Take that inspirational quote and stick it in your ear; better yet, eat it.

It is coming up on midnight, and when the clock strikes twelve I'll be facing the beginning of the last two weeks of preparation. For all the bodybuilders in the world whose pictures I have studied in glossy photos and web pages let me apologize for ever underestimating the mental walls you had to climb in the last weeks before a competition. There is nothing harder than the food battle that comes into play at the end. 

My current diet consists mainly of egg whites, tuna, and green apples now. I have been on this regimen for so long it has had phases: since I cannot salt anything, I have dressed the egg whites in experiments like Stevia and cinnamon. It was palatable the first few times but rapidly lost its appeal. I now just cook the damn eggs and eat them plain. Then there is the no sodium canned tuna. At first, I was so turned off by plain, unadorned tuna chunks that I gulped each serving down as quickly as possible and then got the hiccups a few minutes later. Tuna hiccups did not help me in my growth as a person, let alone as a tuna lover. 

Now I have a ritual. I get 1/2 a can every three hours with 1/2 a green apple. I slice the green apple thinly, sprinkle seven slices with cinnamon and cut the last two up into tiny chunks and toss it with the plain tuna. I eat the tuna as my meal and the cinnamon apples as my dessert. I is not bad, in fact it borders on pleasant. 

But don't get me wrong. I think about food all the time. I plan what I will eat once these days are ticked off. In two weeks I will pour a cup of coffee with a cascade of real cream that will come up to the rim of the mug in a soft brown swirl. I will sit at a Mexican restaurant and eat chips and guacamole. I will eat chocolate cake, and peanut m&m's. I will make two peanut butter sandwiches, one with jelly and the other with raisins, both with a tall glass of milk. 

That's my short list.  

Earlier this week I dreamt I was standing at a take out window on the receiving end of a mounding plate of french fries. In my dreamy thoughts I was rationalizing that if I sprinkled no salt seasoning on them, I might not bloat so badly, and I might just get away with eating them. Sadly, as I sat down to take bite, my daughter's voice pulled me from the dream.

"Mom, I can't sleep." Poof the plate of wonderful, greasy fries was gone. I trudged upstairs to rub her back. And for the rest of that next day I harbored a smidgeon of bitterness about my dream's interruption. 

The big problem with dieting is that when it comes to food in this nation, we are in a constant game of Space Invaders, whacking away images of Cold Stone Creamery ice cream cupcakes as they fly toward us in increasing numbers. When the temptations are incessant, our ammunition eventually dries up.  

Being so restricted in my consumption at the moment has made me acutely aware of the volume of food temptations we have to swat away. We don't just encounter a box of chocolate chip cookies in the grocery aisle, we get their cousins and second cousins, aunts and uncles, the ones with sprinkles and dipping sauce on the side. 

I think it is time for a new game plan.

The more enlightened cultures of our planet have menstrual huts for their women where they can retreat into a more meditative state during sensitive times in the hormonal cycle. I propose we develop dieting huts where earnest folks seeking better health can have a reprieve from the smell of Cinnabons, the sight of a Carl's Jr. commercial, and the chocolate impulse purchases at the checkout stand. Then we might stand a chance.

Yep, I need a dieting hut, I thought tonight as I sliced crusty bread and spread it with butter, handed it over to my child and watched her eat it. The crust she abandoned was torturous, it taunted me from the edge of the plate, a small smear of butter on one side and some soft inner still left on the crust. I silently repeated an Emerson quote: What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us. 

Shove it man, was my next thought, what lies within me is a whole lotta nothing! 

But Friday morning has officially arrived now, one more day I can tick off that brings me closer to the end and that cup of coffee with real cream.