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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