Planning For Weight Loss

I am pretty anal about some things. Okay, most things. I'm a perfectionist and I love being organized (even though I'm also a complete mess...I like to think of it as organized chaos, where others probably just see the chaos. I blame it on being a left handed Pisces.).

My obsessive planning has driven me crazy my whole life, but it's actually been extraordinarily helpful in sticking with Weight Watchers. I would never have lost 90 pounds without carefully pre-tracking before I eat and, perhaps more importantly, planning my meals well in advance.

I thought I'd share the planning method that's worked for me. I spent the last few days in a cabin for my birthday (and I hit 100% of my daily goal for my Jawbone UP each day!) and it made me realize how incredibly difficult Weight Watchers would be if I wasn't able to cook my own meals every day. The same meals I make at home are two or three times more Points at a restaurant.  I'm already over my Points for the week, and that's including the Activity Points for four hours of hiking, two hours of horseback riding, and three hours of walking through cave tours, and it's because I ate out each day. Even though I made good choices, it was impossible for me to stay under my Points.

Normal weeks are infinitely easier for me. I'm hoping that maybe my method will be helpful for someone who's  struggling because they're eating out too often for the sake of convenience. By planning ahead, I find it just as easy to throw together a meal at home than to order or pick up food from out, which is probably the only way I've been able to stick to this.

So I've mentioned my weekly food delivery service before. I cannot overstate the impact this has had on my life. Please, seriously, see if you have a local food delivery service. It will change your diet completely.

I get an email on Thursday telling me what food I'll receive the following Friday. I can edit my bin through Monday, and then I get another email on Tuesday confirming what I'll get on Friday. So usually by Sunday each week, I know exactly what produce I'll get, so I can plan my meals around it. If eggplant is in season and available in the bin, I'll make some baked eggplant parmesan. If cauliflower is coming, I'll make some curried cauliflower couscous. I also get vegetable stock each week in my bin as an add-on item, and every Thursday I make a big soup by just boiling all of the leftover veggies (and maybe a can of tomatoes or some beans) in the veggie stock. That way, my drawers are empty for Friday's delivery.

I keep two lists on my phone: a grocery list and a meal list. I use both Evernote and Out Of Milk, two free applications, and I have a joint login with my girlfriend. As soon as I update my bin for the following week, I make a list of what meals we're having based on the produce that's in season, and then I make a grocery list based on what we'll need for those meals. She can access the lists on her phone, and checks items off as she shops.

This process has dramatically cut down on our grocery bills because my girlfriend then has a week to cut out coupons for the items we'll need, and she doesn't grab stuff that we might need, she only grabs stuff that we actually need. 

More importantly, though, it's given me a good way to avoid that terrible moment of "Ugh, work sucked, I don't know what to cook...let's order a pizza instead." We usually don't eat fast food, so planning ahead has really helped make dinner prep easier without resorting to getting food from out to save time and energy.

Some of my favorite meals that always make the lineup at least once a month: black bean avocado rollups, zucchini feta galette, cheesy potato casserole with cornbread pepper casserole (made with tons of veggies, applesauce in the cornbread, and broccoli cheese soup in the potato casserole), black bean tacos with nachos, curried cauliflower couscous, baked eggplant parmesan with angel hair pasta, veggie bread pudding (with Kroger biscuits cut up, covered with veggies and some eggs and cheese), black bean burgers with baked potato wedges, chili with leftover cornbread pepper casserole, cheesy quinoa with peppers, Greek wraps with baked saganaki (which is just parmesan sliced really thin, baked with some olive oil, and then spritzed with Bacardi 101, lit on fire, and spritzed with lemon juice), spanikopita with Greek potatoes, roasted cauliflower with fried corn and salad, pizza casserole, angel hair spaghetti pies with veggies (baked in muffin tins), tofu bacon broccoli feta rolls, lentil loaf with mashed cauliflower, and all kinds of soup...bean soup, vegetable stew, chili, butternut squash soup, cheesy soup, spicy soup, all kinds of soup.  

