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After a wonderful week visiting with family, I made it back home today and it feels so good to be here!  I especially can’t wait to sleep in my own bed tonight!  I’m also relieved to be back home because I realized something this week – it’s a lot easier to eat healthy on my own then it is when I am surrounded by other people!  The temptations this week definitely caught up with me a little more than I had anticipated but I am not beating myself up over it because I know it could have been a lot worse – and, more importantly, I enjoyed myself!  That being said, I had written in yesterday’s post that if I wanted a snack last evening after eating junk all day, I’d likely have almonds and yogurt, or mini rice cakes.  Shortly after I wrote that though, my cousin placed a huge pepperoni pizza on the table and invited everyone to have some.  Seriously?!  Pizza is probably my most favourite food ever.  It’s certainly one of my biggest weaknesses (along with chips, cookies, and ice cream!). Once again, that “well I already blew it” mentality kicked in and I grabbed a slice.  I chose a small one knowing full well that I shouldn’t have any of the pizza, but then ended up grabbing another two small slices.  Ugh.  Was the pizza good?  Yes.  Should I have eaten it considering all the other junk food I’d eaten throughout the day?  Certainly not.  Having that pizza put me over my “bonus” points for the week which means I once again didn’t stick to my goal of staying within my points for the entire week.  Oh well.  It is what it is, I am letting it go and moving on. I vowed to myself that I would get back on track today and so far that’s what I have done.  Here’s how today went:

Breakfast:  I woke up determined to get right back on track after yesterday’s indulgences.  I started it off with my usual healthy breakfast – a fried egg, 3 slices of turkey bacon, and a bottle of water.

Lunch: After breakfast, I hung out with Mom for a little while watching home renovation shows before I packed up my bags and loaded up the car.  Before leaving, I made myself a quick plate of sautéed veggies and paired it with some cold, leftover chicken from the fridge.  Then I made myself a coffee to go (with 4 tbsp of French-Vanilla cream), grabbed a bag of Quaker’s Mini Rice Cakes, filled my water bottle, hugged my parents, and set off for home.

The ride home is about 2 hours.  During the ride I sipped my coffee and then after a bit munched on some rice cakes and drank some of my water.  Is it just me or does snacking always make the trip go by faster?  I used to often stop at gas stations along the way to grab a bag of chips or an ice cream bar – although the rice cakes do contain a lot of sodium, they are definitely a much lower-calorie choice and kept me satisfied for the ride home.

Dinner: For dinner tonight I decided to try a recipe a friend had shared with me for sweet potato hash.  Essentially, you just peel and cut sweet potatoes into cubes, boil them until they are soft, drain them, and then pan-fry them with whatever spices, oils, and veggies you like.  I did mine with olive oil, garlic powder, salt and pepper, parsley and red onions.  I cooked them on medium heat until they were soft and then cranked the heat to brown them and make them crispy!  These turned out so good!  This will definitely be a new staple in some of my meals as a healthy side dish.  With it, I had a turkey burger and my usual sautéed vegetables with a bit of feta cheese.

Workout 1: I hadn’t really planned a workout for today but after dinner my husband needed a hand with the yard work so I offered to help him out.  Wow, what a workout!  Having been away, our yard hadn’t been mowed in a few weeks so after my husband mowed the backyard I had to rake up all the extra grass and weeds.  Our backyard is quite large so my arms were certainly feeling it.  Then he started the weed-whacking while I mowed the front yard.  It was still pretty warm out so I was sweating pretty good and was quite tired by the time that was done!  Finally, we finished cleaning up a few more weeds, sweeping the deck and front step, and tidying up our supplies.  All in all, we worked in the yard for about an hour which earned me 6 activity points.

Snack: Later on in the evening, my husband I decided to watch a movie (he couldn’t believe I had never seen the Rocky movies so we’ve been watching them – tonight we watched the fifth movie – not as good as the others but still good!) My husband was very sweet and asked me if I would be tempted to eat chips if he had some.  I was honest and said yes so he chose to have some pretzels instead (which don’t tempt me as much).  It’s this kind of support from loved ones that helps me so much in being successful!  I am lucky that my husband has always been so considerate and helpful when I am trying to lose weight. Anyway, I decided to have a 1/2 cup of frozen yogurt – so good!  Admittedly, I did steal two of his pretzels but that’s it!  Altogether I finished my day at 34 points and earned 6 activity points which brings me back to 28 total.  I am definitely happy with that result as I kept the promise to myself to get right back on track today!

18 days down, 12 to go!