So many things seem like good ideas at their beginnings. Wallpapering the kitchen. Taking a fifty-mile bicycle trip. Writing a weekly blog post. Going on a diet. I've done the first two without suffering any lasting damage and am just starting the second pair. So far, the blog post hasn't been too much of a strain. But the diet...what was I thinking??

I conceived the idea after a reunion with some high-school friends. The 33 years since Graduation Day have been kinder to some of us than others, but the skinny kids we once were have all been replaced by tubby middle-aged men. In fact, between the four of us we've gained enough blubber to build a fifth member of the group. We all, in turn, bemoaned the passing of our svelte selves. And then the idea came to me: We'll all go on a diet together! We could all encourage each other, and just to sweeten the deal, the guy who loses the most weight will receive a nice steak dinner, paid for by the other three. It seemed like a perfect plan. The desire to outstrip the others would surely drive each of us to do our best to pare off the poundage. We all agreed to weigh ourselves on Saturday morning and report our findings to the group. Dutifully I did so, confident that in early July I'll be enjoying a medium T-bone and a pile of steak fries, courtesy of my pals.

Defeating the candy machine in the office kitchen was easy. Each day I carefully left the house without enough change to buy my mid-afternoon snack. As I walked past the machine to get to the coffee pot I could hear the siren song of the chocolate and caramel: "Terrrr-ry! We're heeeeere! Come get us! We're deliiiiiicious!!" "Not this time," I thought. "I've got a major steak in my future."

Then my wife discovered a terrific recipe for chocolate-chip cookies with pecans. Chewy, but with just the right amount of firmness. I tried resisting them; my resolve lasted for all of three seconds. Crossing the kitchen at no more than twice my normal pace, I grabbed a handful of the still-warm bundles of joy. I had the other hand in the cupboard reaching for the perfect cookie-dunking glass when my bulbous belly brushed the countertop.

"No," I said to myself. "I won't eat those cookies." Had I remembered an early psychology lesson I would have phrased that sentence differently. According to Denis Waitley, the mind can't hold the negative image of an idea. Thus, when I thought "I won't eat those cookies," the two-word negative phrase "I won't" was immediately truncated; all that remained was "EAT THOSE COOKIES!" And so I did. Fortunately some small seed of self-control blew in from somewhere; there are still cookies in the jar, which I would not have guaranteed would be true had you asked me about them that evening.

The same thing happened later that week. My wife went to a meeting so I was on my own to forage for dinner. As I drove home from work I remembered a bag of lettuce in the fridge which, when combined with some thin-sliced ham and some lowfat cheese and dressing, would have made a perfectly good late-evening meal. As I approached a certain fast-food restaurant I fantasized about a nice big baked potato with bacon and cheese. I savored the idea of gobbling the cheese, the kind that goes straight to your coronary arteries. "That's not what I need right now," I thought as I changed lanes. Once again, the negative "That's not" dropped off and all my mind heard was "WHAT I NEED RIGHT NOW." I came to my senses holding an empty shake cup, with bits of bacon on my shirt.

Friday dawned, and with it the realization that the next day I would report my new weight to the guys. About then I found that one part of me had not changed at all since high school: I still waited until a project was due and then threw something together at the last minute and hoped for a miracle. I had a bowl of soup for lunch and a Caesar salad with a diet pop for dinner. "There," I thought, "that should clean the tarnish off my halo."

Saturday morning, before breakfast, I stripped to my shorts and t-shirt (it's not a pretty picture, don't attempt it) and stepped on the scale. The dial spun up madly; I held my breath, partly out of fear and partly because it was the only way to hold my gut in. The dial started back down, oscillated madly for a second, and then came to rest...on 225. I was up one pound for the week!

Glumly I stepped off the scale, remembering another lesson from ninth grade: If you goof off and then try to cram at the last minute your grade will be far less than desirable.

So today I resolve to start fresh. The weather's warming up so doing yard work and walking will be much more appealing. And I think I'll carry salad fixings for lunch. Things will be different this week; I won't keep gorging myself.