Less of a Man

It was an interesting week food wise…  The “program week” started with the company picnic after the last weigh in, too much pound cake on Monday, birthday cake for a co-worker on Thursday and going to Olive Garden with my family for my wife’s birthday.  It was an interesting week, but I lost about a pound and a half in spite of it all, and that was even once again getting weighed with the normal clothes and decently hydrated.  Go me!

I know I already talked about the first two temptations…  I really didn’t think I was going to be tempted with any birthday cake this week, as my wife said she wanted to skip that this year,  but, well, there I was at work being volunteered to take the biggest piece of my co-worker’s cake.  I decided to only eat about half of what I was given, however, and the rest found it’s way into the trash.    I suspect that the fact I started out working for this company always volunteering to take the big piece will keep them offering it to me, and I don’t want to just not have any cake and seem like I’m not taking part in the celebrations, but if they do give me something big there’s nothing saying I have to finish it.  I did refuse the ice cream I was offered though, so I feel pretty good about that. 

Olive Garden really wasn’t that tough of a challenge either in the end.  I knew we were going there, so I looked up the nutritional information from their web site before we went and decided on their Parmesan Crusted Bistecca.  At 16 points, it wasn’t light fare, but I could certainly budget my points for it.  (At three points per breadstick, though, I had to watch myself on that…  and I probably had more salad then I should have since it comes already with the dressing on it, but, mmmm, I do love their house salad….)  They tempted me into a glass of wine with their free sample, but I was the only one in the family who did not order a dessert.  It was a good, on-plan meal.

I made it to the gym twice;  between the Olive Garden after work one day, an open house at my son’s school I ran to after work another day, and, uh, I forget what came up the third day, I only wound up having two days after work to work out.  But work out I did, and pushed a little longer than I typically would since I knew I’d have reduced days this week.  Not a great accomplishment to get there twice, but still better than what I had been doing before.

All in all, the biggest difference is I feel like I’m getting my head back into the swing of things again and while I’m still having some days or events out there a bit more (aka the pound cake), I’m being more careful on the regular days vs. living in ‘summer mode’ and I’m seeing the benefits.  Looking back at my weight tracking, on July 3rd I had weighed in at -32.6lbs.  Yesterday, September 4th I weighed in at -36.4lbs, or less than four pounds less than where I was two months earlier.  Compared to the almost 10lbs a month I was losing the first three months, it definitely feels like things have slowed down on the one hand.  On the other hand, man, knowing the things I did over the last two months it’s a miracle I’m not 15lbs heavier, so perhaps the program has saved me 20lbs.  I know that temptations aren’t going to go away (like all the popcorn I had at the baseball game last night), but I also know if I get my mind back to it that it can come off much more quickly than it has.  What’s phenomenal to me is that I HAVE lost four pounds over the last two months and NOT felt like I’m missing out on life at all.  This program make take me five years, but nothing’s going to stop me from getting where I’m going because I’m enjoying myself on this program and won’t mind spending five or more years on it.

Oh, and while I had weighed in at -36 once before in July before a small backslide, the -36.4 is the lowest I’ve been since starting the plan.  I’m 2.1lbs away from 10% off.  This labor day weekend will have more temptations for me that I might give into as a last summer hurrah, but even if so then it is the last summer hurrah.  I don’t foresee any major “temptation holidays” coming up for a while after this and I’m getting my groove back on in the dailies so I fully expect to get back to the 10lbs/month I was at before, especially since I wasn’t really exercising before.  I’m feeling good about this!