I am extremely happy with my progress this week, although on the surface you might wonder why. The reason I say this is because my weight and inches are up from last week. I’m not surprised because I did go off my plan a couple of times over the weekend by going out to eat to for my birthday, however this is actually where my progress shows.

I don’t go out to eat often because you just don’t find healthy fare in most restaurants, besides the fact that it’s expensive. I also want to get out of the thought that you must go out to eat to celebrate occasions, otherwise you just haven’t celebrated. It’s interesting just how strong that thought is, especially when it comes to birthdays; at least it still is for me. So, what I did for my birthday weekend was go skiing, my #1 activity choice. I also did go out to eat, however not in the way that I would have in the past, which is where the topic of my major progress comes in.

You see, while I did eat out, I did not have any dessert or bread (avoiding sugar and flour), and I did not binge or stuff myself. Although I did have larger portions than I’m used to, I chose the healthiest options that were on the menu. I know that I ate some foods that had too much sodium in them, which contributed to my weight gain I saw on the scale this morning, however I am just thrilled at the fact that I did not have dessert. I didn’t want to have any because I knew that all of that sugar would send me into the endless cravings for more sugar, and it just wasn’t worth it to me. For that one moment of “celebration”, I would have paid for it in the following days, and even right now.

Here’s something else that I did differently: normally I would have told myself, “hey, you ate off plan so it’s a free for all!” and then I would go to the store to get some junk food to stuff myself with. I didn’t do this though (yeah!). Instead I just looked at it as “that was that”, and there’s no reason not to continue with eating my clean, tasty meals that I prepare from whole, real food. So, I’m back to eating clean, and I think that a large part of my success is because I did not stray into the sugary foods. If I had done that, I wouldn’t have had such an easy time going back to whole foods.

Overall I’m very happy with my progress. Yes, I registered a gain this morning, however the progress I’ve made with my thoughts and my actions mean more to me right now. When I ate out last weekend, I actually thought about how I would eat if I were already at my goal weight before I ordered instead of eating like it was the last time I’d ever get a chance to.

Something else that I did this weekend that was real progress is I went swimming in public! Maybe some of you will be able to relate to this: you don’t want anyone to see you in a swimsuit until you are “perfect”. Well, I decided that I wasn’t going to put my life on hold any longer. I wanted to go swimming, so that’s what I did; no more waiting until some time in the future when I’m perfect. 🙂

My stats today are:

• Weight: 159 (+2.5 lbs)

• Inches: 289.125 (+1.375 inches)