A weekend away.... a good reminder.

My weekend with my husband's family in Maryland was a fun one... with lots of good eating and snacking (more on that after the numbers). As I expected, I wasn't able to make too much of a jump on the slight gain from the previous week, but glad, at least, to control the gain from getting much worse.

This week's weigh in: -0.2lbs.
Total weight loss: -19.1 lbs.

I got down to Maryland on Friday night, where pizza and wine was waiting for me. My first sign that I wasn't going to be that disciplined this weekend was when I had 2 pieces of pizza. This was not supposed to be my splurge day, but I knew I'd eaten all my points already before I came into the house... On Saturday, a great start. My sister-in-law had gotten low fat cottage cheese and some fresh fruit. For lunch, I had a small sandwich. Then, we had a cook out with friends over for dinner. Appetizers. Barbecue. Lots of sides. Dessert. Did I mention more wine? Sunday - reasonable breakfast, lunch at the food court while outlet shopping (practically impossible to find a healthy option, by the way, but I got a "chef's salad" and removed at least half the "chef" part). Chips and salsa for a snack before dinner. Dinner was good, and then, of course, birthday cake for my brother in law. A long weekend of grazing.

But here's the thing. A year ago, eating like that would have been normal. In fact, it would have been better than normal, because I'm sure I would have eaten the french toast being made for my niece and nephew, rather than the cottage cheese and fruit. The portions themselves of what I ate weren't so horrible... it was just the sheer volume and variety that got me through this smorgasbord. I really had a sense while it was going on (and certainly after it was all over) that I just can't eat like that anymore and still expect to lose weight. Eating like this on the weekends, if it's more than one weekend a month, will only cause me to gain weight. (That's how I got here in the first place).

So, it was a good "big picture" reminder of what less disciplined (not even UNdisicplined) work looks like... and a good reminder that that is not where I want to be.

On a super positive note, however, my sister-in-law encouraged me to try on an adorable dress at Ann Taylor. It was one of those cute structured dresses with a wide belt that is popular these days, but I just can never wear because it draws such attention to my "hour and a half glass figure". I was hesitant, because the largest size they had was an 8, and even though I'd started to wear a few pairs of 8 pants, Ann taylor always runs small on me, and I didn't really look forward to the realization that I couldn't even get the dress over my hips, let alone zipped or not look like a sausage with a rubberband in the middle.

Well, it looked fantastic! I couldn't believe it. (the fact that it was on a great sale was just gravy). It really made me feel awesome about myself. And, of course, I wore it to work Monday, and got a ton of compliments on it. Yay me!

Thanks for reading!