Dear Jac,

I’m trying to buy an engagement ring for my girlfriend and there are too many options. I went to the store and said “I’d like to get a traditional engagement ring” thinking that the jeweler would show me a few options and I’d pick my favourite.

They have cases of engagement rings, and that’s just one store! I’ve been shopping around and nothing is jumping out at me as “the one.” Maybe I’m afraid to buy her the wrong one. So many rings are beautiful, how do I know what will make her happy?

Totally confused,

Diamond in the Rough

Hello Diamond!

I’m sure she’ll be happy no matter what you come home with, but I’d be happy to give you some tips.

First off, you need to know whether she prefers white gold or yellow gold, just take a look through her jewellery box and see what she has more of. While you’re there, find a ring that she wears on her third finger (“the ring” finger) and measure it using your own finger just to get a good sense of the size.

Second, what kind of cut does she like? There are plenty of options for this as well, so if you don’t know, maybe you should ask her, or her closest friend. My mother was super helpful when it came time to my husband finding the perfect ring, and I had no idea what was going on.

Once you know the size, cut, and colour of band you can head to the jewelers. When it comes to diamond shopping there are four things you should understand, it’s the 4-C rule.

The carat is the weight of the diamond. Generally speaking, the higher the carat, the more expensive.

The clarity is self-explanatory. If the diamond is flawless (FL on the grading system), it’s value is higher than that of an imperfect (I on the grading system) diamond. Think of ‘clarity’ as clear, or crack-free.

The colour is also important when selecting the right diamond. It’s graded alphabetically starting with ‘D’ for colourless. The further down you go in the alphabet, the more colour the diamond will have. As far as I’m aware, the higher up in the alphabet, the greater the value of the diamond. I’ve been told D-F is a safe diamond colour to purchase for engagement rings.

Lastly the cut, it’s also the most difficult to explain. Basically it refers to the way the light reflects through the diamond. The better the cut, the more light it reflects. Though I’m not sure that is the best way to describe it.

It’s the 4-C rule that help you to determine if you’re getting the most bang for your buck. For more information click on the pictures throughout the post. I found several links really helpful as they give far more details on each of the ‘Cs’ mentioned above.

The best diamonds are therefore large carats, flawless, colourless, cut to perfection, and very, VERY expensive. But what the engagement ring symbolizes is priceless. I’m sure that your future wife will be happy with whatever you select. As long as you are happy with your final purchase, I’m sure she will be too!

Congratulations in advance,

Jac

Dear Jac,

I have been with my boyfriend for 5 years now, but this last year has been extremely stressful. We are only living off of one income right now, my income, and it just hardly gets us by.

My boyfriend is “working” for his cousin who barely ever pays him. For example, my boyfriend worked 9 hours a day, five days a week for 3 weeks and he only got paid $120. I was livid, of course not at my boyfriend, at his cousin. Whenever I tell my boyfriend to say something, he says “I’ve tried” or “easier said then done.”

It has come to the point now where we can’t even talk about his work because it ends in a huge argument. I have turned to my parents many times for help, and they aren’t always happy about it, but they always help. They have helped with car payments, medical payments and miscellaneous things.

Because I run my own business (I dog groom at my house), by the time I pay my business needs and a few bills, we have little to no money for the rest of the week. My boyfriend also has child support that he is now behind in.

Anyways, the stress of all this is tearing us apart. I sometimes think I can’t take it anymore, and I just want to be back to my old self. I am only 22, and I feel like I am in a situation far too hard for me to take care of at my age. It is taking a toll on my health and his, and we don’t get much sleep anymore. We don’t want to be a victim to this recession but it looks like that is already happening. Can we make it?? Because I just don’t know anymore.

Sincerely,

C. B.

Dear C. B,

This one is tough. If you’re asking me whether or not to leave him, I can’t answer that. If you’re asking whether or not he’s worth the stress, I don’t think anyone has that answer.

If you replace the word “cousin” with “client” or “PayPal” (don’t even get me started on PayPal), you pretty much describe all of the arguments in my home as well, so I completely understand your frustrations.

