Slowdown

It has happened, my slowdown has begun. Sigh. I hit my first plateau. I know it was going to happen and I tried to prepare myself but I sure did love seeing the huge numbers falling off the scale. In the end, I decided to stop weighing myself every day and just weigh on Saturday morning for my weigh in. I ended up losing 1.5 pounds last week and it is a good amount of weight, but I’m so close to my first goal, I just want to get there. I’ll go with the same strategy for the upcoming week so I am not so discouraged from day to day and just see what the scale says next Saturday. As long as I stay on plan, I should be down at least something.

But, I look around and I am still sitting in a relatively clean house, laundry all caught up, veggies and fruit washed and pre-packaged and a happy doggie at my feet. We went walking early this morning since it is supposed to start raining this afternoon. I can see significant progress so that is a plus. It has been 5 weeks now, since I started really trying to diet and change things up. My house is cleaner than it has been in months so that is a huge plus.

I’ve read the recent reports out on pop, soda, Coke, whatever you choice to call it in your neck of the woods, and the overwhelming conclusion is that is bad for you. I guess that I sort of knew that it wasn’t all that great for you but we still guzzled it down. It is called Diet Pop up in this area of the world. I cut it all out once, almost a year ago or so when I did the Whole 30 for a month to see if I was truly allergic to dairy (which I’m thankfully not). So, DRUM ROLL PLEASE….in the spirit of Health, Gilbert and I have decided to cut out the soda, regular and diet alike. We are drinking flavored carbonated waters now, when we want something other than regular water. I bought some La Croix and Spellegrino at Costco. So far, I like all the flavors and I haven’t missed the Diet Mt Dew—or as I refer to it as the Nectar of the Gods, he-he-he. I am sure that I’ll go through withdrawals soon enough. Once I have it out of my system, I think that once in a while, as a treat or when we are out for a party, I’ll partake in the occasional diet drink but for now, I’m going to avoid it. This is a big, big, big step for me.

I sort of like my guard down a little on my lists and guess what? I’ve forgotten to pick up the things that I needed, so, once again, when I think of things that I’m out of or running low on, I try and open up my app, My groceries.com and put it in.

Since the weather has been so nice outside, I’ve been trying to get out to the park and walk. I like getting the fresh air and Hunter absolutely loves going to the park. He is so happy in his favorite place in the whole wide world. Soon, it will come a time when the basement gets utilize more. The weather will not be as nice, the ice and snow will come, and I’ll want to hibernate but for now, I’ll get outdoors and enjoy the fall weather.

Gilbert got home safe and sound and Hunter was absolutely thrilled to have both of us back his normal routine restored. I have found that I really like cooking with Gilbert in the evenings. I usually prepare the veggies and Gilbert normally grills the meat. We work well together and it is fun cooking and then cleaning up the kitchen, while Hunter anxiously awaits at the front door for his evening walk. We discuss our day and unwind while cooking a healthy meal. Sometimes, it works out that Gilbert is home later or if he gets stuck in traffic, I’ll do the entire meal but mostly, we tend to cook together. Spices, laughter, and chopped veggies usually fly around the kitchen, while Hunter stays close by to sample whatever falls onto the floor. We have recently became roasting veggies in the oven and they have turned out great. They are so tasty that way. I am not sure why I haven’t done more of this before. I even cut up okra, yellow squash, zucchini, a sweet onion, a potato and two jalapeno peppers. I dusted them with some corn meal and roasted them and they turned great, yum-yum.

We went to a party and although I used over half of my anytime points, I still managed to stay on plan. I did pretty well with my eating and enjoyed myself. I would do a few things differently for the next party but you live and learn, right? I logged in all my food and didn’t over do it. I have another pot luck at work this upcoming week and plan on sticking to my original plan of enjoying one dessert. We’ll see what else the upcoming week throws at me. I’ll keep all updated on my progress. It should be interesting, day 1 of no Diet Mt. Dew. I wonder how I’ll be doing on day 7?

•