I ate cookies today.

and they weren't wheat free.

I'm a stress eater. Dear step daughter is stressful to me. Having her home all day with me while I'm trying to work is stressful. My daughter is used to it, but SD is not. So. I ate chocolate chip oatmeal cookies.

It could've been worse.

I could've eaten two dozen instead of two.

OR I could've had a Pepsi. But I'm still Pepsi free. Yay me!

Traveling. Ugh.

It's always an adventure to travel somewhere you aren't familiar, rent a car, and drive around all over the place. what makes it even more of an adventure is doing so with your husband's ex, your husband's kid, and your husband's ex's other kid.

And my weight went back up to 242.5, but hey, I'm not complaining. I'm due for my period next week AND I ate airport food/takeout for two solid days while I was traveling. Not too shabby.

Just an update: I checked my scales since they seemed a bit funky this morning. Hubby had slid them around a lot yesterday while he was shaving his head, and one of the protective "feet" was missing. Found it, put it back on, it balanced correctly.

ROCK ON. 240. That makes 13 pounds REMOVED in 2 weeks. YAY ME!!!

Guess using the smaller plates and eating better is working. Removed another 3 pounds, checked twice since I didn't believe it.

Talked with the midwife yesterday -- she recommended I go back on the South Beach Diet. I can to an extent -- they recommend a lot of artificial sweeteners, which I can't use as they give me migraines. But cutting out most sugar would probably be a good start. The worst part was probably getting rid of the Pepsi -- two weeks and holding strong.

The Weekend:

Friday, I went to IKEA with CC. Counting that as my walk since we were there for-freaking-ever. Ate too much junk though, and my stomach apparently hates IKEA food. Blech. But we like the organization ideas and I think I'm going back this afternoon to pick up a couple of things so she can come help me tear up the house Friday ... er, move the furniture and try to make the space more liveable since we may be here a few more years.

Saturday, I took kidlet to Macey's grocery store, Wally's, and Costco -- we have food now! yay! Counted that as my walk since I really didn't have time to do more than that. I did *try* to eat better, but not sure what happened since I slept half of the afternoon away. I did eat a lean cuisine something for dinner though. Thank heaven for hubby's discount -- he brought home a bunch of individual pizzas and a few dinners and only spent $11. Love it.

Sunday, I was fasting for breakfast, then had a turkey sammy on ww for lunch (blood sugar issues -- I usually only fast for one meal). I also made cookies and sent some away with the home teachers. Made stir fry last night with some ramen -- had planned to make brown rice, but somehow when I said I was taking a short nap, it turned into 3 hours and then didn't have an hour to make the brown rice. Gah.

Anyway. I'm down to 245.5 this morning, which makes me happy ... well ... as happy as I can be at that weight. ;) No soda has helped, and I think using kid-sized plates from IKEA and only eating one serving has helped, too. Yay.

George Clooney is a vampire.

At least, he was one in my dreams.

Why on earth I can't have normal dreams, I don't know, but I thought that was pretty funny when I woke up this morning. First I drug up Senator Clinton and send her on a roller coaster (I dreamt that months ago) and now Clooney being a blood sucker. *snicker*

Okay.

Yesterday we walked. Breakfast was GoLean crunch, smoothie for a snack, lunch was a sonic salad (yes, with onion ring ... and a slush. gah), dinner was a lovely ground chicken chili with black beans and corn bread made with whole wheat flour.

I'm going to Ikea with CC today, so I'm assuming we'll be walking a bit. Huge store. Huge parking lot. I'm going to use that as my walk today.

Starting to get a headache from caffeine withdrawals today. Eeep.

Did somewhat okay yesterday. Not as well as I'd planned or hoped, but better than the days where I eat donuts and pie. *rolls eyes*

*golean crunch w/milk
*cheese stick
*random leftovers lunch stuff -- some rice thing and some potato thing (wasn't enough of either for me)
*pretzels
*bbq chinese pork and noodles (the last of what i'd made and frozen for hubby, needed to get rid of it before the competition)
*ginger ale (tummy HURT and i was really queasy all night)

We did walk in the a.m., but I didn't get any pilates done due to tummy troubles.

Today's plan is again to walk -- tummy still isn't happy, so pilates is on the shelf again. the cereal for breakfast, something simple for lunch, probably something frozen for dinner (get the stouffer's red box stuff out of there).

hubby weighed in for his competition last night, but he's going to go one more place and get another measurement just to see if last night's was accurate. wooo.

Today marks day 8 with no Pepsi. I did have a root beer float the other day (I know, not exactly diet fare), and forgot (duh) that root beer is SODA, so I did have carbonation, but I am avoiding it pretty much altogether.

And now that my period bloat has gone down some, I can tell a difference and I do feel better. Yay me.

I went for a walk yesterday and did some Pilates the night before.

Today's plan is to eat golean crunch for breakfast, protein and fruit smoothie for lunch, something light for dinner, and do a walk AND pilates at some point this morning.

Husbands.

Mine is entering another competition this week. That means he's been busily intentionally putting on weight (i.e., eating crappy) to improve his chances at winning. This means my own loss goals have somewhat been thwarted. In fact, to the point I gained back all 6 pounds that I'd lost last month.

*sigh*

The good news is that he is starting this week, so we are working our way back to healthier eating. Thank heaven.

The gal who wrote BFL for women says we need to change our vocabulary and not talk about "losing" weight because when you lose something, you want to find it. Rather, she says to "remove" the extra, unhealthy pounds. Dr. Zonnya (motivational speaker) says to "release" it. I like "remove" better because it indicates that you are actively engaged in doing something to get rid of something you don't want, much like I remove spots from clothes or remove myself from unhealthy situations. "Release" to me is a more passive word.

The other thing I've noticed in life is that if you remove something, you have to replace it with something else (except stains on clothes, but you do use tools to do that). But if you're removing a bad habit from your life, you have to replace it with something good, or you create a vacuum and your bad habit will sneak up on you again.

So, I start anew. I choose to remove 50 pounds of fat in the next 12 months and replace the old habits that got me here with living a healthier lifestyle, including walking and moving my body every day and eating healthy foods, and still giving myself permission to eat some chocolate once a month (ha, pms), in order to create my new body. I commit to myself to remove in total, over the next few years, 80 pounds of excess weight, bringing me to a healthier baseline weight of 170 pounds, and I commit to myself to continue healthy living for the rest of my life. I choose to take care of me in this manner, putting my health in the top 3 of my priorities: God first, family second (which includes me and my health, as well as hubby and kidlets), and my career third.