Today was a recovery day for myself and my son.  Myself for self-induced reasons stemming from all of the fun I had the night before.  My son spent the day recovering from a really bad infection he developed in his foot after stepping on a rusty nail yesterday.  I took him to the urgent care center.  The doctor said he has a massive infection and put him on some very strong (and expensive) medication.  I of course felt terrible for having gone out last night and not just taking him to the doctor immediately.  His foot is really bothering him, he can’t even walk.  I know he won’t be going to school tomorrow.

As for eating today…. well, lets just say it wasn’t good.  I ate some egg sandwich for breakfast– and didn’t eat again until 1:30 because I felt like I was going to throw up a few times until my hangover completely went away.  For lunch I had pineapple and cottage cheese… then I ate a piece of chicken Florentine pizza, which was awesome.  Then I had dinner– which most Sunday’s it is not really healthy (although I am eating much less than I would have in the past).  Tomorrow is a weigh in day.  I am not sure how it went this week.  I did great up until last night.  I have no idea what I am in for in the morning.

I finished my 30 day abs challenge the other day.  I have another one that I am going to start tomorrow.  I was going to start today, but I am far too tired and I want to start fresh on Monday.

Today my husband and I went out for my birthday.  We had an awesome time.  Perhaps a little too awesome.  I paid for it by spending a great deal of the night over the porcelain toilet.  But it was worth it! 😉  I went way over my calories for the day– but I am not sure if it really mattered because I spent the majority of the night getting rid of everything I took in.  I am sure it will be a doozy when I step on the scale on Monday.

Right before we left for the night our son stepped on a nail.  The kids spent the night at their nana and poppop’s house.  He was definitely feeling the pain.  My husband and I felt bad about not staying with him.

My fit bit is linked up to my fitness pal.  It shows that I actually earn a lot of calories back from activity during the day.  I think part of the reason I have been successful is because I don’t eat those calories.  I am not sure if perhaps I should– I know it would slow my weight loss down, but I wonder if I would be able to keep the weight off long term if I did.  For now, I am very anxious to keep losing weight and not ready to start slowing down.  But I know at some point I should.

Today is my birthday.  There were two major times today that I wanted to go way over my calories.  The first occurred in the morning when I was getting a coffee at Dunkin Donuts.  I really wanted the new Chips Ahoy donut, it looked amazing.  But I didn’t order one.  Then, tonight for my birthday (after working outside with my husband and finishing splitting the wood!!  YEA!), I made this awesome pan seared salmon dish and I had a diet gin and tonic.  Then I wanted another gin and tonic and ice cream.  I decided not to have either and I stayed completely within my calorie intake for the day.  Probably the first time on my birthday ever.  I am happy I was able to hold it together– especially because I have a fun date night scheduled tomorrow and I know I won’t be able to stay within my calories.

My husband bought me a fit bit for my birthday.  I love it.  It is awesome and it links right up to my fitness pal app.  It tells me how much calories I am burning for the day, counts my steps also.  It reflected on my fitness pal that I have an additional 200+ calories to eat today because of all of the work I had done.  However, I didn’t eat those extra calories because I think that is what has been helping me to lose the weight, especially on the days that I go over.  It helps make up for it.  But it was really neat to see how active I am and to see how much calories I burn in a day.  What a great gift.

I left work really early today and went with my mom and daughter to get pedicures.  Then I went to a picnic for my daughters end of the year preschool bash.  It was great.  I spoke with a bunch of moms and hung out while the kids had a great time.  We then came home and went swimming (before I went outside and split the rest of the wood with my husband).

It was a really nice birthday- and for the first time in my life it didn’t center around eating ice cream cake and a calorie laden dinner.  I just had fun– and it was wonderful.

My company holds an annual summer kickoff picnic every year.  Around 200 people attend in all.  It is quite an affair, with a raw bar, a carving station, a raw bar, a bar, a raw bar, chips and dip…. and did I mention, a raw bar.  I LOVE oysters, clams, shrimp, scallops… you name it.  LOVE IT.  I had a very busy today and never had a chance to eat a decent lunch, so going into the evening’s festivities I had plenty of calories to partake in the raw bar goodness.  I had numerous oysters and clams on the half shell, pan seared scallops and jumbo shrimp.  I literally could have sat at the table all night.  The oyster man learned my name (partly because I had a name tag on), and also because I probably frequented his portion of the table more than the other 200 people there.  What can I say… I LOVE oysters.

I also had some chardonnay– and I did a great job of limiting myself, because I have been known in the past to polish off a whole bottle.

After the picnic, when I entered everything I ate into my fitness pal, I was surprised to see that I had 440 calories left for the day still.  That is partly because seafood, especially raw bar items, are not really high in calories.  I tried to finish my entry for the day, but my fitness pal app yelled at me (ok, it didn’t really yell), but it wouldn’t let me finish the entry because it said I had not eaten enough calories for the day and by not doing that, I was being unhealthy in my weight loss journey.  Well, it didn’t have to tell me twice… I made myself a left over manwich on light bread– which brought me much closer to my daily goal.  At that point I was able to successfully log my calories for the day.  If I hadn’t eaten something additional, my fitness pal would not let me complete the log for the day and it would have reset my daily journaling back to 0.  I have been working so hard, I definitely do not want that to happen, especially since I have successfully logged for 32 days now.  I have been diligent and honest, logging everything I eat, both good days and bad.

