48 hours

Well.. the last 48 hours have not been good. Don't get me wrong, I've had a great 2 days and lot's of fun but I have eaten everything in sight. I could start a new blog of everything I ate. I won't list all of the details here but I'll give a brief overview. It all started with my book group on Friday. There were 12 of us and we had a blast. (You can see the link for the book group listed with my blogs.) We meet once a month and discuss the book of the month and bring a dish that goes with the book. Of course that means lots of food. Plus lots of wine. It was all delicious. Then on Saturday I headed to San Jose to visit one of my dearest friends Sasha. (that's Sasha in the photo with me in Vegas 2 yrs ago.) Now Sasha and I have discussed diets, weight loss, body image issues, etc. for years. The funny thing is that we usually do it over some fabulous decadent dinner. We love to find new restaurants and go nuts. She is the only person I know who doesn't flinch when the bill shows up. So as usual, we went to a new place in Los Gatos, Cin Cin wine bar. http://cincinwinebar.com/ The food was delicious but the dessert.... OMG! We had Cheesecake Beignets. Yes, fried doughnuts with cheesecake inside.
Now, if all of that wasn't bad enough, the next morning we met up with another good friend, Tamara, for breakfast. I had 2 eggs, bacon and a WAFFLE. I drove home feeling guilty and determined to do better. But then I walked in the door and there in the kitchen were cupcakes. Yes, Rory, my dog sitter extraordinaire, had made cupcakes for a baby shower. She left a dozen bite size cupcakes for me. Of course I had to try a couple just to make sure they weren't poisonous.
The only bright spot was that I felt so full that I walked the dogs for 2 miles.
Tomorrow is a new day. A new beginning. I need to get rid of those cupcakes!

walking

Well... I'm not going to talk about yesterday. I didn't feel like I did a good job. a lot of snacking. but today is a new day.
I had 2 cereal bars for breakfast. One just isn't enough. Plus my usual coffee. For lunch I had a SBUX turkey and swiss sandwich. In the evening I had one of our banana mango squeeze packs on the drive home. Tonight I had salmon, broccoli and a sweet potato. I ate like an entire head of broccoli!! I was so hungry. A whole head of broccoli will make me full of toxic fumes. I know.... too much information. I'm bad at doing that.
So the food wasn't too bad but the good thing is the walking. I got home at 4:30 and even though I still had a couple of hours of work to do, I decided to take the dogs for a long walk since the weather was actually nice. I have several different dog walks that I do and I have mapped them out so I know how long they are. I took the dogs on the 2 mile walk. I got home and worked for a couple of hours and then at 8pm I closed the laptop. I put the sweet potato in the oven and pulled out the treadmill. I walked on the treadmill for 30 minutes. Put up the treadmill and ate dinner. I felt really good that I did a total of 3.5 miles today. And I didn't have my glass of wine! I decided it was so late that I would just hold off until the weekend.
So, a few bright spots for the day. Tomorrow will be a long day of driving in the foothills.

Day 1

I'm not sure it was a good day... food wise that is.
I started off pretty good, went bad and then good again. Several problems I am facing; 1. I wait until I'm really hungry to eat and then I make bad choices. I know that is not the way to do it. They say to eat small meals throughout the day so that you are never starving. I just forget. 2. I eat something bad and then I just decide that it ruins the day and I might as well eat bad for the rest of the day and start over the next day. I also know this isn't smart. Just because I eat something I shouldn't, doesn't mean I should just go nuts for the rest of the day.
3. I'm not willing to give up the glass of wine in the evening. I love my glass of wine. I justify it as good for my health. But, I find that once I have that glass of wine, I start making bad food choices. IF I have 2 glasses, things really go downhill.
So today I started with 2 packs of instant cream of wheat and 3 cups of coffee. Not too bad. around 10am I had a cereal bar. Still not bad. But then the conference calls started. I was starving during my 11am call. It ran long and when I got off of the call I only had 15 minutes until my 1230 call. So I grabbed the leftover macaroni and cheese that was enough for 2 meals and ate all of it while on my 2nd call. I felt really guilty the entire time I was eating it ;( I need to drop the guilt. Then I had a couple of other calls and headed down to Stockton. Finished my P&AP investigation and decided that I was too hungry to drive all the way home without eating. I knew I would do fast food if I didn't eat. I got our fruit and cheese plate which is 380 calories. But I didn't eat the crackers. Just the fruit and cheese. I'm hoping that at least saved the 80 calories. Ugggh. I got home and was still hungry. I think I have a tape worm!!! I just now ate a piece of salmon that had a soy sauce glaze, a spinach salad (just spinach, pear and 1 triangle of 30 calorie laughing cow cheese.) and some sauteed asparagus. Now if I can just make it through the night without eating anything else, I'll be good.
No exercise today. It was raining when I got home so I couldn't walk the dogs. I have 2 more hours of work to do before I can call it a night. The wii fit will have to wait until tomorrow.
uggghhhh this is hard.

The first day

I like to start everyday by saying "Today is the first day of the rest of my life". Because it is! My team has decided to start a weight loss challenge. We will see who can lose the highest percentage of weight over a 3 month period. The weigh in starts on Monday. A few folks have already started and a few folks are packing it on this week to get ready to start. I'm doing neither. I kinda started a couple of weeks ago by being aware of what I was eating and trying to get back in the habit of walking the dogs. I even got the Wii Fit. But, I haven't lost anything. I also haven't gained. I'm just hanging in there. While I think I've been aware, I haven't really made an effort. This week, the effort starts. I'm cleaning out the refrigerator this weekend. I'm dusting off the treadmill. I'm planning out my week to have a little work life balance. My problem is that I sit in front of the TV with my laptop and remain there for several hours. I need to close the laptop and only watch TV when I'm on the treadmill. I also need to get my rear back to yoga. That alone sweats out lbs.
My goals are not as much about the number of pounds but fitting into my clothes and feeling comfortable. All of my clothes are super tight now and I only have 3 pairs of pants left that actually fit. Not good. Plus, this summer I have a family vacation coming up that involves the beach. We all know what that means.
I am going to try to post thoughts and reflections at least 3 times a week on this site. I will also track my teammates progress and comment. We are going to be successful!
so we begin....