I'm a "foodie"...

I've been thinking alot about food lately. I mean, a LOT.

I sit at work all day dreaming about food. I keep wondering what this or that would taste like. I'll even smell different types of food throughout the day that simply isn't there.

Like, I'll smell steak. Or Cheetos. Or cake. Or string cheese. ... Weird, huh?

And then I get home and think about food even more.

And being on this "diet" doesn't help matter much, because I always have to be thinking about (planning) what I'm going to eat next. And then once I've figured it out, I can't wait until I can eat it.

Remember when you were in school and class was over at 3:45 and it was 3:00 and it seemed like the clock had stopped? Every 2 seconds you'd be looking at the clock wondering why it wasn't moving any faster.

That's how I am all day long. I keep looking at the clock saying "is it time to eat yet?"

Food is all I can think of.

I even dream in food.

The other night I had a perfectly random dream that had absolutely nothing at all to do with food, but I'll be darned if the ground wasn't made of gum drops!

I keep telling myself that everything will be okay and I'll be normal if I can just stop obsessing over food.

But I can't get it out of my head.

Like just a few minutes ago I was thinking about what I ate last Saturday and planning what I was going to eat this coming Saturday. Random, huh?

One of the tools in Weight Watchers is to be prepared whenever you're heading into a social situation where you'll be eating at a restaurant. They say to either go online or stop by the restaurant before hand so you can see the menu and plan what you're going to eat so you won't be side swiped by all of the yumminess on them menu.

Well, I've been doing that my whole life! Nothing new there. We'd make a plan to go out to a particular restaurant and my mind would race over the imaginary menu in my head. What would I eat? Man! I'd have it all planned out WAY before I got to the restaurant.

So that was a "tool" I didn't have to worry about learning.

But now, I still do the same thing, but now I try to think of all the healthy things on the menu. That's a good thing, right? But I'm still doing the basic same thing, obsessing over food.

I swear, if you guys could see all of the food thoughts that go through my head all day long, every minute of the day, you'd be shocked. Not a minute goes by in my day that I'm not thinking about some sort of food.

So what do I do with that? How can I NOT obsess over food? How can I break my life-long habit of thinking about food my every waking moment?

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I think I'm winning the battle over my weekend "splurges"...

Sorry I've been away for a while. Nothing's gone wrong. I'm still going strong.

At last Saturday morning's weigh in, I lost 1.4 pounds. Yippee!! But then I quickly gained 5 1/2 pounds over the course of Saturday and Sunday.

I really cut lose.

I don't know why I keep doing that. If I'd stop, I know I'd be at goal by now. And I absolutely HATE myself come Monday morning when I step on the scale and see the damage I've done.

I was able to get all but a half pound of that quick gain off by this past Saturday's weight in (yesterday). I only gained 6/10ths of a pound--officially. If they only knew I lost 5 pounds in that one week. Sheesh!

I'm a little embarrassed to bring it up in the meeting, though. I mean who does that to themselves!? I feel so stupid for doing it. Again and again and again.

This weekend I haven't done quite as bad. I did splurge a bit yesterday, which netted a 2 pound gain on the scales this morning. But today, I've done really well and stuck with my daily 21 points.

To my defense, one of my splurges was really quite a treat and quite an exception...

I don't know if you guys know that, but I LOVE cupcakes. I mean, I REALLY love cupcakes. In fact, someday I want to have my own cupcake bakery. For me, cupcakes are a little piece of heaven. I have to admit, though, I like baking them MUCH more than eating them. Don't get me wrong, I will eat a cupcake and love every second of it, but my true pleasure comes from creating those little treats.

Luckily, there aren't very many cupcake bakeries in the Orlando area. Sure, there are bakeries that make cupcakes, but only 3 (that I know of) that are ONLY cupcake bakeries. I've been to two of them, but the third one is 45 minutes away. Well, Friday, I took the afternoon off (mental health break). I had nothing planned, it was the spur of the moment type of thing to take the afternoon off, so I decided to drive down and visit the third cupcake bakery.

To fuel my desire for this long trek was the fact that this particular bakery was on Cupcake Wars a couple of months ago and again just last week (rerun). Holis Wilder of Sweet! bakery was the winner and that's the bakery that I was heading for. The things that lady did with her cupcakes was purely amazing!

So when I got there, I bought only 2 cupcakes--key lime and boston cream. I got the boston cream mainly because I don't care much for it and thought hubby might like to have it. But after I got to the car, I thought it was a shame for me to drive all the way down there and only get 2 cupcakes, so I went back in and got 4 minis.

I didn't eat any on Friday, I saved them until after weigh in Saturday morning.

I cut the 2 regular sized cupcakes in quarter and had a quarter of each of them. Then I cut the minis in half and had a half of each of the 4. So by my guesstimate, I had one whole cupcake from all the pieces and parts. Not bad, right!? (For the record, the rest of those cupcakes are still sitting in my kitchen. My daughter is stopping by tomorrow to take them with her and out of my house.)

But then, for lunch, we went to Smokey Bones and I ordered turkey, corn and fries (loaded with cheese and bacon with ranch sauce). I don't know why I put that in parentheses. Maybe it makes it a little less impactful? Oh, and all I ate was just the fries. I didn't touch the turkey and corn (got it to go instead). I know, that's nothing to be proud of. And the fries actually made me so sick. I had to stop at the drug store on the way home to get some tums because I thought I would puke before we made it home.

