It is not that I do not think of them. Especially when I go to pee or poo. My automatic reaction right away it to go to Angelo's bathroom to weigh in and then I get there and see no nice aqua scales. And I laugh.

I think of them. A lot. Then I tell myself that after 4 weeks I will get to meet them and then get to get on them and then I will see a nice substantially smaller number than the 87.9 that was our last encounter. Which somehow gets me all excited. Almost as excited as seeing these a number different than 88 even if it is just by an ickle hundred grams.

Not having scales at home makes me surprising a better eater. I have said countless times how my power takes the same two days off every week. Yes, weekends are my soft spot. Weekends are my bad dieting days. Weekends are my treasure during my working normal life. If the weekend is not a good one, I am bound to total crankiness during the week to come. I do not want to stress over the weekend. This is one of the reasons we rarely make weekend plans about places to go or people to see earlier in the week. We usually accept the few pleasurable chores we have (like shopping in the farmers' market) and we make plans for the day on the day. Usually we do not know what we will do on a Saturday night till after we wake up (between 6 - 8 pm) from our nap. And if I eat too much on a Saturday night, I can check the outcome on a Sunday morning, and then see how bad I can eat on a Sunday because I can always check on Monday.

This weekend I ate so well, I stunned myself. I went a bit over with some champagne on the fancy christening we went to on Sunday, but I worked out so hard on Saturday that it was justified.

I have also realised that I have substituted my obsession with the numbers on the scales with another numerical obsession, and perhaps this is why I do not miss them as much. My new obsession, as you probably have undestood by now, is the pedometer. The higher numbers I see, the more pumped I am.

And I am not too keen on the number of steps either. My most beloved number out of the steps, the aerobic steps, the calories, the km, the fat grammars burnt is the distance. I added up last week's km and I was stunned. 53.623 km!!!! (or 74.477 steps) I printed out a map of Greece with distances and I am marking with a red pen the distance from each week now, starting from last week. I want to see how many days it will take me to walk to Thessalonika (a beloved city up North) which is about 580 - 600 km distance.

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I cooked fish this morning for dinner tonight. Roasted red mullets with thyme, garlic, lemon juice, and sundried tomatoes. I am getting used to eating fish. I am not too fond of it still, but I do not hate it as much. And I froze a kilo of grapes yesterday too, which is what I am still looking forward to after the fishy dinners.

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I cooked an interesting dish on Saturday to take with me to a birthday party we were invited.

I took skinless chicken leg fillets, put them in a baking tin, and put an equal amount of the following three ingredients. Apricot marmalade, fresh lemon juice, and spicy mustard. About a cup of each, but it was a big tin for a lot of people. I used the St. Delfour marmalade which is just fruit and grape juice, no sugar added. It was very good, with a perfectly balanced taste between sour, sweet and spicy. Give it a try if you are in this kind of stuff. It is perfect with basmati rice, and the sauce gets so thick and strong, you only eat about a tsp or two at the most.

Unless you are my husband ;)