Fall is in the air…

This morning while we were walking at the park, I looked up and saw that some of the trees were starting to turn colors already. Fall is a bittersweet time for me. I love the weather and the leaves and everything that comes with it, but then I cringe thinking of the snow that will soon be upon us. I don’t enjoy the winters here or the snow, at all. Ugh. I guess tomorrow is September 1^st so whether or not I’m ready, I guess the trees will continue to turn.

I worked for a few hours last night and came home. The boys waited up for me. We all crawled into the bed and snuggled in and slept great all night long. While I drove into work, I ate an apple as a snack. Given just a few weeks ago, an apple wouldn’t had been my choice of food. Small changes are starting to make a big impact. I’m down another pound for a total of 17 pounds now in the month of August. I would call that pretty successful.

I do still get impatient. I just want all the weight off now but I know that it didn’t just come on overnight and it will take about a year to lose it but patience isn’t my virtue. I have to just keep grabbing my paperclip chain and reminding myself that I am doing well and that the weight is coming off.

There are always potlucks at my work and they are rather elaborate at times. I do love helping celebrate the good times—the marriages, the babies and even the retirements. There is just too much sadness in life not to rejoice in the happy events. I like to make brownies to bring in and folks seem to enjoy them. I didn’t want to jeopardize my progress but I also wanted to participate in the potluck. Dilemma time for sure.

So, what happened? I decided to allow myself one dessert. I had the anytime points to use and I made sure that my breakfast and lunch were healthy and low in points (which isn’t very hard as long as you are eating fresh fruit and vegetables and lean meat). I looked over the huge spread twice and there were lots of contenders but Mike won out with his homemade strawberry lasagna. I cut a regular sized piece, not too big but not too small, and I enjoyed every single bite. Yummy! It was absolutely delicious. I didn’t deny myself but I also didn’t go crazy and keep eating. I was very happy and even if I hadn’t lost a single pound this week, this was a pretty big step in the right direction for me. This is what WW use to call a “non-scale victory” and a victory it was indeed!

I can’t see many results just yet in my clothes (remember the whole x-large sized scrubs not fitting me yet??), or even in my face or body just yet so sometimes motivation is a little bit hard. However, I was going up the stairs yesterday and I noticed that guess what? My knees weren’t hurting me like they had been. In fact, as I raced up the stairwell last night at work after surrendering my car keys to the valet, I thought to myself, I’m actually going up the stairs pretty quickly and nothing hurts! Not bad, not bad at all. Even if I can’t see the results, I can certainly FEEL them and that is pretty amazing since I’m just on week 3.

My husband, Gilbert, has been amazing this past week. He cooked a few times for us and made sure that I put on my tennis shoes and that we took Hunter to the park during the week. We went both Thursday and Friday and were back this morning. Hunter doesn’t complain at all. He loves the extra walks and is perfecting his quick maneuvers to get the bicyclists to get off the trail. He can’t stand the bikes; they get on his last nerve. He tries to go perpendicular and run them off the trail. We have to keep a sharp eye out to make sure that his evil plan isn’t executed. I told him that we have to share the road but he doesn’t think so. He has been sleeping well at night and snores loudly.

Our old grill rusted out and finally died. We grilled it to death, literally. There is no saving it so Gilbert found one on clearance at Costco. It is actually a wood pellet grill that acts like a smoker. For the inaugural first usage, Gilbert grilled a pork rack and it turned out fantastic. He found a rub that didn’t use any sugar so the point value was zero.  He is keeping me on track and keeps helping me stay the course. Our motto is that this isn’t just another diet, when the weight is off, I want to keep eating this way. It is truly a lifestyle change.

We’ll see what week #4 holds! I am sure it will be interesting. I hope that everybody has a great Labor Day weekend. I am thoroughly enjoying my 3 day weekend so far.

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