Start of Week 8

This week is terrifying. It's the week after Christmas and the week before New Years. Let me explain. Christmas went well, overall. We had three parties to attend. The first party was with friends, the second and third with family. When I was with friends, I stayed away from all appetizers, with the exception of one chip in a layered bean dip kind of thing. I had a couple of drinks and ate a reasonably healthy dinner. In fact, I stayed within my calorie limit. Part of my success there was that I used a small plate for dinner and I brought a healthy side dish so I could eat it with confidence. I made a lentil salad. It was pretty good. We also had panini's for dinner that night, but we got to create our own. Luckily that group is a pretty healthy group, so most of the choices were really good.

On Christmas Eve, we had brunch with my dad, step mom and in-laws. I knew I would bust my calories this day, but tried to keep my food within reason for brunch. I had a bagel and some breakfast casserole which had eggs, broccoli, cheese, and potatoes from what I could tell. I stayed away from the bacon (which I don't really like all that much anyway, luckily) and had less than a quarter of a sticky bun... just to taste it.

That night we went to my mom's and saw that side of the family for dinner. There were lots of appetizers. I stuck mostly to the veggie tray, had a few drinks, and ate one plate of food for dinner with a little extra pineapple stuffing (it's one of my favorite parts of Christmas Eve dinner).

We got some presents on Christmas Eve because we wouldn't be seeing family for Christmas Day. We got some great presents, but we also got a lot of candy. My wife came home with about 10 pounds of chocolate, and I'm pretty sure I'm not exaggerating too much. Luckily people know I'm trying to be more healthy, so I got some sugar free candies and a few fruity candies, but no chocolate, which is great. My aunt gave us our usual plate of cookies.

So Christmas morning comes, my wife and I exchange presents, and I end up with a little more candy. Some of my favorite kinds, but still stuff that's not too bad and I can control myself with it. For breakfast we made our own gluten free breakfast casserole. Gluten free bread, eggs, sausage, almond milk, and cheese. No, it's not healthy, but yes, it is delicious. I was planning the day as another calorie buster, but tried to maintain control.

Unfortunately, I didn't try hard enough. I had some drinks, I ate half my plate of cookies, and had a quarter of the breakfast casserole. For dinner we did ham, sweet potatoes, and green beans. The ham was very lean. For dinner we did pretty well, and we're having leftovers tonight, but those damn cookies got me. I just love them. Not having the calorie restriction made it more difficult to resist.

Despite all of that, I still managed to lose some weight. 239 this morning. I'm finally into the 230's and I'm really happy about it!

Let me get to why this week is so terrifying though. We still have tons of tempting food around the house. We got sent home with mashed potatoes and ham. I still have half a plate of cookies. I have about 5 pounds of candy. On top of it all, I can drink whatever I want this week if I stay in my calories because I know I'm going to bust my calorie goal on New Years Eve. Here's the cherry. I'm on a rest week for p90x. Not that I won't be doing difficult workouts. I still have yoga, core, and kenpo, but I've got two off days this week.

I'm going to flip this whole thing on it's head with this statement. I'm aware of the challenges ahead, and therefore I have the ability to set myself up for success. And that's what I intend on doing. Expect some more weight loss next week.

Of course, no post would be complete without a few doggy pictures.

On Christmas morning, we sat on the porch near our tree and did our presents.

 

Yahtzee sat by the door and looked outside. Later we gave her a toy from my dad which took her about 6 hours to break. We called him Santa balls. She ate his foot off.

We let her open her stocking after we were done with all of our presents. She got a stuffed penguin from Santa, and took about 5 minutes to chew his tag off and create a gaping hole in his butt. I didn't realize that she was chewing his tag off, of course, you can totally tell in the picture. I saw her chewing the tag once it came off of Mr. Penguin, but didn't get to it in time. She ate it.

My mom gave her a moose with a squeaker also. She broke the squeaker within 15 minutes and put a hole in it, but she still likes it, so we let her keep it. For now.