Yesterday was NOT a good day - how come I onlyblog when I have eaten-eaten-eaten? First of all I took the little ones to Gettysburg shopping - no - wait - first of all I cut the date bar and ate two pieces of it. THEN we went shopping, and I indulged in two chocolate cookies at Subway. Later we ate at the food court and I had a HUGE baked potato loaded with marg, sour cream, cheese, bacon bits and chives. Followed by an Auntie Anne's pretzel and a half - Aiden couldn't eat all of his. When I got to work, I discovered that I was mistaken about the date of the Christmas luncheon, and it was yesterday, not today. So there were LOTS of leftovers - shrimp salad, chicken wings, cheese and crackers, and, most fatally, mouth-watering brownies. So whatever I may have lost on Sunday when we went to the Ravens game, I have now managed to regain plus!! Today will be MUCH better, I am resolved - even though I AM going out to lunch with two of my neighbors - and to Alice's, no less! Watch this space for more confessions!!

Forgive me, FRP...

for I have sinned....

What an incredibly BAD food day I've had today! A piece and a half of rice krispie bar with home-made chocolate icing this morning, followed by a coddled egg & a slice of toast for breakast (yes, the rice krispie bar was before breakfast... blame Mom, it was all her fault!!).... A twix at work on a quick break (and 2 sandie cookies - one of my coworkers made them... how was I to say no??) to hold me over to dinner, then a cup of cheddar potato soup, half a turkey, bacon & cheese sandwich for dinner - and a piece of apple dumpling pie with ice cream for dessert. Oh, the calories I've ingested today!!

Still, the saving grace of the day is that I have actually WORKED today to offset some of those calories... Shoveling a car out of the snow at work, pushing carts through the parking lot and the snow, moving bag after bag after bag of ice melt (at 40lbs per bag, they're not the lightest things on the planet...), helping to unload a truck delivery at the end of my shift (ok, so I only did that for 20 mins or so, but every little bit counts, right?!)...

I wonder what day we're weighing in this week? How long do I have to get rid of those extra calories from today??? :0) It's a pay week too.... Watch out bank account, here comes a big hit for you this week!!

Halfway there - YAY!!

As hard as it is it believe, as of this morning, I am HALFWAY to my weight-loss goal on this FRP (food reduction plan), as Mom likes to call it! I have officially lost 27lbs - that's exactly half of my 54lb goal. YAY!!! I'm very, very excited about it all!

Halfway... I'm only 7lbs off my Christmas wish goal of 200lbs, which I'm obviously NOT going to make, given that Christmas is only 9 days away - although we are having a seriously reduced Christmas on the goodies front this year... No East End bars, no banana bread, no date bar.... BOO!! Even so, to have come this far in the last 4 months is shocking: who'd have thunk that simply changing your diet and watching your portions would affect your weight so very, very much??!! I know I would never have done so! More to the point, I don't even really crave the foods I used to eat so much any more either - I do occasionally still want french fries & burgers, and when I do want them, I generally go ahead & eat them, but I don't feel like I could eat them every day, the way I used to feel. And point in hand: on Sunday, I had fried chicken fingers & french fries for lunch, then just could not face the french fries that came with my turkey sandwich for dinner that evening (yes, I ate out twice in one day... it was a hectic day, believe me!).... And - perhaps most shocking of all to anyone & everyone who has known me for more than a New York minute - I actually MISS salads when I don't have one for a couple of days! I'm craving healthier food instead of candy, sugar & lots & lots of salt...

So now we'll have to see how challenging losing the remaining 27lbs is going to be. I haven't been under 200lbs in longer than I can remember, so even just getting that far would be an incredible result! Watch this space for more updates!!

No thanks to Ione's wonderful cooking, I only gained one pound in Minnesota last week - I had expected it to be at least five! I discovered this WONDERFUL breakfast cereal in her larder that is laden with almonds and dates and oatmeal and brown sugar and ......................calories! I have THROWN OUT the name of it - anything that tastes that good cannot possibly be good for you! So I am back to the FRP grind - kinda. Yesterday after church I went to the Mall to do some shopping and ended up with an Auntie Anne's cinnamon sugar pretzel somehow making its way down my throat! Ah, will power, how capricious it is!!

What a strange week!

Well, Thanksgiving was great (and food-filled, as my last post shows!), and now here we are 5 days later - and what a strange 5 days they've been! Mom is in Minnesota, visiting Grandma (as of early Sunday morning), hence why she hasn't blogged anything recently, so I've had the house to myself since then. Black Friday - or Stupid Friday, as it's referred to at work - was actually nowhere near as bad as I had thought / expected it to be - although towards the end of the day I did SOMETHING that threw my back out of whack, and that left me lying on the floor in PAIN for the next three days! I tried to go to work on Saturday morning - managed to crawl my way through a shower, getting dressed & getting to work, but came home again just minutes after I got there - I could hardly stand up at all. I was off Sunday anyway, but ended up calling out for Monday too - so I missed 2 full days of work because of it. Groan!

Still, the good news is that I have done no real or permanent damage to my arm (from lifting the washing machine, I mean). The doctor cleared me back for full normal work duties - whatever I did was muscular only, and that will just clear up on its own in its own sweet time!

As for diet, heaven only knows how I'm doing this week. I haven't been eating a whole lot (except for the rather large plate of chicken pasta at Ruby Tuesdays last night...), but at the same time, lying on the floor is not exactly good exercise either... Still, weigh-in day is Friday this week, since Mom isn't back from MN until Thursday night, so I've got a couple of days yet to try to work off whatever gain I've had so far. The scales will tell!!