Challenge #2: 4 Weeks Down

Today is the beginning of Week 5 of my Challenge #2 to get healthy--that means I'm 4 weeks down!  It doesn't seem like it's been that long, which I guess is a good thing--but I also don't feel a lot differently than I did 4 weeks ago.  Yesterday was weigh-in day, and I weighed 156.4--another 1.6 pound weight-loss week, although it felt like a lot less (more on that below!).  I ran my height and weight through the WebMD BMI Calculator again to see how much progress I have made in 4 weeks, and I've gone down 1.3 points on the BMI scale (from 28.9 to 27.6)--I'm still well above the healthy BMI for my weight (18.5 to 24.9), but those 1.3 points on the BMI scale seem kind of big...a lot bigger than the 6.6 pounds I've lost since I started this Challenge.  I'm averaging a loss of 1.65 pounds a week.

This weekend was not a good showing on the Challenge front, and I was feeling discouraged about it...still am a little bit.  Friday was a crazy day--I drove the boys out to my parents' house for a sleepover, and my mom had baked her famous chocolate chip cookies...she didn't think they tasted quite right because she just got a new mixer, so of course, I offered to taste test them for her.  Five cookies later, and obviously they tasted fine to me!  I'm always well below my calories on Zumba days, so I figured I could afford those 5 cookies...and I could have, if I hadn't already been planning to splurge Friday night.  The boys were spending the night at my parents' house because Dan and Abby had a Daddy-Daughter Ball to go to on our military installation, and I had Zumba followed by a girls' night out at a friends' house at the same time as the Ball, so no one was going to be home with the boys.  I dropped them off, ate cookies, drove back home, completed the tasks on my cleaning schedule, helped Abby get ready for the Ball, went to Zumba, got a shower, and headed out again to my friends' house for her girls' night.  My wonderful friend Ana (the Zumba instructor I've written about previously) hosts a girls' night every 2 months or so, and it's one of the few times I get out socially--not only is it a lot of fun with a nice group of girls, but my friend Ana makes a fabulous chocolate-peanut butter pretzel concoction that I typically devour.  I knew I couldn't resist it, so I planned to eat some, but not as much as usual.  I think I accomplished my goal of not eating as much, but that's only because I previously ate a massive amount...and Friday night, I only ate a semi-massive amount.  Yeah, I felt stuffed and like I was rolling out of there at the end of the night--I used to be fat and happy after girls' night, but Friday, I felt guilty and kinda bummed at myself.  I shouldn't have eaten those cookies earlier in the day, so I could have enjoyed the chocolate pretzels without beating myself up as much!

Chocolate Peanut Butter Pretzel Bark -- aka, my crack

So that was Friday night, and then Saturday was my sister's annual Valentine Party for all the kids in our family.  My mom made the cookies, of course, as well as cupcakes and a gorgeous heart-shaped cake with chocolate frosting.  I brought my own apple for lunch, thinking that the snacks and treats out on the counter were going to be lunch for everyone else, so I ate my apple and was pretty pleased with myself for avoiding the chips and pretty much everything except for the carrots...until the pizza was delivered for lunch an hour later.  Boo!  I thought we were doing pizza for dinner, so my whole game plan was off.  I ate two slices of super greasy pizza, and then everyone had cake, so I ate a small piece of that as well.  It was definitely a small piece, but after consuming so many ill-advised calories before 3pm, I kind of just wanted to hide in a corner and cry.  It's really hard to be in the real world, in situations that aren't really yours to totally control--yes, I could have skipped the pizza and the cake and that would have been in my control to do so...but I didn't.  I'm still working on this overindulging issue I have with food, obviously.

Sunday was better--I didn't have anything on the docket except my weekly grocery run, so I ate a light breakfast and my favorite chicken salad for lunch, and figured we would go to Panera for dinner.  Dan's parents came by with Dan's aunt and her boyfriend in the afternoon, just for a quick visit--and they generously brought Starbucks for both Dan and myself.  I don't drink coffee, and I have a negative response to Starbucks in general because of Dan's addiction to it and the massive money suck it is in our daily life, but I do have a soft spot for vanilla steamers...  I wasn't planning on those calories in my day, but I drank it anyway--my in-laws were so sweet to bring it to me, and I was cold...nothing is better than a nice warm drink when it's cold outside!  When we went to Panera last night, I modified my typical order to reduce the calories--instead of getting a baguette, I got an apple on the side...and then I didn't even eat it because the kids all wanted it, so I cut it up for them!  The kids wanted dessert when we got home from dinner, and my mom had sent some of her cookies home with us, so I gave one each to the kids...and then proceeded to eat three myself.  It's typical self-sabotaging behavior that I need to figure out how to overcome--I was feeling down about my high-calorie weekend, and I justified more calories by just saying "What's 400 more?" to myself.  They were delicious, but I probably could have stopped at one, you know?

if only it were that simple!

So even though I've lost 6.6 pounds since this Challenge began, I'm feeling like the progress is slow and I haven't defeated my food demons just yet--they are hard habits to break, and the internal dialogue is hard to change.  I don't feel like I look any differently, although Dan said the other day that my face seems slimmer...so I guess that's something.  I just need to buck up and get back on the wagon--no more destructive weekends!