Weigh Day

Monday:
Exercise: 30 min walk with Cammie
Breakfast: Before Work: 1 bite of falafel, small bowl of honey nut cheerios, 1 small raw brownie. At Work: Smoothie
Lunch: Springtime Soup, fuji apple with cinnamon
Exercise: 70 min walk with Cammie
Dinner: Salad (romaine, falafel, cucumber, tomatoes, Greek-inspired dressing)
Fuhrmometer: 8.5 eggplant/broccoli (for snacking this morning!)

My weight this morning was 220.0 which is down 5.4 pounds from last Monday. Pretty good! (Have you noticed I'm almost halfway there?)

I had a slight misstep this morning with eating before work - I wasn't even hungry. I was tired and sore from a very active weekend and the cheerios sounded really good, well they're almost stale and should be tossed. It's ok, I'm just moving on and am staying on track.

I think that last week I had too much grain. The barley in the soup at lunch and pita at dinner is just not necessary. This week I'm not going to have the pita with dinner. I'll freeze it and save it for a week where I don't have grains in my soup.

booty

Sunday:
Breakfast: Smoothie (spinach, cherries, banana, cocoa powder, flax, water)
Exercise: Mowed the lawn,30 min walk with Cammie, 30 min Cardio workout (Y!F); 15 min Yoga (Y!F)
Lunch: Salad (romaine, falafel, cucumber, tomatoes, homemade Greek Inspired Dressing); fuji apple sliced and sprinkled with cinnamon
Exercise: 30 min walk with Cammie
Dinner: romaine, "refried" beans, whole wheat pita; raw brownies
Fuhrmometer: 9 - Broccoli

Hubby and I went to the public market this weekend and scored some awesome deals:

$1 for this entire box of bananas! We weighed it when we got home and there were 17 pounds of bananas before we peeled and bagged them to be frozen. I think that these bananas will last for 2½ to 3 months worth of smoothies.

All this ginger – about 2 pounds - also for $1. It’s a good thing that this stuff can be frozen!

We also picked up a bushel of Fuji apples for $2, 3 bunches of green onions for $1, a big seedless cucumber for $1.25, a big container of cumin for $6.50, some garlic for $1 and other stuff that I’m forgetting. I can’t believe we didn’t go there until now, we went to a farmers market closer to our house last summer but didn’t think that there were any started up yet this year; well the public market is there all year round!

I also cooked yesterday and made some more Springtime Soup and took a stab at some ETL friendly Falafel. The falafel are ok, I think I need to tinker with the recipe some more and I’ll post it when I figure it out. I did make some dressing with chia gel which I will post soon.

Tomorrow’s another official weigh in, and I am so glad that I moved it from Sunday mornings to Monday mornings. This morning I was craving bad bad food and I have to say the only thing that kept me from having them was the knowledge that I have to post my weight tomorrow morning and I want to be happy with the number that I post.

flog!

Saturday:
Exercise: 60 min walk with Cammie, 30 min flexibility workout (Y!F)
Breakfast: Smoothie (spinach, cherries, banana, flax, cocoa)
Lunch: Romaine, "refried" beans, whole wheat pita; a couple doritos
Dinner: Springtime Soup, falafel
Fuhrmometer: Broccoli-ish (~9)

chia chia chia

Friday:
Exercise: 30 min walk with Cammie (it's rest day)
Breakfast: Smoothie (spinach, blueberries, strawberries, 1/2 banana, cocoa powder, flax, water)
Lunch: Springtime Soup with Chia Seeds
Dinner: romaine, "refried" beans, whole wheat pita; raw brownies
Fuhrmometer: 9.5 - broccoli/kale

I've been reading a lot about Chia Seeds over at the Dr.Fuhrman.com forums lately and I have to say that I'm sold. Apparently, chias are amazing. They are a good source of Omega 3 fatty acids like flax seed or hemp seed, they have the ability to absorb a ton of water and can be used in cooking as an oil analog or a flavor extender/ calorie displacer. Also, chias help keep one feeling satiated longer - do some Internet searches on them and read how Native Americans in the Southwest and Mexico used them when hunting and running and fighting etc. Nutritious, filling and fun/useful in the ETL kitchen. I had to get myself some!