When it comes to relationships we’re always told to pick our battles, but when it comes to finances I really feel the battle should be fought every time. It’s not fair for one person to contribute the entire income unless you can afford to do so. But in this day and age, that’s nearly impossible. Due to the recession, this seems to be happening more and more often sadly. Your boyfriend at least is in a position where he can get side work from his cheap cousin.

The argument is important enough to be had, I can’t stress this enough. There is no folding. You are borrowing from your parents and he is behind in child support. Between the two of you, you are unable to make ends meet. Something needs to be changed and the obvious fix begins at the cousin.

If it were me in the situation (and believe me, I’ve already done this), I would tell the boyfriend that he has two choices, either he gets more money from the cousin, or he works less. If the cousin needs his help that badly then he has to pay. Seriously, has he done the math? The cousin paid $0.88/hour!!!

Hardly seems worth it for that much, he’s better off not working at all. He could have spent those weeks looking for an actual job. In this weather, he can mow lawns and make more than what the cousin is offering.

Money is the hardest thing to overcome, and it’s the biggest stress factor in all relationships. If you can get through this, you can get through anything. But you should never lose yourself, or try not to.

Try to look at the relationship from the outside, or picture your closest friend asking for your advice. Would you tell them to stick it out? Ask yourself if you are the same person you always were, or at least the person you want to be. If the financial stress was gone would you be questioning your relationship? Have you learned something about your boyfriend’s priorities that question your future?

The best question to ask yourself, and possibly the hardest, if the two of you were to break up, what would you miss? Would you miss him, or just the comfort of having a boyfriend?

Because you are right. You are young and there is plenty of time. Be selfish. Take time for yourself and figure out your needs and wants. I’m not suggesting that you have to break up with him in order to find yourself, that’s entirely your call.

But if you’re not happy, then something has to change. Surely he’s not happy either. So sit down and have ‘the talk’. Figure out what has to change, because something does. Tell him to start looking for a job that pays $1/hour because I bet you he’d tell you that you are ridiculous, until you point out that it’s more than he makes now.

Don’t be afraid to take chances, because as cliché as it is, you can’t make someone else  happy if you’re not happy yourself.

Best of luck to you, honey. It’s not easy, but the best things in life never are.

Disclaimer: Jac Star is not a trained or qualified psychiatrist, although she does read a lot of books. The advice given here should not be substituted for professional counseling. Mainly because it’s free. And professional advice usually isn’t. If you have a question you’d like Jac to answer, please email her with the topic “Dear Jac” and she will try her best to offer you her worldly advice. Hopefully.

Dear Jac,

My boyfriend is in a band, he’s the lead singer. This is how we met. I saw him perform at some local venue, heard his voice and fell in love.

Anyways, we’ve been dating for a few years now and I actually wrote him a song!
It’s taken me a while to get it done perfectly and now it’s definitely presentable. He has no idea.

The problem is that I’m not a singer (I’m tone deaf), I don’t play any instruments (no rhythm), and I’m musically challenged. I can’t perform this song. What can I do? I really want him to hear it. I’d prefer it to be a live performance so that he can be mesmerized the way I was with him when we met.

Musically useless,

Susie Q

Hey Susie Q,

First, well done! It’s not an easy thing to write a song, so congrats to you. You do have some options yet.

My first recommendation is talking to your boyfriend’s band. They might know someone else who can sing and put the song together for you. On a night when your boyfriend and his band set out to play, they could nicely ask him to stand down for one song and call a ‘guest singer’ for their next number. Voila. Your boyfriend gets his song sung and is totally surprised.

If it’s not their style of music, they may be able to recommend another band or artist who would do that for you. I find that the music folk stick together. Everybody knows somebody.

You could also have it recorded and just play him the song. Again, you’d have to find someone in the music biz for that. You could ask your boyfriend the steps in becoming a recording artist. He could give lots of little tips without having any idea that you have a song in the making.

And if you’re truly just not ready (this is probably your baby), you could always just hand over the music to your boyfriend and let him do what he wants with it. That’s not a bad option either. It’s private, it’s romantic, and it’s probably less stressful on you.