Without planning ahead, there is absolutely no way that I would have lost 90 pounds. I would have resorted to the easy path and I'd still be eating Olive Garden and frozen pizzas most nights. Now, I discovered a love of cauliflower (something I always loathed) and the food delivery also keeps me completely stocked up on fruit, which I can eat all the time without using any Points. 

Anyway, if you don't use a food delivery service yet, I HIGHLY recommend it. If you have a year-round farmers market close by that you can visit weekly, good for you. I just don't have the time or the access, and I love getting a delivery each week with all of the key ingredients to my meals for the week.

I definitely missed it while on vacation, and I know that eating out all weekend will make a difference when I step on the scale tomorrow!

Vacation Fat

I spent the weekend getting fat.

My company sent me to Key West (I went on a similar trip last year) and I had every intention of being good. Truly I did. I started off tracking everything, watching what I ate, behaving the same way that I have the past year and a half.

But then...well, then I started drinking. Once I start drinking, things tend to go downhill rather quickly.

Before I knew what I was doing, I had sucked down maybe 5 key lime pina coladas and was fantasizing about supper. By the end of that day I stopped tracking, and then the next couple of days I told myself "I'm already off the wagon, I might as well take advantage of it!"

So I ate. And ate. And ate some more.

I ended up pigging out at the breakfast buffet every morning, although I did make sure to get a big pile of fruit to go with it. And then, since I wasn't tracking, I had second and even third helpings at dinner.

So I got fat. Fatter. I put on at least 5 pounds.

Was it worth it? Kind of. It was delicious at least, and it felt pretty liberating to be able to eat what I wanted for a few days.


But now I'm tracking again and I'm discovering that only a few days off plan made my appetite grow exponentially. Now, the food I was eating last week is like a snack to me. My low fat yogurt breakfast just makes me sad compared to the croissants with cheese, muffins, french toast, potatoes, and scrambled eggs. My popcorn lunch is pitiful compared to the smorgasbord of rice and bread and casseroles. And my snacks of sugar-free Jell-O and wasabi peas just don't cut it compared to the key lime pie and nachos I was eating in Key West.

So yeah, I'm fatter now than I was a week ago. But I'm back on the plan and I'm going to pay for what I did to my body--I have to lose these pounds AGAIN, which is a frustrating lesson to teach myself.

On a positive note, though, flying was AWESOME. I haven't been able to fit in an airplane seat for years. This is the first time in so long that I didn't feel people staring at me, silently willing me to choose a different row so they wouldn't have to be crammed next to the fat girl. And the seatbelt not only fit, but I had to tighten it! That feels like a miracle after riding all the way home from Puerto Rico with my arms across my lap because I couldn't buckle up.

Also, I walked at least 8 miles one day, and even took a lighthouse tour. I wouldn't have been able to make it halfway up the lighthouse before losing weight and going through my heart surgery. Now, I beat my girlfriend up the stairs and I wasn't even out of breath!

So there you have it, the good and the bad. There is no ugly because Key West was far too beautiful. Unless you can call my bad eating habits ugly--in that case, there was plenty of ugly to go around.

Six-toed Hemingway cat in Key West. I fucking loathe Hemingway, but the cats were awesome!

Another Hungry Day

At this point, I've lost a little more than 85 pounds on Weight Watchers. I'm actually smaller right now than I was all through college. In fact, I can only remember weighing this amount or less two times since middle school: once was the summer between high school and college when I went on Atkins pretty religiously for a couple months and got down to 211 pounds for a day (before shooting back up to 215...but still. And then I started eating like a human again and gained it all back.). The second time was the summer after college when I was super poor and had to choose between food and vodka and I chose vodka for a month or so...I starved myself down to 216 pounds. Again, that was only for about a week before my grandparents took pity on me and started buying me food.

The rest of the time since middle school, my weight has swung wildly from 225 pounds up to my highest (recorded) weight of 304 pounds. Now my scale has been fluctuating 213 pounds and 219 pounds. Not bad.

