NOTE: The Diary will return with a vengeance in two weeks. It's been a while, and I've got stories to tell! In the meantime, take a gander at this and commit it to memory in time for next week's food avalanche!

Well, I'm sitting 2.4 pounds shy of my 100, having battled through my "pity week" and then a week up in Minnesota for training, during which I was dragged kicking and screaming into several bars and restaurants. I'll admit that there were some, er, fluctuations in my weight, but the fact that I'm closer now to my goal at the end of all of it shows that I've still got my eyes on the prize, as it were.

And it's in that vein that I come to you this week to talk about a holiday that most dieters treat with fear and loathing: Thanksgiving. It's that holiday devoted to food (OK, and family, too, but mostly food), and not the kind of food that Jenny Craig or any of the rest are going to sanction. Many a diet has been lost, buried under an avalanche of sweet potato casserole or drowned in gallons of delicious giblet gravy. Hmm ... that sounds like a cause of death I could get behind. "Scott Wilson was found today in the kitchen, apparently drowned in a vat of delicious giblet gravy." It's like the old joke about the man who fell into the beer vat and tried to drink his way to freedom.

Sorry, I got a little off track there. Giblet gravy does that to me, you know; as do pretty much all Thanksgiving foods.

I remember back in high school, one year my father decided to try and make a Weight Watchers Thanksgiving dinner. Now, WW cooking has come a long way since then, and I mean no insult to the fine folks writing recipes for them, but that was one nasty meal. I remember dry turkey without gravy, some sort of green beans with a peanut butter sauce, cranberry relish made with whole berries and artificial sweetener and a just flat awful pumpkin tart creation that managed to neither look, smell nor taste anything like pumpkin pie whatsoever.

If anything, it's a meal like that that would put me off a diet. It's depressing. It leads one into thoughts that food will never be any fun again while you're dieting, so you might as well just give up and start slamming Twinkies as fast as you can unwrap them. That's be fine, except for the minor details of dying early, becoming a diabetic, having high blood pressure, being consumed with self-loathing, etc.

So, dear fellow travelers on the weight-loss journey, we need to come to a compromise. Far be it from me to stand in the way of any of you planning a lower-impact Thanksgiving meal. By all means, enjoy your salad and other sensible items. Carefully carve out 1/16 of a pumpkin pie. Use fat-free whipped topping. Honestly, if you can be content with that, I applaud you!

I, however, will be eating. I will carve the turkey and, with my pal Laurent, eat as much of the skin as we can possibly cram into our mouths during the process. We refer to Thanksgiving as Turkey Skin Day on occasion. I will enjoy as much of the Magical Starch Trio of cornbread dressing, mashed potatoes and sweet potato casserole as I wish. I will eat four desserts.

And I will at some point be found doing shots of gravy and have to be forcibly restrained.

And then, when my guests leave, the leftovers of everything that's not diet-legal for me will go home with them and their three daughters, all of whom are at that stage of young life where food is burned off almost before it's eaten. On Friday, I will wedge myself onto my bike and ride as far as my legs will allow, then tackle several yard projects I've got in mind that should get me a good start on burning off my one-day indulgence.

And that's what it is, folks: one day. You have to gauge for yourself how to handle it. The way my own mind works, devious brick of evil that it is, if I go "light" on Thanksgiving, I'll rationalize every cookie, slice of pie and sausage ball between now and Super Bowl Sunday by saying, "At least I was good on Thanksgiving!" Guess how many more calories that will net me than my one-day splurge?

No, I am going to cook and eat all those wonderful dishes, both the ones from my youth and the ones I've come upon myself in later years, and enjoy every single bite guilt-free. On Saturday, if the scale shows a gain, I'll just buckle back down and take it off, knowing I've got a long road ahead.

So, dear readers, consider this your permission slip. You have my permission to enjoy your Thanksgiving in whatever form it takes, to eat whatever you wish and immerse yourself fully in the glories of the day.

However, this slip is only good for 24 hours. On Friday, we're back on the horse, rather than trying to eat it.

I'll see you all in two weeks, and save me some turkey skin!

Got a question? Comment? Brag? Topic you'd like to see covered? Drop me a line, anytime!