Let me know how it turns out!

Best of luck,

Jac

• Disclaimer: Jac Star is not a trained or qualified psychiatrist, although she does read a lot of books. The advice given here should not be substituted for professional counseling. Mainly because it’s free. And professional advice usually isn’t. If you have a question you’d like Jac to answer, please email her with the topic “Dear Jac” and she will try her best to offer you her worldly advice. Hopefully.

Dear Jac,

Right now I’m in a low spot of my life, so to speak.  Things have been very stressful with school work and residual work from my old job, applying to and being rejected from grad schools, and most recently my grandfather’s cancer diagnosis.

He has lung cancer that has spread to his lymph nodes, kidney, and bones.  He was given six months in February.  Add on top of all of that the occasional relationship and family stresses, and needless to say life just kind of sucks right now.

There is one friend of mine that I talk to on a fairly regular basis via the interweb.  We started talking more so this year when she decided to apply to law schools on a whim after I had started to prepare my applications (I’ve planned on being a lawyer since I was 10 years old, just to put it into perspective).

It has been constant badgering ever since – constantly flooded with questions about the application and the LSAT.  After the applications were due it became about the personal statements we had written (she wanted to exchange them, and I obliged) and still the LSAT.  Once early offers were being sent out, I would continuously get messages about so-and-so who just got in and whats-her-face who got rejected.

I had to tell her to stop because I really didn’t care one way or the other about who’s getting accepted while I’m either being rejected or not hearing anything.  She took it okay, and has since stopped.

But now she’s latched on to something else.  Do you want to take a guess?  Yes, my current life situation.  Ever since I told her about my grandpa, it’s been non-stop questions about me.  Every single day I get the MSN message asking “How are you doing today?” or “How is life treating you today?” or “How are you feeling?”.  Every single day.

How the hell does she think I’m feeling?  It’s not like my grandfather is going to miraculously go into remission over night.  It’s not as if the remainder of my stress is going to disappear either.  Even if it did, there’s still going to be a dark cloud over everything for at least the next six months.  I know she means well and is just really concerned, but it’s honestly becoming too much.

I don’t need a constant reminder in the form of a question of how sucky things are right now.  I had no problem telling her to stop talking about the law school nonsense (actually, I did…I put up with it for a while before I finally said something), but considering this is so personal and know she has the best of intentions I don’t want to be rude and say “Back off and leave me alone”.  I really do appreciate her concern, her thoughts, and her prayers, but it’s not going to help me to be overwhelmed by it all.

I also don’t think it’s too hard to sit back and think “Could her situation really have changed all that much since yesterday?  No, probably not.” and thus NOT ask me about it.  I’ve started barely talking to her, giving her the one word answers.  She called me on it the other day, and then pressed even further as to how I was doing.  I lied to her and told her I was busy.

She said that she doesn’t want to be a nuisance, so I can just tell her if I want to be left alone.  She says that, but I’m pretty sure she wouldn’t take it very kindly if I told her to leave me alone – I wouldn’t blame her.  At this point, I’ve basically started ignoring her messages and pretending like I’m not around.

Is there any way I can tell her that her overabundant concern is the opposite of helpful?  I really don’t want to hurt her feelings, but I’m starting to get so annoyed with it that I don’t think I can take much more of it.

Thanks!

Signed,

Treading Carefully

Dear Treading Carefully,

First and foremost, I’m sorry to hear about your grandfather. On it’s own, the school thing is a stressful time and I can’t imagine walking in your shoes these days. Hang in there is my advice to you. Take some deep breaths, lock yourself in a bedroom and jump on the bed. Listen to some loud music and have a dance party for one. It might feel good to release some of that anxiety. If nothing else, it will at least tire you out and you’ll have a good night sleep and prepare yourself for yet another day.

As for your friends, try to keep in mind that they mean well. For me, when I was going through my tough times, I felt like the common phrase was “things happen for a reason” and that made me even more frustrated. At this point, I don’t care what the reason is, nor do I want to know why these things are happening. I just want to move on.