Buuuut...I am STILL OBSESSED WITH FOOD.

I wish things had changed. I wish I could live like a normal person and eat when I'm hungry, socialize without thinking about food the entire time, plan my day without thinking first about what I'll eat that day. But that's not me. That's not my life. Instead, I think about food when I wake up in the morning. Hell, sometimes I dream about food. Yeah. Some weekends when I have nothing going on and can sleep in as late as I want to, I get up ONLY because I want to eat.

There are all those little tricks people tell you about, like doing something else for 15 minutes and then eating only if you still really want the food after 15 minutes. Or having a little nibble of whatever you're craving and then stopping because your body doesn't care how much it gets, only that it gets something. Well...that's bullshit. When I try to do something else and reevaluate if I want the food in 15 minutes, I just spend a full 15 minutes thinking entirely about food. And if I just have a nibble, then it's even worse and I can't think about anything else in the world until all of the food is gone. Nibbles do not work for me. I am too obsessed with eating and with being full.

Weight Watchers has been amazing in helping me lose weight, and it kind of works with my food obsession. I can track and pre-track and plan my meals well in advance and, you know, it takes a certain kind of person to weigh and measure every morsel of food that you consume. But it also means that I can never just 'let go' and eat without thinking about it. That's a good thing, but it's also incredibly frustrating.

Like today, for instance. I am HUNGRY. Or that's the message my brain is getting. I know I'm not actually, literally hungry. I have food in my stomach. I am eating roasted new potatoes and onions and zucchini with vegetable broth and barbecue and shaved parmesan and it's spicy and warm and delicious, but I still want more. More of anything. I want to cram food into my mouth until I feel sick.

You know that scene in Matilda? Where the Trunchbull makes that kid Bruce eat the whole chocolate cake and he's all sweating and everything thinks he's going to pass out and die? Yeah, I could totally eat that cake. Not a question. There is no doubt in my mind that I could take a fork, settle myself in front of it, and just devour the entire freaking thing. Totally. And I'd love it. And I would ask for milk to wash it down.

Of course, a single slice of cake is something like 14 Points Plus on Weight Watchers. I get 34 Points per day and I am stingy as hell with them, so there's no way Cook's chocolate cake is coming anywhere near my lips. But I could do it. And it would be fucking awesome.

So when does this food obsession go away? Does it ever? Will I ever be able to see an office email about cupcakes without spending the rest of the day eyeing the cupcakes, weighing the pros and cons of eating a cupcake, wondering how good the cupcake is, getting panicky that too many people are eating cupcakes before I decide whether or not I want one? Or is this my life now? Where every food commercial makes me start to drool, and just driving past KFC gives me thoroughly un-vegetarian-like cravings?

When my best friend died two years ago, I thought the pain would never go away. I thought that every day would be a gray haze and I would never be okay again. Slowly, somehow, the pain receded. Instead of thinking about him every minute, I thought about him maybe every 15 minutes. And then maybe every hour. And then a couple times a day. Now, I love him and miss him and think about him at random wonderful and heartbreaking times, but it's not constant. I think of him when his favorite song comes on, or when I read a CNN article that would have gotten his attention. The point is, it got better. It took awhile, but it did definitely get better.

My food cravings though? Not better. It's been more than a year since I started Weight Watchers, and I'm thinking about food just as much as every. WHEN WILL IT END?!

For now...fuck it all, I'm getting that cupcake they emailed about. There are only three left and it's driving me fucking crazy. At least it's a mini cupcake.

Water, Water, Everywhere

I think I'm dehydrating.

And I'm blaming Netflix.

It's no secret that I'm a big fan of documentaries, and when I watch particularly convincing ones, I sometimes get wrapped up and try to incorporate that I learn into my daily life. Like, I still haven't bought any eggs at all since we watched Vegucated. I'm okay with that.

