I think it was Dr. Phil who once said – Don’t ever take “No” from a person not in position to say, “Yes”. That’s been my credo ever since and it’s made me a pain in the ass. Like a lockjaw on a pitbull, I dig in and refuse to quit. So many people just don’t have the time and energy to fight but there’s a drive in me that sees the struggle as a challenge or chess game. You have to think several moves ahead, anticipating what your opponent will do and how you plan to counter that.

And so it was today. I’m 4k miles away from being ineligible for an extended warranty on Honda. In other words, at 36k miles I’m SOL. All of the dealerships around here claim the only extended warranty available was through the dealership at $1500-1700 for a bumper-to-bumper, 100k/5year plan. But I wanted a HondaCare warranty. I trust Honda. I don’t trust dealers. No one wanted to help.

I called HondaCare and they said that even if the dealer offers their own they can still sell me Honda’s plan. There is no policy or rule against it. Why couldn’t I just buy it straight from them? Honda said as much as they would like to work with individual consumers, I would have to use the dealer to complete the sale.

I called around Utah to inquire and no one called me back. The miles were ticking away. I finally talked with a service manager instead of finance at Larry H. Miller in Murray and he personally looked into it and made the finance dept. guy call me. We played phonetag. I drove over there and walked right into his office. It was go time.

He told me that they are only authorized to sell LHM contracts. He didn’t even know how to do something through Honda. I said that it would be the perfect time to learn and gave him the phone number for HondaCare. He said it would be up to the general manager. He makes the rules. I said, great, let’s go talk to him. At this point he knew I wasn’t giving up.

He got up, left the cubicle and visions of a horrible buying experience at Ensign/Young Honda in Logan danced through my head. Had that dealership not screwed me over so royally at the time of sale, I wouldn’t be in the position of needing to repurchase an extended warranty. Ten minutes later he was back and saying that my approval was pending and I’m all set. An hour later I was the proud owner of a 100k/6 year bumper-to-bumper plan backed by Honda and valid anywhere in the US…for $1300.

Thank you, Dr. Phil!

It’s weird to have your boyfriend complain about your weight…When you’ve lost it. He says that I dieted my ass off. Literally. He can go to hell. Or better, he can lose weight too then talk to me about it.

I’m super psyched on the skinny me and I’m not about to let him rain on my parade. And I’m sure my butt will look just fine once I get jeans that fit. Seriously, who would have thought I’d have this problem where none of my designer jeans fit right. My True Religions, my James Jeans, even my favorite Joes Jeans. They’re fitting like lounge pants. However, I’ve been afraid to buy anything new. I don’t trust the pounds won’t come back. Sure, three months after my Vysera experiment I’m not only skinny but skinnier. I have lost an additional five pounds. My arms are thinner, I’ve lost five percent body fat, my thighs don’t touch. I’m amazed. But will it last long enough to re-tool the wardrobe? Like Ryan missing my ass, I’m missing my jeans on my ass. On the bright side, Ryan appreciates my leaner tummy.

I didn’t actually need to lose weight. Basic Research in West Valley, Utah, wanted a few test subjects to spend 30 days on a carb-blocking supplement called Vysera and they threw in a personal trainer and a nutritionist. The idea that I could be my college weight again if only for a few weeks was the carrot that spurred the 8-pound drop.

There have been only three times in my life when I weighed nearly 112. In high school I weighed 108. In college, I fed my emotional pain with dorm fries and milk shakes after breaking both my leg and thumb during the ski season, ballooned to 125 and dropped 15 the month after my casts came off. In grad school, I took a job serving cocktails at The Cheesecake Factory in Marina Del Rey (the most awesome job in the world btw) and quit after regularly stuffing on cheesecake and nachos. I was back to 120. A month of weight training later, I was 112. Slowly, though, I moved to the mountains, lived a full life as a ski bum, became a mother; suffered a bout with cancer and chemo and eventually settled in at 123-125 depending on the day. I figured that was my meant-to-be weight. No matter what I ate it hovered there. Ryan would tease that I ‘could stand to lose a few’ because of the infamous baby belly but it didn’t bother me. He was right.

Then came the Vysera challenge. I went to bed starving every night and I went from 125 to 117 in 30 days. The only thing that kept me on the straight and narrow was knowing that in four weeks I’d be back to eating PF Chang’s and Cheesecake Factory. Funny, I’ve only eaten at Chang’s once since December.

The strict diet of fruits, veggies and protein not only overhauled my kitchen but my tastebuds. I’m into ‘portion control’ as well. I get one serving and don’t go back for seconds. I tend to grab an apple instead of a brownie for dessert. Weightloss was inevitable considering I stopped eating pasta, rice, potatoes and McDonald’s. The more impressive aspect is that not only did I keep the weight off but lost four more pounds after the ‘diet’ and the supplement officially ended.

Did the Vysera work or was it all the other stuff? I can’t say for sure. My trainer can. He says that the women he trains who don’t take the pill only lose half of what I did. Not to mention that my diet was right over the freakin Christmas holidays and I still lost weight. Each week I was 2 pounds lighter and leaner. I’d like to think it was the supplement too because it’s depressing to think I had the power to change inside me all these years and was just lazy.

The goal now is to rock the gym and keep everything slim and tight at least until my Disney cruise in May. I’m going to leave the tankini home and wear a bikini. OMG I haven’t done that since Sage was born. Without the Vysera I never would have been inspired to go for it so I guess in a way the twice a day pill DID help me lose weight. If only the project came with money for new jeans. Just saying.

Another pound gone. That’s two weeks, five pounds, 28 pills, six trainer sessions and 14 days of pure starvation. This is one of the hardest tests of willpower I’ve ever had to experience. We’re not just talking about abstaining from McD’s French fries (which I did in ’09) but withdrawing from every type of food I’ve grown to love for decades. Bye bye pasta, Chinese food, breakfast potatoes, brownie sundaes. Sniff Sniff. I miss you dearly. I look in the mirror and don’t really notice a change. Ryan hasn’t said anything either. But my clothes do fit better. Does that mean I’m meant to be 115? I haven’t seen 115 since college. And, hell, what will become of this ‘test’ as we roll into Thanksgiving?

Sage and I are off to San Diego in the morning to share the holiday with my parents. My parents who eat out four nights a week, cook with tons of butter, fancy themselves amateur sommeliers and stock their pantry with chocolate covered pretzels and Oreos. Jeff the trainer says I can “sample” everything and that keeping to the plan is about portion control. Fingers crossed I don’t come back with those five pounds I lost!

Two more weeks and I’m done. The goal is to weigh 110 and sport 16 percent body fat. I’ve learned a ton about my diet but I don’t think I’ll stick with this one. Especially not in the winter. I’ll be way more active skiing than I have the past three months with the broken foot so I’m hoping it’ll even out. I better not blimp out like Violet Beauregarde in Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory when I start to add carbs back into my diet. Just saying….