Off the Wagon

Even after all this time, it's still so easy to fall back into old habits.  I totally fell off the wagon on Tuesday, and I have no excuse.  Everything was totally normal when I woke up, except that Abby had a slight fever and I opted to keep her home from school.  I ate my typical breakfast, and was checking Facebook when I read some things posted by other moms where I live about an incident that happened at Abby's school last Thursday.  I had received an automated email from the school on Friday morning stating that "a male stranger" had been witnessed watching the children on the playground during outdoor recess.  As soon as I got the email, I asked Abby if she had noticed anything out of the ordinary the day before, and she said no--so I just assumed that it happened during a different recess period.  The school email said that recess would be held indoors on Friday as a precaution, and honestly, I kind of forgot all about the incident over the holiday weekend.  So I'm just checking Facebook yesterday morning when I read that not only was there "a male stranger" watching kids on the playground, but he was also videotaping them.  This information was coming from the mother of the boy who reported seeing the man to his teacher, so I trusted it--and it totally creeped me out.  The man was not caught, and the school appeared to be back to business as usual yesterday...despite a possible ongoing situation with a creeper.  The discussion on Facebook was about how we could help ensure the safety of our kids at school, and what we as parents should and could be doing after this scary occurrence.  I jumped in the fray, and as I read the thoughts of other moms, I mindlessly reached into the open box of Frosted Flakes from the kids' breakfast (usually I don't let them have Frosted Flakes, but since no one is quite feeling well, I figured they could have a little treat to perk them up) and ate handful after handful.  At first, I didn't realize what I was doing--but then I started to feel full...and I kept eating anyway.  I was stressed about the school situation, and totally stress eating!  It was the sort of thing I used to do at the breakfast table all the time before this Challenge--munch, munch, munch all the way until lunch.  The problem is, once it's lunchtime, I'm not hungry...and that's exactly what happened yesterday.  I didn't end up eating any lunch, because I was stuffed from at least two servings of dry Frosted Flakes.  (No resolution on what to do about the school thing, either--I spent hours discussing it with Dan and my mom and sister, as well as following that Facebook conversation, but I still don't know what can/should be done??)

dangerously addictive

The kids ate lunch, and at the end, they wanted a chocolate-covered pretzel for dessert.  I usually snitch a pretzel or two as I dole them out for the kiddos, and Tuesday was no exception--the only problem was that I discovered that all the pretzels inside the bag had melted together.  I hit the big clump of pretzels against the counter to try to break some loose to give the kids, and of course, I ate some of the too-large chunks.  This is dangerous territory--normally I account for my calories based on the serving size (8 pretzels in a serving of this brand), but I started ingesting chunks that did not resemble pretzels at all, and therefore were extremely difficult to quantify in pretzel terms for calorie purposes.  I was just going to eat a few chunks.  I broke off pretzels for the kids, and kept at the challenge of breaking them apart--you know, for when the kids wanted more after dinner.  The bits that came off not like a whole pretzel, I ate.  I just kept eating those odd chunks--it couldn't have been that many pretzels, right?  Until I looked and the bag was almost gone...  I checked the calories per serving (and to see how many servings are in the bag), and it said 5 servings per bag at 130 calories per serving.  I actually thought to myself, "Huh--that's not so bad," which makes me think I totally need to redo a math class or something...650 calories on pretzel IS that bad.  Granted, the kids had eaten some, and I didn't actually eat the whole bag--but I probably ate close to 500 calories.  Keep in mind that this was after eating a ton of Frosted Flakes and deciding that I wasn't even hungry enough to eat lunch...  This is the ridiculous stuff I used to do before Challenge #2--I was off the rails, totally unplanned and unexpectedly.

mantra of the day on Tuesday

I made pancakes for dinner and called it a day of bad eating.  Since I missed my Monday step class due to the holiday, I really wanted to make it to the pool Tuesday evening...especially since I had gorged myself on obnoxiously unhealthy stuff all day.  Dan got home late from work, but we rushed and got the kids in bed by 7:20pm so that I could get over to the pool and get in 30 minutes of laps before they closed at 8pm.  I drove over to the pool and ran inside, determined to make up for my bad decisions...only to be told that the pool was closed because of lightning.  Um, it's an indoor pool--I had no idea they would close for bad weather?  They weren't planning to reopen before their regular 8pm closing time, so I was out of luck and totally bummed.  So Tuesday was a total wash on the Challenge front, and it just shows me that no matter how far I've gotten on this journey, I'm still going to have days where things don't work out and I slip up.  In my old life, I would have used one bad day as an excuse to wave goodbye to the wagon entirely and embark on a month-long (or more) binge of bad decisions.  Not this time--I climbed back on to the wagon on yesterday, was on my very best behavior food-wise, and had an awesome Zumba class last night.  My favorite Wednesday night instructor is moving, and this was her last class, so it was extra fun (and a bit sad!).  The instructor pulled me up to the front to help her teach for one song, and that was a blast--I'm really going to miss her!  She has whipped me into shape and gotten me excited about exercise--two things I wasn't sure would ever happen.  Yesterday was a good day, and I'm really proud of myself for not letting one rather large bump in the road detour me entirely from my goals.  Everyone needs a pig out day once in a while, right?