A few weeks ago, we watched the documentary Tapped and since then, my girlfriend has refused to buy bottled water. We have a water dispenser thing on the fridge, but the filter is dirty and hasn't been replaced since we moved in four years ago (we can't figure out where the filter is and we have no idea how to change it) so the water tastes terrible. So we can't use the fridge water. We also have a really nice reverse osmosis system that came with the house...but my dad broke it two years ago when he was trying to install a garbage disposal and we haven't fixed it. So we can't use that.

I really miss bottled water. But my girlfriend is trying to make a stand, and I don't want to stand in her way.

As a compromise, she bought one of those filter things for the kitchen sink so we can have purified water. I hate warm or room temperature water, though, and the aforementioned fridge filter issues mean our ice cubes taste gross too. So we've been filling pitchers of water and putting them in the fridge to chill. The problem is that I think the water absorbs all of the smells of the fridge and then it tastes weird. It's not like we have anything gross in there. It's just that all the broccoli and cauliflower and berries and spinach and stuff is always in there with the water, and I think it makes the water icky.

I've tried keeping the water in other bottles so no funky smells get in, but then I feel like it just traps other air in there and it, like, brews and stuff...or something. I don't know. I'm probably just imagining things, but I can't help it. I'm super picky about water. Like, I love Ice Mountain. I will drink it anywhere, any time. But I despise Dasani. Totally hate it. I would rather drink from a public drinking fountain than drink Dasani. So since there's no acceptable water in the house and my girlfriend doesn't want me to have bottled water, I've just been drinking Diet Dr. Pepper like crazy. It's making me feel sticky and queasy but I'm so thirsty and...ugh.

Since I have a weird Splenda sensitivity and I don't have enough Points to drink juice or even some nice green beer for St. Patrick's Day, I'm chugging aspartame like nobody's business.

I'm afraid I'm going to wake up tomorrow with a giant tumor from all of the aspartame. Or at least a third arm or something. But will the aspartame seriously make a difference? I wish I could get a straight answer online...damn you, Wikipedia, you've let me down!

I'm not meeting my daily Weight Watchers goals because I'm not drinking water, and I may or may not be killing myself with Diet Dr. Pepper.

What a life.

Happy 2013!

If my old non-working scale can be trusted (it cannot) I have gained at least five pounds since my pre-Christmas weigh in. I'm pretty nervous about my Wednesday Weight Watcher's meeting, but I'm ready to finally see what damage I've done. I haven't given in to temptation TOO much (not anything like past Christmas food festivals) but my "Healthy Habits" have fallen to the wayside. I'm leaning on packaged food, candy, and diet cola while eschewing the fruits, veggies, and water I had been so faithfully ingesting. I need to get back on track, but I don't think it'll be too difficult. It's not like I've totally gone off the rails. Some of the girls at my work have stopped tracking for the holidays altogether, but I very sensibly poured my champagne into measuring cups before drinking, and tracked everything that passed my lips, no matter how shameful (cheeseball, anyone?). I wish my new scale would get here, but maybe it's best if I don't know until my meeting.

I'm also nervous about the body tape measure that comes with the scale. I have never been into measuring my body parts, regardless of the number of diets I've tried and failed. I just hate seeing how long that measuring tape is pulled out. It's easier not knowing. Now, though, I'm really curious. Even though my crappy, broken scale is telling me I gained weight, I do feel smaller than I have for years. My girlfriend even commented on feeling the bones in my shoulders. My ankle boots go on comfortably, instead of having to be tugged up over my cankles. So even though the initial numbers might make me a little sick, it will be nice to see those digits shrink as the next weeks and months of 2013 pass by.

And in case anyone cares, I've settled on some resolutions for this upcoming year. I hate odd numbered years, but for some reason I seem to have more New Years Resolution success on odd years. I gave up meat on New Years Eve 2003, gave up cigarettes on New Years Eve 2011, and I haven't touched either since.

2013:

1. Get Healthier. Continuing to eat right, move more, pay more attention to what I put into my body, and treat my body with more respect.

2. Stay Busy. Keep the house clean, do the things I've been putting off, stop wasting time, and keep my body in motion.

3. Get Frisky. Make it a priority to keep my girlfriend satisfied, learn to let go of my body issues and allow myself to be intimate, and use my new energy and healthier body to keep our relationship passionate and playful.