Luckily my local HFS carried them so I got myself some today to play with. Since right now chias aren't as popular as flax and hemp, they are much more expensive than their counterparts, so I think that I'll be using them primairily to cook with rather than for my daily EFA's. I'm really interested in trying to make some salad dressings with Chia Gel, which I think I'll take a stab at this weekend.

Tonight is our *super fun* (read - not super fun at all) networking thing for work. It's at an italian restaraunt and I know I don't want to eat anything while I'm there so I sprinkled some chias on my soup to help keep me feeling full until I can get home and eat my salad. I'll let you know how that turns out.

artichoke happiness

Thursday:
Exercise: 30 min walk with Cammie, 30 min Core workout (Yourself!Fitness)
Breakfast: Smoothie (spinach, blueberries, strawberries, banana, flax, water)
Lunch: Springtime Soup
Dinner: Doritos, romaine with "refried" beans, whole wheat pita, raw brownies
Fuhrmometer: 8 - Eggplant

Yesterday was a good day in the sense that I stayed on plan, but I think that skipping breakfast and eating lunch earlier than normal and then a normal timed dinner kind of threw my body off a little bit. I was so tired this morning and had an entire internal dialogue about getting up to workout. First it was I'll just take today as my rest day, then I'll just take Cammie for a walk, then I'll take Cammie for a walk and do my core workout since I like them. I'm glad that I did get up and work out but I was still so tired. When I came downstairs after showering and getting dressed for work hubby said "You look tired" "I am" I said "But you also look thinner" He said. So it's worth it.

Work was grueling today until I had my soup and now I feel much better. Tonight after work we are going shopping for a suit jacket for me to wear to a work function tomorrow night, I'm looking forward to it. I'm also looking forward to a few weeks down the line when I'll be able to go shopping for a dress to wear to graduation (not mine, for the students at the college I work at). Fun!

Wednesday:
Exercise: 30 min walk with Cammie, 30 min Upper Body Workout (Y!F), 30 min treadmill
First Meal: (12:15ish) Oriental Salad - romaine, scallions, mandarin oranges, walnuts, cucumber with Ginger Sesame Dressing on the side.
Second Meal: (7:30ish) Romaine with "refried" beans, whole wheat pita, raw brownies
Fuhrmometer: 9 - Broccoli... I think

Since today is Administrative Professionals Day, our small office took our two admins to lunch at a very nice upscale restaraunt. My salad was great; they kindly substituted the crushed walnuts for chinese noodles for me and the waiter sent back my salad because they didn't put the dressing on the side before it even got to me. I dipped my fork into the dressing before stabbing at my veggies so I only had enough for what I needed. The dressing wasn't ideal but the rest of the salad was really great. It's something that I'd make at home - I'll have to work on a similar dressing.

This place that we went is known all over the region for its desserts. I mean; what they offer is really gourmet and generally not the type of food you would see in a smaller city like Rochester. These desserts are amazing. Everyone at the table ordered some dessert but not me! I didn't even feel bad as I sat there while everyone else ate their desserts. I know that if I wanted to I could have one (they have macaroons the size of baseballs), but would rather save it for a special occasion like my birthday or anniversary or something. Right now I feel so good about my eating, exercising, and weight loss that there is absolutely no temptation to go off plan - it's better than any dessert!

full of recipes

Tuesday:
Exercise: 30 min walk with Cammie
Breakfast: Smoothie (spinach, blueberries, strawberries, raspberries, 1/2 banana, flax, cocoa powder, water)
Lunch: Springtime Soup
Exercise: 30 min walk with Cammie, 30 min Yourself!Fitness
Dinner: "refried" beans on romaine, 1/2 homemade whole wheat pita; raw brownies
Fuhrmometer: 9.5 - Broccoli/Kale

Yesterday afternoon I found myself sitting in a classroom proctoring exams for two of my advisees and I'd finished the work I took with me to do. I'm not the type to sit there and stare off into space so I ended up doing (sort of) what I used to do in middle school when waiting for the rest of the class to finish the test; I doodled.

