Three weeks have passed now - and I feel like I'm running in place.

Maybe that's because I spend a good deal of time on a treadmill at the gym and sometimes, when you step off too fast it feels like you're still moving but not really going anywhere.

Or maybe it's because I'm still using the same smug belt loops and those snug jeans from last year still feel like a vice.

Fine. I can be patient. I work at Blethen - I've mastered the art of waiting...waiting...waiting for something to happen.

Anything yet? Nope.

So I stepped on the scale during this morning's weigh in with little expectation. The scale's screen blinked a few times - maybe waking up from a dream about running and salt shakers (it's going around these days).

And there it was. A 1.6 pound loss.

It's no record, but it's something. I'll drink to that. Or I won't. Maybe that's my problem.

Trainer Catherine talked to us about our eating habits this morning - mine being a day-long graze. I don't eat much at any given sitting, but that constant hand-to-mouth adds up to enough calories to power a small brewery.

I'm still grateful, though. It could be worse. I caught the tail-end of Oprah yesterday (um, on accident or something) and there was a fella on there that had once weighed over 1100 pounds. He lost 900 of it in 19 months - resulting in a trim gentleman of 198 pounds (that Richard Simmons really knows his stuff).

He even made the Guinness Book of World Records for the most weight lost by a human.

The second chapter of that story, unfortunately, has him gaining back every single pound.

I can't fathom how that happens. I don't think he really knew either. He said that as soon as he reached his goal of 198, he immediately went out to celebrate. One hot dog led to two, three, four and that led to fries and that led to cheese fries. 'Tis the slippery slope of pub food.

And as he's describing this return to gluttony, all I kept thinking was, "That's heartbreaking...and it's making me hungry. Do I have any potatoes?"