You focus on you. Don’t think about anything else. Don’t think about the people that get on your nerves or the reasons why they are applying to schools. It’s fueling your rage. Law school is and has been your dream for quite some time so it means a lot. If your friend is anything like me, well I like to change it up. My attitude would be ‘if law school doesn’t work out, then I’ll try something different’ and I’d try not to let it give me any extra stress.

When your friend asks you about how you are, keep on with the one word answers. But you have to keep going. Reverse the conversation. Whatever you do, don’t bring up law school, because it doesn’t matter if the topic is on you or her, it’s only going to upset you.

Here are some good tangent examples “I’m alright, hey do you have any good chocolate cake recipes?” Then you guys can talk about chocolate cake for a bit. If and when the subject comes back to you, then you just give another tangent “I’m looking for a good book to read, any suggestions?”

Then before she can ask you something else, ask her about herself. Something you know will get her talking. Again, avoid school. If the conversation comes back to you again, this is when you get to be straightforward “hey, I don’t really want to talk about things. They aren’t getting better and talking about them is only making it worse.” If that still doesn’t work then give her the good ol’ BLOCK.

It is ok to be completely selfish from time to time. These are those times. You take care of yourself, and you take care of your Grandpa, the way you know how.

Oh oh, and take up boxing.

Good luck with Law school, when I get sued for poor advice, can I come to you?

• Disclaimer: Jac Star is not a trained or qualified psychiatrist, although she does read a lot of books. The advice given here should not be substituted for professional counseling. Mainly because it’s free. And professional advice usually isn’t. If you have a question you’d like Jac to answer, please email her with the topic “Dear Jac” and she will try her best to offer you her worldly advice. Hopefully.

If you enjoyed this post, please feel free to leave a comment and subscribe to my feed or by email to receive the latest Dear Jac updates.

Dear Jac,

Why?

Well this is an excellent question, Strange One. I believe it can best be answered by breaking it down into parts. First, we need to ask ourselves “who’ as this is the easiest to answer. This question can also be posed as “whom” but there are rules to this. It’s completely objective, for example, it should be used instead of ‘who’ as the object of a verb or preposition.

But then this only brings us back to ‘who’.  The Who is a band formed in 1964. They are legendary. For a brief history on the band click here. This fully answers ‘who’ but we are now asking ourselves ‘what’.

‘What’ is far more complicated than ‘who’. ‘What’ inevitably leads to ‘what if’ and this is a vicious cycle. Any ‘what if’ can be summed in parts with ‘because’. So when in doubt, the answer is always ‘because’. ‘Because’ may lead us back to the original question ‘why’ but we’re still not ready to answer this yet. We still have yet to discuss ‘where’.

‘Where’ is a place. It could be a place where everyone knows your name, but it doesn’t always have to be. Nor does it have to be that complicated. The easiest way to complete the question is with the standard ‘over there’ response. This can lead to the next question, ‘when’.

‘When’ refers to time. Time on a grand scale is indefinite. There is a past, a present, and a future, and time refers to all. So pick your favourite based on the mood of the hour. If asked ‘when’ you can respond with things like ‘now’ or ‘later’ or ‘never’ you can’t go wrong here.

‘How’? Well this is difficult. ‘How’ as an adverb usually refers to the extent or amount or degree of something, such as “how many peanuts in the jar?” ‘How’ can also be referring to a manner or means, such as “How did you do that?” An intensive form of ‘how’ is ‘however.’ I like to use this one a lot as it acts as a counter, and a good segue. This, however, leads us away from the original question. It’s a tangent, if you will.

You will need to look at these answers collectively to solve your riddle of ‘why’.
So in summary:
Who: Anyone, but known historically as a band.
What: What If: Because or ‘Meh’ (Slang for ‘whatever’)
Where: Over there
When: Now (or any other time)
How: Tangent

Now that you have your answer, I’d like to pose a question to you, oh Strange One.

To you, I ask ‘Why not’?

• Disclaimer: Jac Star is not a trained or qualified psychiatrist, although she does read a lot of books. The advice given here should not be substituted for professional counseling. Mainly because it’s free. And professional advice usually isn’t. If you have a question you’d like Jac to answer, please email her with the topic “Dear Jac” and she will try her best to offer you her worldly advice. Hopefully.

