me so.