It's worth a shot. I have a whole new year ahead of me--I'd love to be able to stick to these resolutions this time. I started Weight Watchers in August of 2012, and I lost nearly 40 pounds by the end of the year. If I stuck with that (rather ambitious) pace, I'd be able to lose 104 pounds by 2014. That would bring me down to close to 160 pounds. That's crazy to even think about! But at least for now, I'm taking things one day at a time. First I need to survive January 1st at home with lots of time on my hands to cook delicious food. Instead, I'll try to stick to Resolution #2 and keep busy with something besides eating. Then on Wednesday is my weigh-in, and hopefully my scale will come in the mail. And then, one baby step after another. In, of course, the right direction.

Happy New Year!

Here Comes Trouble

I did it. I bought a scale.

I feel like I could be opening Pandora's Box.

It turns out that my fears about normal scales not being able to weigh me were unjustified. Maybe the cheapest analog scales I was looking at when I bought my last scale (which was at Walmart probably ten years ago) didn't go over 250 pounds, but apparently standard digital scales (which were probably out of my $10-$15 budget at the time) go up to 400 pounds. I ordered one on Amazon and it should be here next Wednesday, which also happens to be my next Weight Watchers meeting--this is fortunate because I'll be able to see precisely how different the two scales register.

I tend to be a little obsessive about certain things, and I find it very easy to become obsessive about my weight. When I start a new diet or workout plan, I tend to overdo it and this usually causes me to end it just as quickly as I began. As one of my favorite poets, Edna St. Vincent Millay, wrote, "My candle burns at both ends; it will not last the night; but ah, my foes, and oh, my friends--it gives a lovely light!" After a lifetime of being a Fat Girl, I know all of the rules. Only weigh yourself once a day or once a week and always at the same time; don't eat after 6pm; your plate should consist of mostly vegetables; you need to drink at least eight cups of water a day; etc etc etc ad infinitum. But knowing and doing are two different things, and I always slip into the habit of skipping meals, weighing myself twenty times a day, enjoying the feeling of hunger a little too much, and generally replacing unhealthy habits with different, equally unhealthy habits.

So having a nice scale in the house is going to come with its own set of challenges. Besides my own tendency toward obsessiveness, I'm also anxious about my girlfriend weighing herself and seeing results. I don't want to hear how much she's lost. And I don't want her to become so enamored with losing weight that she begins actively trying--she's losing enough just by eating the healthier suppers I've been making. I know I've already talked about my own issues with her losing weight, and I'm trying to just not think about it and focus on myself, but I can't help it.

Having a scale WILL help me see when I've started to veer off course after a bingeful weekend, and it'll help me get through times like this week when my meeting was cancelled. Not knowing where I stand the week after Christmas is stressing me out, and I won't know exactly what I weigh as I ring in the New Year and make my resolutions. But the shiny new scale should be here on Wednesday, so I have a whole year of healthy living and body changes to look forward to :)

Oh, and the scale comes with a body tape measure...not sure how I feel about that...but I know I better save enough Points for a shot or two of whiskey after I measure myself for the first time!

Wish You Were Here

Since I'm spending more of my time than I thought updating this blog (which is a good thing--I think it's helping me think through some stuff and it's keeping me honest with my tracking), I decided to update the description last night. I didn't realize it would be right at the top of the page. I'm sure I can change it, but I don't mind it for now. My point is that I hadn't really decided yet what I want this blog to be.
 
It's starting to take the shape of an online journal (see, I'm still stuck in Livejournal mode) and becoming a place where I can lay out the shit in my head for examination.
 
One of the topics we talk about in our Weight Watchers meetings is why we want to lose weight in the first place. I've written about airplanes and amusement parks, about my heart and my health, about growing old with my girlfriend and having fun with my nephew. But one thing I haven't talked about is Rob.
 