If you enjoyed this post, please feel free to leave a comment and subscribe to my feed or by email to receive the latest Dear Jac updates.

Dear Jac,

I’d like to get something really nice for my girlfriend for her birthday. We’ve been together for 8 months now and for every occasion I seem to get things wrong.

In November, we passed a jewelry store and she saw this diamond necklace that she absolutely loved. I bought it for her for Christmas. Apparently she was eyeing the white gold one, not the yellow gold. She cried and said I didn’t know her well at all.

I told her I’d exchange it but then she cried harder saying that I don’t understand what she wants. She basically gave me the silent treatment until I bought her the white gold, diamond necklace. This was in addition to the original one, because I didn’t want to ask her to part with it. She was wearing it after all.

For Valentines Day, I surprised her with romance. A nice, home-cooked, candlelit dinner, and a table decorated with rose pedals. I gave her a dozen red roses, and a pair of earrings to match the necklace. White gold, I remembered this time.

Well she complained about the dinner saying it was dry and overcooked, and about the roses saying that long-stem says ‘I love you’ better than the average rose, and I’m now forcing her to choose the white gold necklace over the yellow gold, because of the earrings. I should have got her earrings to match both necklaces that way she’d have a choice.

Her birthday is in 2 weeks, what do I do?

Thanks,

Dave

Hello Dave,

I really think you should be spending less on jewelry and start saving for that surgery. You know, the spine replacement surgery? What happened to you? How are you able to get out of bed every day, without a backbone to hold you upright?

I’m not sure that Hallmark makes suitable birthday cards for this girlfriend of yours so I recommend you write your own. It should go something like this:

“For your birthday, I got you nothing. You are undeserving and ungrateful and there are plenty of fish in the sea. I’m moving on. I want someone who appreciates me and won’t take advantage of my kindness. Find someone else to walk all over. Move on.”

Hopefully she throws the jewelry back at you and you can return it. Or re-gift it. I bet your mom would like a new necklace. She’d probably say “Dave, it’s beautiful” because that’s what any normal human would say.

Get over it. Tell your friends, if you have any left. You’ll all drink and make fun of the wench. Then they’ll help you find a real woman. If not, well I’m sure I can hook you up.

Email me when you get your spine back and we’ll talk.

Jac

• Disclaimer: Jac Star is not a trained or qualified psychiatrist, although she does read a lot of books. The advice given here should not be substituted for professional counseling. Mainly because it’s free. And professional advice usually isn’t. If you have a question you’d like Jac to answer, please email her with the topic “Dear Jac” and she will try her best to offer you her worldly advice. Hopefully.

If you enjoyed this post, please feel free to leave a comment and subscribe to my feed or by email to receive the latest Dear Jac updates.

Dear Jac,

I have this ‘special’ friend who annoys me to tears. I’ll explain the extent of our friendship first. We’ve been working together for 3+ years, we don’t hang out outside of work, except that one time that we went out for drinks. One time. We do have chatty lunches and I’d like to think we’ve bonded over time. He tells me all his stories, financial difficulties, bad breakups etc. When I can get a word in, I feel it’s safe to tell him my stories as well.

Any ways, a few years ago he met this guy, and he thinks he’s the one. I hate the guy. My friend talks nonstop about his new boyfriend and he let him move in right away! He probably doesn’t even know his last name yet but hey, why don’t you move in to my place? That’s just not right. The boyfriend doesn’t work. He can’t hold a job. He doesn’t even look for a job. He knows he’s set because my friend is the ‘sugar daddy.’ My friend even bought him a car!

This boyfriend is so clearly using my friend and there is nothing I can do about it. My friend continues to talk about how bad the relationship can get without a second income and with the boyfriend been caught cheating and so forth.

I’ve been listening to this on again off again crap for over two years. And I can’t say one negative word about the bad boyfriend because he’s always allowed back into the house. I’ve seen my friend cut out all of his other friendships because they don’t like the boyfriend. But this guy is a total loser!

