It's Hard to be Good on Thursdays

For me, Thursday is the hardest day of my diet. Every Thursday, I face my strongest incentives to stay on track because my weekly weigh-in is the following morning. Yet, at the same time, I have the strongest temptation to over-indulge, because it's the night we almost always go out to eat.

Every Thursday, for at least the past 15 years, a local hamburger restaurant has featured Swiss Potato Soup. Although I've looked on the Internet for recipes, I've never been able to quite duplicate the taste. This particular soup tastes exactly like clam chowder, minus the clams, plus a whole heaping lot of Swiss cheese. It's creamy, it's cheesy, and boy is it tasty. I have no idea how many calories the soup contains per serving, but I'm sure it's a lot. The soup is rich and creamy, probably made with whole milk and/or cream, and bucket loads of cheese.

I love the stuff, and I can only get it on Thursdays.

This particular restaurant also has some of the best hamburgers in the world. You can order your burger any way you like, even if you have odd tastes. The chef will happily add things like peanut butter or pineapple to your sandwich if you are so inclined.

If the burgers weren't good (bad?) enough, there's also the problem of their French Fries. They are golden, delicious, and served piping hot. Their "regular" fry order is more than enough to feed four or five people generously. A half or quarter order is more than plenty for two. Their regular fries make McD's super-sized fries look positively stingy in comparison.

It's a dieter's nightmare, but a tastebud's heaven.

Nearly every Thursday, we go to this restaurant, because I just can't live without my favorite soup. Back in the old days, My SO and I would each order a bowl of soup, a fully-loaded hamburger, and split a full order (sometimes a half order) of fries. This would come on the heels of eating a full breakfast and lunch, plus perhaps a snack.

These days, we go easy on breakfast and lunch (shooting for less than 500 calories total) skip the fries (cry!), split a burger, and still have our bowls of soup. We walk away quite satisfied, but every Friday morning I know that if I hadn't had my favorite Thursday meal, I would see better results on the scale. Every Friday morning I say to myself, we shouldn't have had soup and burgers last night.

The sad trend that I've been noticing lately is that dinner seems to affect my weight the most. If I go to bed hungry, I'm guaranteed to see a drop on the scale. If I go to bed satisfied, I'll probably see an increase in my weight from the day before. Two nights ago, I went to bed so hungry I wanted to cry and I saw a 2.5 pound drop overnight. Last night, I went to bed full, and gained 2 pounds back.

I shouldn't go out to eat tonight. I should stay home and have a salad. Instead I'll go out and have my bowl of soup and regret it in the morning, simply because they don't make swimming pools filled with the stuff. If they did, I'd swim in it.

Maybe this week I'll have a cup of soup instead of a bowl.

Nah.