When I was in middle school I used to write lyrics to songs on the back of my test papers. My seventh grade history teacher thought this was very amusing and used to read them (not out loud). He was a cool guy. But this time I didn't feel like writing down lyrics to songs, I also didn't feel like drawing my dream house, which I have also been known to do. I wrote about food. I made up a recipe for soup that I am going to try out this weekend, I jotted down some ideas for salads and also some very fuzzy ideas for ETL-friendly muffins.

I thought about how frequently I like to go back and find a recipe I made and posted months ago and how it'd be so much more convenient if I had an index of links like other bloggers (Bree for example) do to make it easier to find them again. I decided that it's time for me to put together an index of recipes that I've posted too; so I created full of recipes. It only has 10 posts and 8 recipes right now; but it will grow.

Then I thought how cool it would be to make it into a community blog for all of my ETL bloggin' buddies who would like to contribute to post recipes to as well. There are ETL recipes on the member center at Dr. Fuhrman's website, and Susan V at Fat Free Vegan has a lot of great recipes too, how great would it be to have another resource for ETL friendly recipes? If anyone out there would like to contribute; let me know. If not, then it'll be my own little thing - it's cool either way!

Weigh-ins: The Return of the Scale

Monday:
Exercise: 30 min walk with Cammie, 30 min Yourself!Fitness
Breakfast: Smoothie (Spinach, Blueberries, Strawberries, Raspberries, 1/2 banana, flax, cocoa powder, water)
Lunch: 2/3 bowl Springtime Soup
Dinner: 1/3 bowl Springtime Soup, hummus and romaine in a pita; raw brownies
Fuhrmometer: 9 - Broccoli

So my weight today is the same as it was the last time I weighed in "officially" 10 days ago - 225.4. I am feeling really good about it because those 10 days were kind of turbulent, and I know I was up at least 3 pounds at one point - so even though I am kind of breaking even I know I've lost in the last few days and that's a success. I am still up a little bit from the -75 point but am confident I'll get back there in a few days and will kiss it goodbye (for bigger and better numbers) as I pass on through.

Yesterday Cammie and I were visiting my Mom & Dad and my Dad offered me some potato chips (he wasn't trying to sabotage me, just trying to be nice), I said "no thank you" without batting an eyelash. It was great! No temptation at all! Yay me!

Sunday:
Exercise: 30 min walk with Cammie, 30 min Yourself!Fitness
Breakfast: Smoothie (Spinach, Cherries, Banana, Cocoa Powder, Flax, water)
Lunch/Dinner: Romaine, Hummus, Homemade Pita
Exercise: 30 min walk with cammie
Fuhrmometer: 9.5 Broccoli/Kale

Today was a beautiful day :-)

Saturday:
Exercise: 30 min wakeup walk with Cammie, 30 min Yourself!Fitness, 30 min Treadmill
Breakfast/Lunch: Smoothie (Spinach, Cherries, 1/2 banana, flax, cocoa powder, water)
Dinner: romaine, "refried" beans, homemade salt free whole wheat pita
Fuhrmometer: 9.5 broccoli/kale

So I weigh myself every day; I know I shouldn't but I do. I think I ate pretty well yesterday with the exception of the pre-packaged salad dressing that I had on my lunch salad and I didn't get in any exercise. BUT STILL, I don't think that these things merited a gain from yesterday to today... weird!

