New Home Improvement Diet

  • Ladies, I love Atkins, but nothing has worked as well as the following 10 steps for me.

    In my current state of frustration, I wrote this let off steam about our house. I love our house, but it needs work done in a certain "priority" that my dh has summarily ignored - choosing other things to accomplish instead. I
    love my dh, too, but have lost 11 pounds since moving into the house
    mainly because I don't have him cooking my dinner every night because
    we have no kitchen and can ignore eating because I am too busy and
    honestly too irritated and stressed to deal with food.

    This is my "New Home Improvement Diet" plan:

    One: Buy a "fixer-upper" that needs lots of work... do this while your
    husband is unemployed and has lots of "spare time" to fix it up...
    then make sure he doesn't actually DO the fixing that is necessary
    for regular life but rather the fixing that "would be nice" first.

    Two: Get your husband a job that causes him to work until 9:00 every
    night but doesn't pay anything - or rather has a boss that refuses to
    pay him.

    Three: Deny yourself eating anything except that leftover french fry
    in your daughter's happy meal... and maybe a cookie. The occasional
    hamburger isn't forbidden either - but mostly just don't eat much.
    You're too busy, stressed and irritated to eat... plus you don't have
    the money for food anymore.

    Four: Have a kitchen that is totally non-functional and beg your dh to
    install your dishwasher so you can unpack and actually use your
    kitchen. Repeat daily for 4 weeks.... until your dh quits his job so
    he can install your dishwasher. Then start in on the baby gate that
    he should have done 4 weeks ago.

    Five: Once kitchen is functional, get dh a new job that keeps him
    away from home just long enough so you can skip dinner. Decline all
    offers of "bean burritos or soft tacos" after 8pm.

    Six: Allow dh to get a puppy and spend $250. This now means that you
    cannot eat because the dog has to. This also means that you are even
    further irritated, which burns massive amounts of calories when
    focused in the right direction. Oh, and be sure to expend lots of
    this energy towards making your dh feel guilty.

    Seven: Now that you have a dishwasher, spend every dinnertime hour
    feeding your child and unpacking the kitchen while she eats. This
    will last several days, if not weeks, and will burn off at least another 10
    pounds.

    Eight: Once kitchen is established (3 months into home dwelling time)
    start eating dinner BEFORE your dh gets home from his evening job.
    Then, he can fend for himself for dinner (regardless of what he gets
    himself - this is not your concern. Your concern, until you reach
    your goal weight, is what YOU are eating for dinner. When he starts
    caring about what HE eats - he'll make good choices - once again, NOT
    your concern.) You can also eat whatever you want, as long as you fit
    it in between laundry, unpacking, getting dd to bed, and cleaning up
    while preparing for the next day.

    Nine: Start working on Office. This will require moving lots of
    boxes, a fair amount of swearing, one broken knuckle and a cracked
    vase since all boxes were stacked upon each other in a random
    fashion. Each night at dinnertime, put your daughter's high chair in
    livingroom so she can watch you move boxes around while she eats. Be
    sure to keep the swearing under your breath as she will repeat it to
    Grandma when you least expect it. This will take at least another
    month which will burn at least another 10 pounds if you eat a small
    amount of whatever you want and some salad - be sure to use real dressing.
    Avoid Rice cakes to prevent confusion with packing foam.

    Ten: Once you have lived in the house for 6 months, reevaluate where
    you are in the unpacking process. If there are still boxes to unpack,
    throw them out. But, make sure that you do this during dinnertime. If
    you continue to eat whatever you want - and continue to be too
    irritated to eat too much, you will lose more weight. Especially if you
    don't eat such late dinners with your dh. Once the irritation passes,
    if it does, focus this energy towards making better food choices and
    exercising... in all the spare time you used to use unpacking.

    Okay, that is as far as I got. I will write more chapters when we get
    the kitchen and office finished.

    *insert deep breath here...*
  • OMG - Lisa! I'm lauging my a$$ off and feeling so bad for you at the same time. What a fantastic way to deal with your stress and frustration - bravo!


  • Lisa has her own Erma Bombeck thing going!
  • LOL!...Remember Lisa you also have to add...burn off calories due to the stress you have thinking to yourself "should I ASK him if he did X,Y,Z today like he promised me he would this morning?...I know he's gonna say no and then Im gonna get mad and then he's gonna play dumb and then Im gonna get more mad, and then he's going to get mad at me being mad at him"
  • Thanks so much for sharing this! HA HA HA and it's so true. This brought back memories of when DH and I sold a house and bought a house at the same time. I was thinking like this then.
  • Im sorry to be laughing so hard! I really do wish I could help ya get situated. Still....
  • Heee Heee heee, that was so funny!
  • Oh wow. I thought I stressed a lot. I have NOTHING to be stressed compared to you. I don't think I could tolerate not being able to use my kitchen. Next to the bathroom that's where it seems I spend all my time. I don't have a dishwasher & I refuse to do dishes (I've done dishes maybe 3 times in the past 2 years) because I'm still WAITING for DH to admit we need one
    Hope things start to go better once you get your kitchen and house situated. Um,,,,can I ask what kind of dog??
  • Well, dh bought home a German Shepherd puppy that he found at the pound. It was a purebred - but hadn't been socialized at all. So, it kept biting at me and Bridget and him - so after a week he took it back to have it evaluated - and they said that it had a "biting disorder" and that it shouldn't be in a home with a toddler.

    So, we had a dog, for a week. And, now we don't which was a HUGE sigh of relief for me. I am decidedly NOT a dog person and was quite unhappy with dh for insisting we get this particular dog instead of waiting 3 or 4 months until we had a place to put said dog.

    I don't have a kitchen and he wanted a dog. Yet another thing wrong with the picture.

    =)

    Yes, it was meant to be a funny read... it makes ME laugh and I am the one living it.
  • Oh, and don't even get me started on the bathroom situation. That is a whole 'nother diet plan. :P
  • We bought a Yellow (even though she's more brown/orange) Lab. We were told she wouldn't get much bigger than her mom (which was small).......So now she's 4 yrs old and 80 pounds!!! Yup, inside dog. I refuse to have a dog/animal that isn't allowed in the house. Makes for big chaos.
    Oh....should I mention as soon as it gets warm out I want to finish MY kitchen (ceiling and floor....possibly sink) and then tear apart the bathroom??? lol. DH said I can only work on one room at a time.