I've never tried any of the bead diets that Stacy mentioned in her blog on Monday, but I have been trying to lose weight the Jenny Craig way since the fall and I am happy to say I hit my 20-pound goal today. I'm happy and relieved because I was beginning to fatigue of the whole process (though I'm happy that I went this route. It gave me the structure I needed).

I was beginning to feel so sorry for myself that I put the Webkinz competition I'm involved in (with my niece) on hold. You see, every day I was signing on to my Webkinz site to visit my virtual panda and hunt for gems. I'm proud to say I'm was trying my best to beat a 9-year-old to the legendary Crown of Wonder. Everyday when I entered the site and visited the panda, the Web site gave the panda some food. I realized that my virtual pal was eating better than I was. The day he got a plate of cannoli was the last straw.

Now that I've reached my goal, I'm not going to go out and binge on cannoli, but I can face to the virtual treats again. The panda got a strawberry kiwi smoothie today and I only found slag, but we're both happy.

By the way, has anybody actually seen the legendary Crown of Wonder? I'm worried that I'm going to spend more time tracking down these gem than it took me to lose 20 pounds and it'll turn out to be lame (OK, I realize doing this flirts with lameness as it is).

PS: I do plan to make myself a bead post-diet bracelet to represent the pounds gone and to remind myself that I don't want them back — on memory wire to make sure they stay just a memory.