Weekends Are Never Long Enough!

Well, here we are. Another Monday. Yippee. Sorry if I sound less than excited, but I just feel like there's never enough time and too much to do. Always. I am in a good mood, well...for a Monday.

We had a good weekend overall. On the diet front, I did well having maintained according to the scale. This in itself is a victory as I have a tendency to creep up a little every week and spend the next few trying to get it back down. I'm pretty proud of that, especially since I had a few, shall we say, indiscretions?

Friday night I was tired and we decided to have pizza for dinner. My son took off for his camping trip and so it was my husband, me and the girls. I chose the thin crust veggies only, light on the cheese. It was tasty. I had a slip and poured a small glass of Coke from the 2 liter bottle left from my daughter's birthday party last weekend. I drank 1/2, realized it was flat and not worth the calories or the guilt and promptly threw it out. Then I went o the fridge and proceeded to dump the rest of the 2L. Smile. I've said before I am an addict. I wasn't kidding.

Saturday am, I woke up, made beds, fixed breakfast, did dishes and then the girls and I headed off to the farmer's market. I got some yummy tasties. Including some sweet potato butter which I've never seen before, but sounds like it will be great on my light wheat toast. It has only 20 calories per tablespoon, which beats the heck out of most jellies and such.



I got zucchini, okra, tomatoes, and fresh black eyed peas. Well, what'd you expect? This is Texas people. I also got a small loaf of whole wheat cranberry-raisin-walnut bread which we all shared yesterday with our breakfast. Yummy toasted.

I spent a little time tending and watering our little garden. Look at all the yummies we have starting to ripen.








I harvested our first watermelon and cut it up for us all to enjoy. It was tasty.

Then, Saturday afternoon, my wonderful hubbie watched the girls so I could take my Mom out for an afternoon of shopping and the movie. We did find some cool stuff on sale, including 3 pairs of shoes for me. Score! We went to see the action flick, "The Expendables" which has basically every action star ever. It was awesome, if you like that sort of thing, which we do. Anything where stuff gets blown up is my kind of movie.

The theater is a fancy place with a full bar and restaurant. Here's where I got into a bit of trouble. I ordered a drink, just one. I also ordered the steak sandwich I had planned, and I only ate 1/2 as planned. BUT, I also ate 1/2 an order of the homemade potato chips. Oops. Plus I shared 1/2 a piece of chocolate cake. I have to say it was most tasty. The good news is I didn't eat anything the rest of the day, I was way too full. It amazes me how a few months ago I could have put away twice that amount of food and kept on eating. Then Saturday night I went for a swim and swam 1000meters, plus did my crunches. Overall I still came in under my calories. Although clearly they weren't all the quality calories I usually shoot for.

I am still proud that I ate less than I would've in the past and stopped when I was full. Then I went home and did my workout even though I was tired and would've rather went to bed. AND, I didn't eat any more, only drank water where in the past I would've eaten dinner just because it was time to eat whether or not I was actually hungry.

Yesterday, I took the girls to get their back to school stuff. Clothes, back packs, lunch boxes, etc, etc. I can't believe school starts next week. And the whirlwind begins! Between school, boy scouts, Tae Kwon Do and football, our lives get pretty crazy. I am excited and nervous to see how my new lifestyle fares, but I am confident that I've made the right changes to my diet and attitude. They really are the kind I can live with forever. That feels so good to say and know it is true.

The weekend wrapped up with a yummy meal I prepared from Biz's site. It was greek chicken gyros and homemade whole wheat pita bread. As a side, I sauteed the zuccini, okra and onions with garlic, salt and pepper. I fried a little of the okra, too, but I ate only 3 pieces. I left that for the kiddos.

Then this morning I found out that my daughter had taken this picture of me while I was cooking.

Just when you start to feel pretty good about how you're doing on this journey to looking and feeling better, reality slaps you in the face. Is that really what they see when they look up at Mommy? Oh, Boy. Yet, I refuse to let myself enter the spiral of self pity and self doubt that has always waited for me in the past. This is why for me success can sometimes be a bad thing. I start to feel like I'm doing so well and that leads to letting go of being diligent on my diet and exercise. This in turn leads to less success or even weight gain and then comes the death spiral leading to me giving up all together and feeling like a failure. Well not this time!

This time I refuse to take the bait. Yes, I am still fat, but my arms were bigger 3 months ago. Yes, I don't like how I look yet, but I am closer today than I was in March when I set off down this path for good. I refuse to feel sorry for myself. I refuse to wallow in self pity when I know I've found the only way out. Eat right, Move more. That's it. I have the key. I know the secret password. And NO ONE can take the success I've had or the success yet to come from me. The only one who can do that is me and I will not let ME get in the way of my success. Not ever again.

How was your weekend? Have you had any similar set backs lately, realizing that even though you've come so far there is still a long way to go? How do you handle it when the road ahead seems so long and daunting?