How can I get my friend not to talk to me about him anymore. I just can’t handle another word.

Thanks,

Grace (Will and Grace, get it? Lol ok just put ‘Anonymous’)

Hello Anonymous Grace!

I’ve learned to cast out the drama queens. They’re not worth the effort involved. Ever. It’s always about them. Everyone goes through periods where they need their friends but this guy doesn’t seem to get out of that period. You’ve known him how long? And either this entire time he’s been dating the freeloader, or he just started after the two of you met. Your friend is always about himself. He clearly doesn’t care about his friends as he dumps them all for his low-life boyfriend.

The guy needs a good slap in the face, if you ask me. I don’t expect you to do this, but if it were me, I’d try to figure out a way to work that into casual conversation. “Hey, let’s meet by the water cooler in 5 minutes, OK?” *SMACK* He’s so self-involved he probably wouldn’t notice.

Or hey, you can say “my car ran out of gas, can I have yours?” Your friend is ridiculous. Letting himself be walked on like that, I’d jump on board. “Hey I forgot my lunch, can you buy me that big red lobster, I’m hungry.”

If you’re not as cruel and physical as me, you might prefer a more subtle approach. I suggest diverting the conversation. Always. When he asks you about your day, or your weekend, do not answer. This is a trick question. He doesn’t care. He wants to talk about his. So give the standard “good.” But never finish with “and yours?” This will be a hard habit to break. If you can’t figure out how to do it, don’t answer the question at all.

Or answer it with a question in your own distraction. For example, don’t make eye contact and try a question like “does this shirt look ok? I got dressed in the dark today.” This is a good one because a statement comes at the end. He’s not obligated to answer the question and you can sit in silence after. Silence is peaceful.

Don’t sit with him for lunch anymore. Always be conveniently busy. Eventually he’ll find a new friend. He’s so consumed with himself he probably won’t notice. It will be one of those things where in a few months, you’ll bump into him in the hallway and he’ll look at you like you’re a complete stranger who he has never seen before.

Life is too short for the unnecessary drama. Your friend chooses to be with this cheating, low-life, freeloader. No one needs friends like that.

• Disclaimer: Jac Star is not a trained or qualified psychiatrist, although she does read a lot of books. The advice given here should not be substituted for professional counseling. Mainly because it’s free. And professional advice usually isn’t. If you have a question you’d like Jac to answer, please email her with the topic “Dear Jac” and she will try her best to offer you her worldly advice. Hopefully.

If you enjoyed this post, please feel free to leave a comment and subscribe to my feed or by email to receive the latest updates.

Dear Jac,

I’m struggling to lose weight and I’ve tried everything aside from surgery. I’ve tried the cabbage soup diet, the no-carb diet, even some of the ‘pill’ diets, but alas nothing works.

Is there anything you can suggest that won’t cost me a fortune?

Thanks,

Sue

Hello Sue!

Ah, this is a great question. I also struggle with my weight. I lost 25 pounds for my wedding by going on the Bernstein diet. Let me tell you about this diet, it costs a fortune, the doctors and nurses were quite rude (to me anyways) and I basically had to starve myself. So sure, the diet worked, but I was a vegetarian before the diet and once I was off I craved a burger like nobody’s business.

I now eat red meat on occasion and have gained all the weight back. It was a waste of money, yes, but I looked fantastic for my wedding so I guess that’s what counts.

I’ve seen other people go on the lettuce and ice cube diet. That’s exactly how it sounds. Ridiculous. I’ve seen one guy eat a soda cracker and pass on the second one because he’d had his fill for the day.

If it were up to me, weight would not be important. I don’t even care about the weight I’ve gained back. I’m not disappointed in the least. I eat what I want, when I want and I’m happy. Life is too short to waste all the good food. So live life, be merry, and eat what you want.

But this is probably not what you want to hear. So let me tell you what has worked for me in the past.

1. Substitute healthy foods for non-healthy foods. Convince yourself that you are eating chocolate when you are really eating celery.