A New Leaf

Friday:
Breakfast: Smoothie (Spinach, Kale, Blueberries, Strawberries, 1/2 banana, flax and water)
Lunch: Dole Spring Garden Salad Kit and Dole Leafy Romaine (that's TWO bags of salad!)
Dinner: Romaine with "refried" beans and scallions, homemade pita, smoothie (cherries, strawberries, kale, cocoa powder and water)
Exercise: rest day today
Fuhrmometer: 8.5 eggplant/broccoli

A phone conversation this morning between me and the hubs:

Me: I forgot my lunch today so I’m going to go to the store to get some lettuce for lunch and a couple of other things; do you want any groceries?

Hubby: (stuff he wants from the store) Yeah I thought you were going to say that you were going to go to Lori’s Natural Foods* – I see you’ve been there three times in the past three weeks.

Me: Nope, I’m turning over a new leaf.

Hubby: Promise?

Me: Yup.

…blah blah blah not important…

Hubby: Well maybe summer is your time to shine and winter is your time to maintain.

Me: We’ll see.

When I originally said “we’ll see” it was with an air of uncertainty about how well I can stick with this, given my track record of late. But one of the things that I have strived (is that a word?) to do all along is not allow myself to talk or write about my weight loss with any measure of negativity or uncertainty about my ability to succeed. Because I am succeeding and I will continue to do so. I’m choosing to give new meaning to my “we’ll see” comment and have decided that it means “we’ll see just how successful I can be, because my time to shine is all the time.”

Also – I am going to start posting every day again, even if it is just to say what I ate. If you don’t see a post from me I give you all full permission to take that as a sign that I was naughty and don’t want to fess up to it. BUT I don’t plan on that happening so no worries! I'll also be posting my weekly weigh in every Monday - gotta have added motivation to stay on track over the weekend!


*Lori's Natural Foods is the source of the tasty but not healthy wraps that I was addicted to. But not any more! Well, they will still have them but I no longer feel drawn to them like in the cartoons when a certain scent wafts around and entrances bugs bunny into floating over to whatever it might be.

crazy week

This week has been all over the place.

Monday I had a good breakfast and then tried the new stuff I made this weekend for lunch - not really awesome - and then I got the worst headache. And this was the day where it was gray and dreary outside so I just felt sleepy and lethargic in general... but anyway, I figured the headache was detox from not eating well over the weekend and that I could deal with it and I would feel better when I got to eat dinner. I went home and had my salad with beans on it for dinner along with pita bread and *ahem* pizza crusts, and the result was horrible headache getting worse compounded by nausea. Good times. Monday ended with a trip to worship the porcelain goddess and passing out at 9:30.

Tuesday I woke up and still didn't feel well and decided to stay home. I had a great smoothie for breakfast (at 11am) and felt good enough to work out. I wasn't hungry for lunch but had a nice ETL dinner and felt a lot better by the day's end.

Wednesday I got up and worked out and then I got to work and the thought of food was repulsive. I didn't drink my smoothie or eat my soup for lunch. It was the strangest thing - I wasn't hungy at all and didn't feel hungry or sick or anything. After work I went to the grocery store because I was out of lettuce and ended up getting whole grain Goldfish crackers too - and then proceeded to have them for dinner. And then later I had 2 veggie hot dogs and a couple of fries... I had been craving veggie hot dogs for a while and I was also craving ketchup for some reason. Strange. What sucks the most is that I didn't even really want the Goldfish crackers and was looking forward to my salad for dinner and while I was at the store I thought I should put them back but I didn't. If only I had a time machine.

Today I had my smoothie and soup for lunch but I also had a peice of grape pie as dessert. I will have salad with "refried" beans for dinner and am looking forward to it.

My physical and emotional feelings have been all over the place this week and it hasn't been fun. I know that if I were eating more consistently then I would feel better but then I get so frustrated that it is such a struggle for me to eat right. Sometimes I wish that hubby would ETL with me - even if it was just when he's at home. It would be comforting and fortifying to have someone in it with you.

I am getting frustrated and fed up with myself and I am starting to feel more motivated to stick with it a lot more closely. I am really sick of being stuck where I am and need the positive reinforcement of seeing the scale move. I will make it stick this time.

will it ever end?