I will be interested to see what my daily calorie log looks like on Saturday… my husband and I are going out for my birthday.  It will be my first time out at a restaurant for a special occasion since I started losing weight.  That will be a real test…. and it will be the first time ever I will have an honest glimpse of how many calories I really eat on a “date night”.  I keep telling myself I will reign it in and not go crazy– but it is also for my birthday and I feel like it would be ok to do it on this occasion.  The key for me will be to let loose a bit, but pull myself back together the next day.

I was happy that I was able to go for a walk today at work.  I love being able to get up from my desk and get some exercise.  I find that I am able to keep up a little bit better with the women who walk every day.  By the end of the walk I am still at the back of the pack… but I find that I don’t care.  I just want to be able to get exercise.  It is worth a chuckle that I end up walking with my co-worker who is 75 years old by the end of the walk.  She is in much better shape than I.  But she gets tired usually by the end of the walk as well so she and I walk together.  My hope is that by the end of all of this… when I am 75 I can be in as great shape as she.

Today marks one month that I have been diligent in my weight loss quest.  Looking back on my one month ago self, I can say I am really happy not to be that person and all of the sacrifice and tough choices I have made have been worth it.  I don’t have any grand delusions that I am going to be really skinny… but I know I am going to be fit and healthy.  And that is a lot considering where I started.  I know I have a long road ahead, but I am letting today be about reflecting on how far I have already come.

Today I wore a pair of pants that were soooo tight, when I had sat down they literally rolled down my belly (yes, belly… I haven’t had a stomach/waist in years).  Today, they actually fit comfortably and are a dress size smaller than what I had been wearing when I started.  In addition, nothing rolled down when I sat down!  They stayed right in place.  For a plus size person like me… clothes staying where they are supposed to stay is a major win.  Now… for the next challenge, getting into pants one more size down– that would be amazing… I have not worn size 12 pants in a few years.  I have a whole wardrobe of size 12– suits I purchased over two years ago that didn’t actually fit me when I purchased them that still have tags on them.  I am going to fit into those suits again… hopefully sooner rather than later.  For now though, my size 18/16 pants are almost getting to the point that I really cannot wear them any more they are so baggy.  I can’t wait until I am to the point that I really have to put them away and stop wearing them.

I was thrilled to see the grey box reward me with another 2.2 pounds down for a total weight loss of 17.2 pounds so far.  I also was really able to tell that I have lost weight when I put on my pants this morning.   They are a pair that I have regularly worn for about 2 years and they are my go to pair.  When I started this weight loss journey four weeks ago they were really snug.  Now they are really baggy.

I purposefully have not set a total goal for the weight I want to lose.  I believe that would be way to overwhelming.  Instead, I have been trying to set small goals for myself to accomplish.  I am almost done with my 30 day crunches challenge, I only have 4 days left.  Once I finish that 30 day challenge, I plan to start a different one.  The other goal I really want to meet is to have a full week of staying within my allotted calories each day.  I would do that this week, but my birthday falls this week and I know it won’t happen.  I would do it next week, but I am camping with my family and I don’t think it will happen then.  Further, I don’t want to put that type of restriction on myself… because usually I end up over indulging when I finally do give in to something I want.  So perhaps the week after….

My nifty fitness pal app recalculated my calorie intake for the day after I entered my new weight this morning.  I now can have 1290 calories per day versus the 1320 I have had for the last 4 weeks.  And I was surprised that I actually felt that reduction in calories today.  As I sit here right now, I have 2 calories left for today and I am hungry.  I could certainly eat something else.  I am not sure if it is just mental, but I am hoping tomorrow it balances out a bit better and I am not sitting here before bed wishing I could eat something else.

So…. today I went over again.  I had 2 diet gin and tonics, and as is typical, I ate an ice cream cone and went over my calories.  I will say that in comparison to what I normally do, I didn’t go nearly as crazy as I would have in the past.  I have to weigh in tomorrow morning… I am not sure how well that will go.  Although Monday through Friday were great, Saturday and Sunday I went over calories by about 450 calories each day.  I am not very optimistic that it will go well with the grey box in the morning.  Although I feel great, small and thinner, I am worried in the morning I might be disappointed.  As I said last week, I hope it is some type of loss.  We will see…

Tonight I went to a Greek food festival.  As you might expect, that goal of having a whole week of not going over my calories at all did not come true.  I will start again fresh another week– this week it was not meant to be.  With that said, the food was amazing and my family and I had a great time.  It is impossible to stay within my calorie intake at a food festival.  Especially when I love gyros.  And these were some of the best gyros I have ever had.

Now the real, real test comes now and for the rest of the night.  Because what I want to do now is open a bottle of wine and hang out for the rest of the night.  Inevitably, what comes with that is usually more eating.  I keep going back and forth in my mind between saying, “screw it, I went over, might as well enjoy the rest of the night” and “I know I went over, but I don’t have to turn what was a nice night into a gluttonous mess.”

I had a really good day.  Eating wise.  Work wise, just everything.  Until the very end of the day when I had something blow up at work that really put a damper on the night.  I went outside and split more wood with my husband.  Our kids played in the front yard and were so well behaved.  That helped… but I still feel a little depressed.  What I really want is something good to eat.  And a bottle of wine to help wash away the upset.  However, I am not doing that and I am just getting through it.. naturally.  It sucks.  It is amazing how something so stupid and trivial in the grand scheme of my life can ruin a perfectly good night.  I am sure I will feel better in the morning, but it just stinks right now.  And it is even worse by the fact that I am not dulling the pain with something…

This is tough… but I know I can do it and it will make me stronger in my weight loss journey.  I need something other than food and alcohol to help me cope with stress/work issues/life.