2. Eat smaller portions and more frequently. Instead of eating 3 big meals, try to have 6 smaller ones. Or keep your 3 big meals as big and healthy, but make sure you have a snack in between the meals. Eggs (egg whites-only if you want to be really healthy), raw vegetables, and baked (not chocolate covered) almonds are good snacking foods. You really should be consuming food every couple hours. Keep it nice and light. Starvation doesn’t work.


3. Drink lots of water. You’re supposed to drink something like 8 cups per day. If you drink a cup of water with your snack and two cups with your meal, this is an easy feat.


4. If you are one of those people that eat food before you go to bed, that needs to stop. Set yourself a time, and don’t eat anything past that time. Say 8pm as an example. If you’re hungry past that time, drink water. If that doesn’t work, have Jell-O. Check the ingredients on the box, Jell-O is actually flavoured water so you can trick yourself into thinking you’re eating when you aren’t. Celery and cucumbers work that way too.


5. Most importantly, the cardinal rule: everything in moderation. Allow yourself that chocolate bar every once in a while. You need to reward yourself for good behaviour.

Exercise is good too. But I hate exercise. Try getting up and walking around for a while. Get yourself outside for at least 30 minutes a day. Maybe you’ll start running after a while, but I never did. Maybe you’ll increase your 30 minutes to 1 hour. I did that a few times.

I also think it’s best not to say the ‘diet’ word. You never need to say “I’m on a diet” you can say “I’m eating healthy today” instead. Don’t worry about the next few days, just today. I had a friend who quit smoking that way. She didn’t say “I’m quitting smoking” she said “I am not having a cigarette today.” She did this every day until she could finally find it safe to say “I’ve quit.”

There is no carry-over rule. If you tell yourself you get one treat or ‘cheat’ per week you stick to it. If you were good this week, that doesn’t mean you get two next week. Just like the opposite is true. If you have two treats this week, because of a slip up, that doesn’t mean you punish yourself next week. The minute you start punishing yourself, the more frequent the slip ups will be and there goes your “weight loss” plan. Just be confident. Stay positive.

You’ll start to feel better for sure. And that’s what counts. Don’t check the scales, don’t get out the measuring tape. These things are numbers and numbers are irrelevant.

The healthier you eat, and the more active you are, the better you will feel. Feeling good is what is important, the number on the scale is meaningless.

• Disclaimer: Jac Star is not a trained or qualified psychiatrist, although she does read a lot of books. The advice given here should not be substituted for professional counseling. Mainly because it’s free. And professional advice usually isn’t. If you have a question you’d like Jac to answer, please email her with the topic “Dear Jac” and she will try her best to offer you her worldly advice. Hopefully.

If you enjoyed this post, please feel free to leave a comment and subscribe to my feed or by email to receive the latest updates.

Dear Jac,

My wife and I are trying to get pregnant. We’ve ‘tried’ only once since this decision and she’s convinced it’s happened. Please explain to her that you can’t get pregnant after just the one time. She loves your blog, I know she’ll listen to you.

Sincerely yours,

TK

Dear TK,

Congratulations on the big decision. Although the odds are against you getting it right the first time, it is not impossible. You know that week in junior high when they change gym class to health class? I’m not sure if you missed that week, but they explain it only takes once.

Even condoms aren’t 100% effective. I’ve known people who use a condom and birth control and still got pregnant. I also know someone who got pregnant despite the fact that her partner ‘pulled out’ prior to.

So anything is possible. Did you attend all of your math classes? How about the lesson on probability? She either is pregnant, or isn’t. There’s a 50/50 chance. Take the test. Take it a second time a week later, if you don’t trust the results. Or go to the doctor.

She may not be pregnant, but avoiding the test leaves everyone unsatisfied. And keep trying tiger – at least the process is fun.

Jac

Oh, and say hi from me – thanks for reading!

• Disclaimer: Jac Star is not a trained or qualified psychiatrist, although she does read a lot of books. The advice given here should not be substituted for professional counseling. Mainly because it’s free. And professional advice usually isn’t. If you have a question you’d like Jac to answer, please email her with the topic “Dear Jac” and she will try her best to offer you her worldly advice. Hopefully.

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