Milestone!

Well, I played a little loose with my points a couple days, but for the most part I stayed on track and was rewarded with a 1.2 lb loss for the week.  So it took four weeks to lose five pounds but here I am, five pounds lighter!  Woo Hoo!!

On a sadder note, my handsome little fish Joe is now proudfully, gracefully adorning that great aquarium in the sky.  I believe he just got old.  There's no way of knowing how old he was when I brought him home, but he sure was beautiful to the end. He just sort of slowed down and lost interest... tsk.  My Joe. I'll miss you.

On another not-sad-but-huge note, my now little family of three will be a little family of four in a couple days.  Hubby's Mom is moving in with us.  What does this mean?  LOTS of things!!  What does this mean to my WW efforts?  LOTSs of things!!!  With Mom comes donuts, white bread, pasta, pastries, pies and cookies.  Put 'em all together and what does it spell?  LOVE!!  Delicious, highly processed, mega-points love. :-)  Seriously (for just a sentence or two), it will be challenging of course.  My morning sweet tooth will have more than yogurt & fruit, or waffles & fruit to choose from.  Just the thought of it is making me crave late night bowls of Cap'n Crunch and plates of buttery cinnamon & sugar toast.  Oh yeah, baby!

My exercise is intermittent at best, although for the past couple weekends I've been hittin' the woods and puttin' a few miles under my feet.  It feels really great.  And I'm starting to put together my food plan for this year's week-long hike in September.  My intention is to keep it as simple as possible.  Boringly simple.  Food as fuel only.  But whenever I sit down at my Excel spreadsheet, I manage to add "just one more" bit of comfort'y trail food.  Hey... trail food is all about calories (for the most part), maybe the donuts, white bread, pasta, pastries, pies and cookies will be just the trick!

My food journal capturing the evening's chaotic food choices.

Veggie burger on light toast with sautéed onions & 'shrooms, sliced
pickles (underneath, can't see 'em but yum) and one oz of killer delicious jalapeno kettle chips...

Yeah... THESE chips. 

 

Trail food!!!

My Joe.  oxox

Hump dayyyyyyyy!

Just a mid-week huddle, in part to touch base real quick an in larger part to extend a formal apology...

Overall, I've been having a good week.  Exercising, being very mindful of my food choices, meeting temptations head-on and emerging triumphant with the aid of at-the-ready fruit and portioned snacks brought from home.

I ambitiously attacked my favorite 5 mile walk/jog route yesterday after work.  Although my scale seems to say otherwise (water weight due to damaged and repairing muscles... I'm guessing), the reality is I burned a lot of calories and woke up my body a little bit.  Yeah, I'm feeling pretty great this week.

But sometimes feeling great can present itself as cockiness or conceit... two things that I don't find very attractive, especially in myself.  So, in this somewhat public forum ("somewhat" because my reader/follower list is comfortably modest), I'm asking that my dear WW@work buddy accept my sincere apology for any judgmental snark I may have thrown her way today.  We laughed about it later this afternoon, and I'm hoping I'm wrong about all this, but I feel crummy for what I will evermore refer to as "The Guacamole Skirmish".  Please know I was this close to diving face first into that huge bowl of the green stuff and was not in my right mind to offer calm and civil support. 

Of course I'm trying to be funny about this, and I'm using too many words, but I am completely genuine in feeling like I owe you my apology.  You help me more often than I say.  I'm grateful.  And you're fun to gab with too.  Please accept my apology..?

And on that note, it's time for me to sign off.  It's dinner time!  I'm having a full plate of roasted squash, steamed green veggies and as much grilled rib-eye as my points will allow.  (Obviously my dreams of being first-vegetarian-then-vegan has been temporarily (?) sidelined.  We'll get back to that soon enough.)

5 ounces grilled rib eye, about a cup each of roasted squash and steamed Brussels & asparagus. 
Note: after taking the pic, I piled on a lot more Brussels & asparagus.
8 points for the whole thing.

...it was terrible.  Worst meal I ever ate.

Crazy!

What's crazy?  That I actually lost a few ounces this week!  I traveled for work, only gone for two days, but that equates to seven un-measured, un-weighed, un-restricted meals.  Oof.  I think my choices were reasonable, even my portions weren't completely out of whack... but I still ate more than usual.  Until the moment of my official weigh-in I felt kind'a bloated and was braced for weight gain.

I would have sworn I saw a pig flying past the window as I stepped on the scale, only to see myself 0.2 lbs lighter than the week before!  Magically all feelings of bloat disappeared and I was doing that awful, and awfully dated happy dance.  You know, the one that embarrasses everyone young enough to be your kid?  Yeah, that one.  I really need to cut that out.

Without reconstructing this week's discussions, I left the meeting with a sense of reinforcement.  I know my key is to stay connected with my food, not making it as convenient as possible but being part of its prep.  So I'll keep on keepin' on with my food scale and measuring spoons and keep my eyes on the prize.  And on the occasional pizza.  And steamed dumpling.  Dumplings.  Plural.

Still riding the high, I grabbed a small backpack this morning and hit a local trail for a couple hours.  It was insanely wonderful.  I need a few days out there.  I have 8 days slated in September but that's still a million years away.  For now I'll have to do with day hikes.  Harrumph.

And just so you know, in spite of my success with not gaining, and my reinforced feelings of control, I did manage to chow down a half a bag of jalepeno kettle chips and half a bar of salted chocolate Friday night.  What the hell was THAT about?!  Yeesh.

My faithful hiking sticks

The woods ... my sanctuary

One pot veggie steam

Mon dessert de l'année!
Bottom layer: 1 Tablespoon Nutella + 1/4 cup vanilla yogurt. 
Next layer: 1/4 cup straight vanilla yogurt. 
Next layer: fresh strawberries. 
Topper: 1/2 oz pretzel sticks. 
Total points: 4 (yogurt is fat-free).

This morning's pre-hike, 6-point snack:
2 slices rye toast w/ 1 Tablespoon "butter" (Earth Balance spread),
1/2 cantaloupe and 1 cup tea w/ sweetener and a splash of soy creamer.