I don't mind snow in December or January; and I can even deal with a snowy and cold Valentine's day. But so far; we haven't had ANY decent days in April - and it's depressing! Where is spring!?!

I'm glad that I have my home "gym" and have had some pretty good workouts in the past couple of days :-) I also made Curried Cashew Vegetable Soup this weekend (pics forthcoming) which has a nice, light, springtime taste - maybe if I start cooking wintery food the weather will get better?

tsk tsk tsk

Thursday:
Breakfast: standard smoothie (spinach, kale, blueberries, strawberries, 1/2 banana, flax and water)
Lunch: none
Exercise: Planned to be - 30 min Yourself!Fitness, 30 min treadmill
Dinner: Planned to be - romaine with hummus, 1/2 homemade pita; "raw brownies"
Fuhrmometer: 9 - Broccoli (if I stick with planned exercise and dinner)

I feel guilty about last night's dinner.

Although I had a decent week last week (didn't really feel like it but that's what the scale said). I'm pretty much the same today as I was last Thursday. It's SO frustrating! At the moment all I want to do is go to the HFS and pick up a really not good for me wrap and go home and NOT work out. I'm not going to do those things but it's how I feel at the moment.

I didn't eat lunch today. I wasn't hungry for it and figured I don't need the calories. I can't really decide if I chose to skip lunch truly because I wasn't hungry or if it was really because I subconsciously wanted to make-up for eating a bad dinner.

Furthermore - I can't figure out how bad I should feel about not eating the right foods. I'm torn between saying that I should just let the past be the past and work on being as good as I can right NOW and allowing myself to feel bad/guilty to reinforce the association that junk food is not worthwhile and condition myself not to want it. I suppose I'm leaning towards letting a guilty conscience make me feel bad as punishment - aren't we all our own biggest critics?

Sorry for the blah post... but I just had to get it out! Right now I'd give anything to get that motivation and resolve back that I had last summer; but I am starting to feel the same way I was - desperate to make some changes - so I'm taking that as a good sign. All I can do is do better!

so far so good

Tuesday:
Exercise: 30 min Yourself!Fitness, 30 min Treadmill
Breakfast: smoothie (spinach, kale, blueberries, strawberries, 1/2 banana, flax and water)
Lunch: Springtime Soup
Exercise: 30ish min walk with Cammie
Dinner: hummus on romaine, 1/2 homemade pita, applesauce with dates; cinnamon and lightly toasted walnuts
Fuhrmometer: 9.5 - Broccoli/Kale

Wednesday:
Exercise: 30 min Yourself!Fitness, 30 min Treadmill
Breakfast: smoothie (spinach, kale, blueberries, strawberries, 1/2 banana, flax and water)
Lunch: Springtime Soup
Exercise: 30 min walk with Cammie
Dinner: Chinese - tofu & broccoli in garlic sauce with white rice
Fuhrmometer: 7 - lentil

Well, so far I'm doing well with not taking that first bite. There has been temptation and I've almost given in a couple times but I'm happy to say that I've stayed strong. Yesterday when I got home from work & walking Cammie I really wanted a PB&J, but I didn't have it and am so happy that I didn't! For some reason I have this thing about eating at certain times, I usually have my breakfast smoothie around 10am and try not to eat lunch until at least 2, but sometimes this doesn't work and I get hungry earlier. The same happens with dinner. I get hungry at 6 but don't want to eat until later and then end up eating a snack and then dinner later. Well last night when I was hungry for dinner at 5:45 I made myself wait until 6 and then had dinner. I think that some part of me is worried that I'll get hungry again if I eat dinner too early, but I was fine. I also need to remember that getting hungry is not the end of the world; I'm not going to die if I get hungry at 5:30 and can't eat until 7:30. It's just food!

Speaking of food; yesterday I was craving cinnamon rolls for some reason (I think it must have been the kind of coffee they made at the office) and came up with a really great and ETL-friendly "dessert" to satisfy my craving for brown sugar and cinannamon: dates pureed with a little hot water and cinnamon mixed into warm applesauce and topped with lightly toasted walnuts. Yummy!

