Day 5

This is me, by the way. I had my daughter take a couple of pictures of me on Memorial Day. These were taken right before we went to the track. At the time I was 188 pounds.

Basically, I wanted to post these pictures so that I would remember why I started this journey in the first place. I don't ever want to give up, even when I reach my goal weight... and I will.

Monday, I made my husband a grilled cheese sandwich. Now, I loooove cheese and as I was putting a couple of pats of butter in the pan and slicing thick slices of cheddar off the block, all I could think was... I wanted a grilled cheese sandwich, too... bad. The entire time I stood over the stove flipping that perfectly golden temptation, I was having some serious cravings. Thankfully, as I came awfully close to having that 'one little slice that couldn't possibly hurt me,' I thought really hard about it first and decided it just wasn't worth it.

I can't count the times I've dieted in my life. It's something I've been doing off and on since I was a teenager. Even though I've lost weight in the past, I've never kept it off and I know me well enough to know that it doesn't take a whole lot to trigger those cravings. If I see a commercial on television showing food, if my co-worker brings something yummy for lunch, if I'm at the mall and pass by the eatery and take a whiff of the aromas around me, if I just have one of something incredibly fattening... it doesn't matter, I fail miserably after that.

I don't know about the rest of you, but giving in to one temptation only leads to wanting another. If I have a cheeseburger then I may as well have the fries, too. It comes with the meal anyway, right? And since I already messed up, I may as well stop at the store and grab a bag of chocolate chip cookies for dessert and get it out of my system. I mean, I can just start over fresh tomorrow, right? Wrong! For me, once I fail, it takes me weeks, sometimes months to get back on track then it's only a matter of time before another craving hits me hard and everything goes downhill all over again. As much as I wanted that grilled cheese sandwich, I had to remind myself that cheese is loaded with fat, salt and calories... and even then it was soooo hard. But I resisted the temptation and the next day when I stepped on the scale, I was 2 pounds lighter. If I had caved, I wouldn't have had that victory. Now don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that I will never, ever allow myself a treat here and there, but not yet... for now it's too soon. Saying no to temptation paid off for me and for anyone reading... it will pay off for you, too. Just hang in there even when it's really hard.

Inspiration picture: Raven Symone



Weight: 185 
Glucose: 270 (Down 2 points, but it seems that I'm doing better with my weight than I am with my glucose)

Daily Food Journal:
Breakfast: Special K with berries and rice milk, with decaf
Lunch: Tomato basil hummus, lettuce, tomatoes on whole wheat & 1 apple
Snack: 1 orange

Dinner: Mixed vegetables with broccoli and spinach mixed in, 2 slices of rotisserie chicken, almonds and a hot cup of green tea with honey.

Notes: The mixed vegetables that I cooked for dinner included carrots, corn, peas and green beans which was 4 veggies, so I added a package of frozen spinach and broccoli to the pot so that I could max out on veggies tonight. I Googled 'how many almonds are in one serving' and I was surprised that it was 23. Being diabetic, I didn't want to over do it on the carbs, so I counted out 15 instead, even though I really wanted the other 8.

I was really hungry after lunch today. It was hard for me to wait almost 2 hours for my snack and even after I ate it, I still wanted more food. I am so accustomed to eating whatever I want whenever I want without giving it a second thought. I drank a bottle of water instead, hoping that it would help fill me up and I was glad that it did. I also searched the web for other weight loss blogs for inspiration... that helped, too.