One Week In

Well, this weekend was a little rough for the Challenge, as I knew it would be.  I went into the birthday party on Saturday determined to be good while I was there--and despite the awesome spread of goodies, I stuck to carrots and fruit salad!  I even stood around the food table, but I didn't eat any of the not-so-good-for-me stuff...and honestly, I tried not to even look at that stuff on the table so that I wouldn't be tempted (although I couldn't miss my dear husband right next to me, chomping on what looked and sounded like delicious tortilla chips...).  My sweet friend Brynne made an awesome Toy Story birthday cake for her son, and of course I had to have a piece--I don't like it when I spend a ton of time making a cake for my kids' parties only to have folks not eat it...and let's just be honest--I like cake.  I took an interior piece, so not much icing at all--I splurged in what I thought was the healthiest way!  I felt really good about my choices leaving the party--even though I ate the cake, it's a birthday party...one of those real-world things I'm going to have to just work to incorporate into my day.

And that's where Saturday went off the rails for me.  We went back to my parents' house, since the birthday party was really close to where they live, and my mom fixed an awesome home-cooked meal for our family and my siblings' families, who all came over as well.  She made flank steak, sweet and baked potatoes, rolls, corn, and her famous "green"--a pear jello salad that we all devour, so much that she has to make two 9x13 pans of it!  Then for dessert, she made brownies from scratch and smothered them with vanilla ice cream and chocolate syrup.  I don't get my mom's homemade cooking all the time, so I take advantage when I do...  I knew she was making flank steak before we came over, so I looked up the calories on my trusty WebMD food log--not bad for 3oz., but I could swear I always eat way more than 3 oz.  I was cognizant of that when I made my plate, and tried to stick to smaller portions of the meat and everything else.  I passed on the rolls, had 2 small ears of corn, and half of a sweet potato...and a small bowl of green.  Seriously delicious!  After the kids ran around a bit while the adults sat around the table chatting, my mom brought out the brownies and ice cream, dished up and ready to be eaten.  It wasn't that much ice cream or that much syrup, but it was a pretty big brownie underneath--and so good!  When all was said and done, I ended up almost 600 calories over my daily goal for Saturday--and that 600 was only after I very generously estimated my calories out for the day considering I didn't do any actual working out...

my calorie tracker for Saturday--I really did eat more than 2000 calories!

So yeah, that really wasn't the greatest day, and I learned a few things:  1) Don't have dessert twice in one day.  (Duh!  In my defense, I didn't know my mom had fixed brownies and ice cream...so I didn't know I would be eating two desserts.  Obviously I could have passed on brownies and ice cream after I knew I had already had cake...but I'm not out of my mind!)  2) Homemade foods are really hard to track calorie-wise.  I had my mom's recipes for her flank steak marinade and for her green jello salad, so I input all the ingredients into my tracker, but then had a hard time figuring out how much I had eaten--1/8th of a serving?  2/3rds?  I just didn't know, and tried to extrapolate based on the fact that 8 other adults and 7 kids were eating the food with me...so obviously, I didn't eat the entire stick of cream cheese that was in the green all by myself...  Sunday and Monday were better days--although I still ate more calories than I should have, I was able to balance it out better by doing a workout on Sunday (an exercise show through our cable's OnDemand menu), and by cleaning on Monday (3 hours digging out Abby's messy room!).

all this calorie counting is hard work!

One bonus of being at my parents' house on Saturday was that I got to weigh myself on their scale--I always use their scale because it's digital and a lot better than ours, which is not.  Even after stuffing my face with my mom's cooking, I weighed 162.4--I lost 0.6 pounds since I had last weighed myself at their house 6 days earlier at the start of the Challenge.  Not exactly a resounding success for my effort, but I'll take a loss!  This week, I'm going to try to be more active--I'm so ridiculously sore after the TV workout I did on Sunday, but I'm ready for more.  Finally feeling healthy again!  After I attended my friend's Zumba class last week, my mother-in-law asked if the gym here on our military installation offers Zumba...so I looked into it, and they do!  It's pretty cheap, and they offer it in the evenings on Wednesdays and Fridays--so Dan can be home to watch the kids while I go.  As luck would have it, the first class is tonight--so I'm going!  They also offer an evening step class on Mondays, so I can get in 3 hour-long exercise sessions per week if I make this a regular thing.  Like I said, I've never really been a class person, so I'm nervous that I won't enjoy it--I mean, I really liked my friend's class, but part of the fun in that was that I knew I couldn't go every week, and I know her, so it was just fun to watch her in action and get a little social time afterward.  How will it be in a room full of unfamiliar faces?  I don't know, but I'm accepting the Challenge, and I'm going to find out!

I also want to send a shout-out to Brynne, because she has checked in with me numerous times since the start of the Challenge and given me lots of encouragement and advice from her own journey--thank you for being such a positive force in my life for literally as long as I can remember!  :)  Her own love of Zumba and her advice to "just go in there and shake what your mama gave you!" really gave me the courage I needed in my friend's class and going into this new class to just focus on me and not worry about anyone else--a hard thing to do for this Mommy!