Today I have been staring down the leftover Easter candy and some crackers from an open house in the kitchen. A couple of times the little devil on my shoulder tried to get me to eat just one Hershey's Kiss or jelly bean and then another time the little devil almost convinced me to say "screw it" and eat all the jelly beans etc. But every time he tries I tell that little devil to go away and that I'm NOT going to take that first bite, and it feels really good to be in control.

Hi to hubby - I miss you and can't wait to hang out with you tonight! (Sunday, Monday and Tuesday's hubby and I don't really see one another because of work schedules)

avoiding doom

Unfortunately; we can't live in a world devoid of temptation. I think that things would be a lot easier if we could. But before I digress and begin philosophizing about morals and the like; I'll refine my original statement.

It's too bad that we can't live in a world where all food is good, healthy, nutritionally excellent food.

I am a big supporter of people deciding what they want to eat on their own. I wouldn't appreciate someone telling me that I should eat meat and animal products and likewise I don't push people to Eat to Live. Sure life would be easier if the people around me ate more like I do; but that's also a two-way street. The point is, I've made a decision to eat as naturally and nutritiously as possible and I have to learn to live with the fact that there is food around me that I shouldn't eat and condition myself not to want to eat it.

There are times when I'll give in and eat something that I shouldn't and afterward I can just feel that the food was basically a hollow nutritional wasteland. There are times when I've given in and had that first bite of something and instantly regretted it. There are times when that first bite triggers a landslide of bad eating and the "screw it" mentality.

Yesterday I had one of those days where the first bite led to my downfall. I didn't eat too horribly but I know I could have had a much better day if I didn't have that first bite. I know that eating off-plan food will make me feel guilty and regretful and not help my weight loss at all and I have to keep remembering that every time I pass the candy dish in the hallway at work, or every time I walk into the office kitchen and see sweets and crackers and whatever staring back at me.

Recently, over at at Half of Me (a FANTASTIC weight-loss blog); PQ wrote about how smokers can quit smoking completely and alcoholics avoid alcohol completely but everyone always has to eat - no matter if one is addicted to food or not (go read the post). I am often in a state of mind these days where I wish that I didn't enjoy or care about food and truly just ate to satisfy my biological nutritional needs. I often wish that I don't want to eat for stress relief or enjoyment or any of that horrible stuff but I do - and it's much more mental than physical - it's the enjoyment of sitting down to eat dinner with hubby and sharing a meal (the same food) once in a while and that feeling of "normal." This is a big thing that I'll need to work on.

For now, I'm going to work on NOT taking that first bite and remembering the doom that will follow from taking that first bite before it happens. I'll have so many more good, no, AWESOME days if I can pull this off. It wasn't easy when I first went vegetarian almost 10 years ago; but over time my resolve not to eat meat has grown and strengthened, and a big factor in that was not breaking down and eating that chicken sandwich or whatever it was that tempted me. That resolve paid off and here I am, these days I wouldn't eat a steak if you paid me. I think that with time, persistence, and NOT taking that first bite I'll be able to do the same with ETL.


PS The image is of the top of our wedding cake, our 1.5 year anniversary/ 2 year homeowning anniversary is this Saturday. Hard to believe! ;-)

Even though it's been snowing (YUCK!) here and I haven't felt too good for the past few days; I made a lot of spring-timey food for the upcoming week. I made Dr. Fuhrman's Tasty Hummus, Whole Wheat Pitas, and Springtime Soup.

The most fun thing that we made (hubby helped) were the pitas. They were also surprisingly easy to make. I got this recipe at AllRecipes and used King Arthur White Whole Wheat flour instead of white flour to keep it whole grain. We also used applesauce instead of oil to make it fat-free. Next time I make these I will cut the salt in half or eliminate it completely. I'll also will experiment with cutting down on the sugar - although I don't think that I can cut it out completely because the yeast needs a little sugar, doesn't it? I also want to experiment with mixing in other types of flour or adding in flax.