Rob was my best friend. The best friend I've ever had. He's been dead now for one year and three months exactly. It was the hardest thing I've ever gone through (harder, even, than my dog dying the year before that, which had been incredibly difficult for a number of reasons and something I thought I'd never get over). One of the hard parts about accepting Rob's death was the fact that, although he was truly my best friend and I could not have imagined life without him, I hadn't seen him for many months. At the time of his death, he was living in a halfway house, trying to get clean from prescription pills and alcohol.
 
Rob and I had so much fun together. A lot of that fun was in college and we pushed one another, in what felt like a fun way, toward greater gluttony. We'd spend all day drinking and getting high, or go out for a three hour meal to stuff our faces. We lived together in several places at different times in our lives, but our lives together revolved around excess. Even a Monday work night was fun with Rob around because we'd slice up a block of havarti with a roll of butter crackers, break open a jug of wine, roll a few joints, spread out some cheesecake, pop a pill or two, and have ourselves a rollicking good time.
 
We ate, drank, and smoked everything that we could. We were absolute gluttons and lushes and sloths and whatever other ugly thing you can think to call us, but we had a fucking fantastic time together. Until morning. Mornings were awful. Sick, weak, our bodies basically giving out. This went on for several years, but eventually I started cleaning myself up and Rob started relying more heavily on alcohol.
 
By the time he was living in the halfway house, I'd already completely stopped smoking cigarettes. My open heart surgery was enough to scare me away from pills and uppers and drinking binges forever. I was eating like shit still, but I was living like a normal person at least.
 
Not Rob.
 
So it was hard to be around him. Talking to him was more and more painful because he'd pretend like he wasn't drinking, when I knew very well that he was slurring at 11am because he'd been drinking since 6am and swallowing Xanax since 7am. I tried to talk to him but he's as stubborn as I am, possibly more so, and he grew resentful. So I stopped trying.
 
I did get to speak with him a few days before he died, and he finally sounded like his old self. He said he had stopped drinking (a line I'd heard too many times by then) and wanted to get together. I couldn't that week but promised to see him by the end of the month. I found out that he died that Monday, and they identified his body a week and a half later.
 
When Rob died, my world turned upside down. My heart broke into a million pieces. Parts of me died that will never return. A part of my soul was ripped out. The world became a very scary and bitter place. Whatever plans I had for the future seemed meaningless. That novel I wanted to write? Screw it--I'd probably die before I wrote a page. Finally living life as a thin, healthy person? Yeah, right...I'd probably end up getting hit by a train on my way to the gym. I entered a nightmare and felt so incredibly, unspeakably alone.

I wasn't alone, though. And I didn't die with him, even though it felt like I might. As the roaring horror of what happened started to dull many dark months later, another sound started to take its place. It was fear, like a huge alarm going off in my head telling me that it was too late for Rob, but not too late for me. I felt like Ebeneezer Fucking Scrooge with the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come. I wasn't given a second chance exactly, but I was made painfully aware that Rob was not getting any more chances. He was done. I still had a chance and, even if I screwed it all up, it did help clarify for me that things that I wanted to change, given the time.
 
Of course, the real problem is that I don't know if I'll be given the time. No idea. None of us know. I might die tomorrow. I might die tonight. Can I say I'm happy with where my life has taken me? No, not really. There's a lot that I want to accomplish. But am I happy with where I'm taking my life? Well...yeah. At this moment, yeah. I'm finally headed in the right direction and it feels...good. It feels really good. I'm not where I want to be, but I'm on my way there. That's a lot more than I could have said a year ago. So if I had to add something to my list of reasons I want to lose weight, it's this: because I want to honor Rob's memory by changing my life in the ways he was trying to change his. I love him enough to see that he was getting better and his chances were taken away while he was fighting to get on the right path. As long as I still have a chance, I better be on the right fucking path.

Rob, I love you and miss you. I know you'd be proud that I've had the willpower to lose 30 pounds, and hopefully you'll be even prouder when I reach the end of my journey. One way or another, I'm reaching the end at some point--I might as well try to look  and feel good when I get there.