And that was it, the rest of the day I was on plan. We even went to see Despicable Me and I didn't get any popcorn at the theater (and that was a HUGE sacrifice!).

But still, I gained 2 pounds.

I'm not too worried, I've done good today and I'll have those 2 pounds off in no time.

This is the thing I learned from this weekend, though. I'm going to stop over-splurging on the weekends. No more cheese fries or fried chicken or (gulp) a whole tub of Helava Good sourcream and onion dip with a whole bag of Ruffles. It's just not that appealing to me any more. I think I'm finally at the point to where I can splurge in smaller portions that still keep me on plan.

Like now, I dearly want some of the chips and dip, but I didn't buy them for fear that I'd eat them out of a moment of weakness tonight. But what I will do, is if I am still craving them over the next few days is I'll go ahead and get them, but not eat out of the tub and bag. I'll put a couple of tablespoons on a plate with a small bowl of chips. So I'm still satisfying the craving, but I've got it under control.

I'll let you know how that goes. I'm still not sure I'll get the chips, but I know I still want them.

So this week's challenge is to keep my cravings under control and give in to them only a little at a time and not let them consume me.

Last week I was 5 pounds away from goal. This week I'm 5.6. I want to be less than 5 pounds away from goal by next Saturday's weigh in. I can do it!!

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Weekend eating is gonna be my downfall...

So how did you guys do last week? Were you able to only eat when you were hungry? Or did the munchies win (again)?

I guess I'm doing pretty good when it comes to the boredom eating, but the weekends are still killing me.

Weekend before last, the 4th of July (LONG) weekend, really did me in. I ate and ate and ate. I couldn't stop myself. Well, actually, I didn't want to. I was completely in control and knew exactly what I was doing and loved every minute of it. Well, that is until I was done eating. Then I hated myself.

The worst was on Monday when we went to the Texas Roadhouse and I had cheese fries. On my way there, I was planning what I would eat. Cheese fries was not an option. I knew I'd already eaten WAY too much on Saturday and Sunday and I needed to get back in control. I even talked it over with hubby and we were both on the same page--no cheese fries!

Then... when it came time to order, I just blurted it out. Hubby said "what?" and then that loving "Cara...". I looked him straight in the eyes and said "it's okay, I know what I'm doing".

The worst part was how greasy they were. But did that stop me from eating them? No! When we were driving home afterwards I was so dern mad at myself! I felt so awful. My stomach, no, my heart, yes. I felt like I'd just betrayed myself.

I'm really hoping one of these days I'm going to be able to win the battle against the food. I love it so dearly and it makes me feel so special. 

Grated, I'm not NEARLY as bad about eating as I used to be. Man, to think of all the crap I would eat and the amount of it--regularly. I've come SUCH a long way since those days. But I still haven't won the battle entirely. What is it they say "you may have won the battle but you haven't won the war yet.". That's me.

I actually gained 5 whole pounds over the course of 3 small days.

I fought and fought and got all but 4/10ths of it off. Whew!

This past weekend I did a LOT better. I'm still up a couple of pounds but I'm sure they'll be off in the next day or two.

But on the flip side, I really did with not eating unless I was hungry. It's so darn hard in the evenings, isn't it?? Man!! It's like the munchies monster is there hiding behind the couch waiting for me to sit down. He lurks around the house, just waiting for me to slow down for a minute, then he pounces! AAAhhhh!!!

So how did you guys do?

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No, I'm not on maintenance...

I had a pretty good week last week. And it resulted in a pretty good loss. I lost 1.4 pounds. And here's how I did it...

I usually splurge (my definition of the word "splurge" is to eat whatever I want and however much of it I want, just in case you're wondering) on Saturday's after weigh in. Then I tell myself I'm not going to splurge on Sunday, but I usually splurge just as bad on Sunday's as I do on Saturdays. And then I usually over eat in some sorta way on Monday's too. Then back to the plan the rest of the week only to end up weighing exactly the same at weigh in as I did the week before. 

Great maintenance plan.

Except I'm not on maintenance!!

I'm still about 6 pounds away from goal. So what I did this past week is what I should have been doing for the past year. I did not splurge on Sunday or Monday. I was back on plan Sunday morning.

And I added something a little extra to the mix this past week. I told myself not to eat unless I was hungry.

DO YOU KNOW HOW HARD THAT WAS??!!!

Oh, wait, of course you do!

It was SO hard for me to sit here in the evenings wanting to snack but telling myself I couldn't because I wasn't hungry. I had nothing but healthy snacks in the house, too. Snacks that I could totally eat and still stay on plan. Snacks that wouldn't put me over my daily points allowance. But I would not eat unless I was actually hungry.

A couple of nights I almost convinced myself to eat something just because it had been3 or 4 hours since dinner and I knew I'm supposed to eat something every 3 to 4 hours to keep my metabolism evened out. And I almost convinced myself of that. But I didn't give in. I didn't cave. I didn't eat.

Was the hardest thing I've done in SO long. And I honestly don't know if I can do it this week.

But I'm going to try.

Who wants to try it with me? Before you hit the comment button and tell me you're on board, know that it's NOT going to be easy. You're going to feel like you're depriving your body. But remember you're not. You're only depriving your mind. Your body will let you know when it needs nourishment and you'll just have to wait until it does, no matter what your mind or emotions tell you.

So whadaya say?

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