But most importantly, the tastiest thing that I made this weekend is the soup. Hubby got Nava Atlas' Vegetarian Soups for All Seasons: Bountiful Vegan Soups and Stews for Every Time of Year for me back at Christmas time and I haven't had a chance to cook anything out of it until now. The soup I made today I adapted from her recipe for Greek-Flavored Spinach and Orzo Soup. I doubled the recipe since soup is an entire meal for me and cut out the oil. I substituted pearl barley for the orzo because I'd rather have a whole grains than the pasta, used (a lot) more spinach than called for in the original recipe and added artichokes. Here's the recipe as I made it:

Springtime Soup

Adapted from Greek-Flavored Spinach and Orzo Soup by Nava Atlas

2 C cleaned & sliced leek
6-10 cloves garlic, minced
1 large red bell pepper, diced
12 cups water with 4 cubes salt-free vegan bouillon (or equal amount of light flavored veggie broth)
2 cans salt-free tomatoes, briefly buzzed in blender or food processor
2 9oz boxes frozen artichokes
1 cup pearl barley
2 tsp dill
2 1-lb bags frozen spinach
1 small bunch flat-leaf parsley, coarsely chopped
1 C lemon juice

1. Water-sauté leeks, garlic, and red bell pepper until softened; about 5 minutes.
2. Add water, bouillon, tomatoes, barley, dill, and frozen artichokes. Cover and bring to simmer for 30-40 minutes until barley is slightly chewy.
3. When soup is almost done simmering, portion spinach out into containers. (Do this only if making meals ahead, if not stir spinach into soup before serving).
4. Stir in parsley and lemon juice.

Yield: 8 to 10 meal-sized servings

It may have been the scale; but when I weighed myself on Friday morening after having an awesome day on Thursday I was down about 5 pounds. My first thought was that the batteries in the scale are dying and we need to get some new ones pronto. But I weighed myself a few more times and figured that it was pretty close to reality. I must have shed a lot of water weight that day.

Friday, Saturday and Sunday were struggles - on Friday I didn't plan well and ended up having junk food for lunch and then said "screw it" and had junk for dinner too. Saturday and Sunday are a blur... Then Monday I got my act together and worked out and ate well most of the day. I didn't do too well for dinner but it wasn't horrible either and I luckily had a loss when I weighed myself yesterday morning. Tuesday was another roller coaster type of day; and I did OK but not great. I did end up losing some due to my food for the day being mostly ETL-friendly (but too much pasta and I did have some dairy).

I have been feeling really bad about not being able to get back on plan as strictly as I want to. Then I realized that in the last week the scale has gone down almost 10 pounds (we'll see what it says tomorrow morning). Which, even if a lot of that is water weight, isn't too bad. Actually, it's pretty good and I kind of feel guilty about it!

I know I can do better and these numbers should spur me on to see what I really can do when I actually TRY TO RESTRAIN MYSELF. I can remember in the beginning last summer when I had cravings that I thought were going to drive me crazy but I just let them be and didn't give into them. I asked myself why at the beginning I had so much more resolve and willpower not to cheat, what was different about me then? The answer that I came up with is that last summer I was nearly 300 pounds and I had so much self loathing about it that I had to get the weight off as quickly as possible so I wouldn't feel as much shame as I was feeling about my weight. Now that I've lost 70-75 pounds I don't feel as bad about my body as I did. This is dangerous. I'm closer to my goals of being "normal sized" and being able to wear normal clothes (a shallow motivator I know, but still it's a big one for me). So I need to keep going.

I need to keep going.

I want to keep going.

I will keep going.

I want to feel even better and be able to do even more. I want to continue to get healthier. And I do want to eventually buy these beautiful goal dresses that I keep on looking at and pining over all of the time. I just need to put more coal on the ol' motivational fire.