No wonder I can't lose weight. Since I got back from vacation, I've spent about $200 on food. The money is leaving my checking account and sitting on my fat tummy forever. I hate that.

I hate this expression but it's so true; "a second on your lips becomes a lifetime on your hips."

I started a new excel spreadsheet to track my calories today. I'll start modestly and eat 1,400 calories per day.

There are daily Weight Watcher's meetings at several different times at a nearby shopping mall. My friends who are doing the program like it because 1) you can add more points if you exercise and 2) you can bank points for special occassions.

I'm going to see how I do with my calories this week, and if I can't hack it I'll go to a Weight Watcher's meeting.

I found a copy of The Economist at the gym, and read it on my train ride home. It's a good magazine, and easy to read. They had some really good information on what's happening in the world from a financial perspective, and I was surprised how fascinating it all was.

I think you can really learn alot about what drives people, companies, organizations and even countries when you study their finances. How neo-marxist of me huh?

I'm trying to decide if I need to subscribe to this mag. I registered at their site, and I'll get a newsletter via email once a week from them on their current articles. If I find myself reading The Economist online constantly, I'll get a subscription.

On Saturday, another friend called and we went to the Aloha festival at the Presidio. It's a two-day festival dedicated to everything Hawaiian.

We stood in line for half an hour to get shaved ice and malasadas. Malasadas are portuguese donuts rolled in sugar. They are so yummy. At highschool football games on Kauai, along with the usual sporting event food the vendors sold bags of malasadas and boiled peanuts.

The sun even came out and it was warm and muggy, just like in Hawaii. We even got to see some hula. There was a maori dance troupe with poi balls, and for sentimental reasons I bought a pair. I remember learning to do a hula with poi balls when I was a little girl.

Then my friend and I ate a plate of hawaiian food, like I didn't eat enough hawaiian style pork when I was home. Afterwards, my friend left to meet her boyfriend and I went to the gym to workout and lift weights.

My friend, whom I spent the day with, told me she was doing Weight Watchers. She's lost 10 pounds so far with little effort. She said she liked the feeling of having to be accountable to someone for her weight.

I'm wondering if I too need to go to Weight Watchers to lose these last 10-15 pounds that I've been struggling with all my life. I like the weight I'm at now because it's comfortable for me to maintain, but I know I'm not at my goal weight of 135 pounds.

It would so great to achieve my goal weight, but I'm totally worried about trying to maintain that weight. 145-150 pounds has been such an easy weight to maintain for me, but I am still so fat. I have clothes in my closet that still don't fit, and I still have a poochy tummy.

I'm thinking I could at least try Weight Watchers for a month just to see if I like it, and if it makes a difference. I was able to lose 30 pounds on my own, but maybe now I need a little extra push to get to my goal.

A friend came over for dinner on Friday, and I had my first dinner at my new place where I actually cooked.

I made an italian rissoto with chicken, leeks, mushrooms (white, crimini, portobello and and porcini) and spinach. It was a bit salty because I used this refrigerated chicken stock, which I've never used before. My friend seemed to like it though, and I topped the dish with grated romano cheese.

I watched the rissoto being made one of my favourite TV cooking shows, Lydia's Kitchen. She is a great italian cook and her dishes are always so easy.

It was fun to cook and make food for my friend. For an appetizer, I heated up some brie to eat with slices of my favorite italian bread - pugliese.

I bought an expensive chocolate sauce to pour over vanilla ice cream for dessert, but we were so full from dinner and the bottle of chardonnay we drank that we skipped it.