The Food Trap

It's day two of my Simply Filling week and it's actually going alright. I was lazy with lunch and had reheated broccoli cheese casserole (6 points, leaving me with 39 points for the week), but I managed to have a Power Food-only supper and I'm satisfied. Well, for now...I'm sure I'll still have some kind of dessert. Old habits die hard!

Really, though, I guess I can only hope that supper counted as a Power Food. I'm still a little unclear on the Simply Filling rules, so I'm not sure if the two teaspoons of olive oil make the cauliflower a non-Power Food. So confusing.

Eating right at work was fine--apart from the casserole--because I just brought nothing but fruits and veggies and light yogurt.

Then I almost derailed completely when I encountered what I'm pretty sure is my biggest trigger ever--my parents' house. Wow. I stopped by for a little while after work and I had to fight SO HARD not to go straight to their junk food drawer. They have an entire drawer in the kitchen full of the most wonderful candy and chocolate. Hershey Nuggets, Snickers, gummy bears, fruit snacks, oatmeal cream pies, chocolate covered peanuts...all of my weaknesses. That's usually my first stop at their house. Then I check the jar next to the microwave to see if it's full of Plain or Peanut M&Ms. If they're Plain, I'll grab a few. If they're Peanut, I'll grab as many as I can fit into my hand (and maybe an extra mouthful too). God, I love Peanut M&Ms. They also keep chocolate chip cookies in the cookie jar at ALL times. And today, they also had two bags of those chocolate chip cookies from McDonald's that were still warm and smeary with chocolate. You know, the cookies that are so greasy and delicious, they taste like they've been fried for a few seconds. They smelled so good.

But I did not have a single thing. Nothing. My mom had a bag of Cadbury chocolate hanging out of the side pocket of her purse. (Not a snack bag, either--like, a legitimate BAG of chocolate. Yes, my mother is diabetic, something that terrifies me. I obviously come from a long line of women who make healthy food decisions. My grandmother is somewhere around 460 pounds, but that's a story for another day.) Plus, there was an extra bag of Christmas Peanut M&Ms on the table. Oh, yeah, then she gave me a chocolate Advent calendar (six days into December, so a calendar with six pieces of chocolate demanding to be eaten).

Still, I didn't have anything. I don't know if I've ever gone over there without taking at least a fistful of cashews, a swig of pre-mixed chocolate milk, a chunk of cheddar or Colby, an ice cream sandwich, or some buttery crackers with Easy Cheese. They have all of my favorite comfort foods, and they have them all the time. It's honestly like being in a trap with everything I crave but know I shouldn't have.

It doesn't help that the kitchen is the center of their home, both literally and figuratively. It's the central location, it's where everyone goes to visit. I'm already dreading Christmas over there, which is just like a smorgasbord of deliciousness. We stand at the bar, surrounded by food, and I'm supposed to resist all of the temptation right at my fingertips?

I did resist, and I'm glad. I came home and ate a really healthy supper (steamed broccoli with tomato sauce, onions, garlic, basil, and fat-free mozzarella, sauteed and then baked with a little more fat free mozzarella on top; I served the veggie casserole with crispy cauliflower bites and I'm still full). My girlfriend ate the Advent chocolate, and all was well. But being at my parents' and working so hard not to snack dredged up some pretty shameful memories that I hate thinking about. My cheeks stuffed like a chipmunk full of chocolate or gummy candy, spraying whipped cream onto oatmeal cream pies and trying to shovel it all into my mouth before anyone came home, stealing candy bars or Little Debbie's one at a time to minimize the chance of anyone noticing.

I'm proud of myself for staying on Plan today. And I'm proud of myself for losing 30 pounds, even though I still feel so huge. And I'm proud of myself for being proud, instead of feeling deprived or bitter about missing out on all the chocolate.

On that note, I think I might have some fruit for dessert instead of a Smart Ones. Ha, just kidding, I totally want the Smart Ones. But I'll still have 35 points for the week, so screw it :) I resisted enough today!