I'm Still Here!!

It feels like forever since I posted, right?  I'm still here.  I'm still plugging along.  My birthday totally derailed my eating last week.  It's okay.  What's important is that I return to proper eating.  I don't think I went too crazy.  I'm still not drinking pop, I'm still fast food free.

So here is a little update on me.  The Fitbit challenge started last Monday and I have achieved the 10,000 minimum steps so far.  Go me!  I almost lost on Friday because I had a power outage and so did LTF-Novi.  But I did get my steps!  It was tough and I was up until 1030 pm getting them, but I got them.  

On Saturday, I went on a fundraising trip to Greektown Casino with my friends Jackie and Thad.  We got several thousand steps walking around the casino.  We were the only people we saw that took the HUGE staircase up to the second flood.    We did that TWICE.   We even took the staircase down.  We actually beat Tom and Bob (their friends) who took the escalator!  

For dinner on Saturday, I swear I ate my weight in Greek food.  And then we went across the street to Astoria where I bought two desserts and ate them that night.  

I've taken a break from the Couch to 5k program because I suffered a severe burn on my low back and it is painful.  It hurts when I run and it just hurts in general.  I hope that once the pain goes away, I am able to run.  

Today, I took off from work because the roads were treacherous.  I am so sick of winter.  I am sick of driving for hours to get to work and back.  I decided to go in for a spinning class.  It was a good class but tough.  I haven't taken a spinning class in weeks!!!  

I had a training session with Sarah on Sunday, but I will post more about that in my weekly training post.

Tempted By The Colonel

I had a major temptation today.  Part of my commute today there was a stretch that was all fast food restaurants.  KFC, McDonald's, Burger King, Wendy's, Taco Bell.  I'm not joking.  They were in that order. 

I would say 95% of the time I am good with my eating.  I am human and I do occasionally cheat, although I hate the word "cheat".  I prefer to say I allow myself some leeway.  And I don't go too crazy.  I don't eat an entire cake or anything, I just have a piece of cake for a special occasion.   My mindset is that I've changed but the world hasn't.  There will always be temptations and a little taste here and there is okay as long as I don't go totally berserk.  The key is to not obsess, and just keep active, and get back on track.

As my favorite movie/literary heroine Scarlet O'Hara said, "Tomorrow is another day."

So, getting back to my commute home, I became overwhelmed with a desire to pull into KFC.  I don't know why since KFC wasn't my favorite fast food restaurant.  It just looked and sounded AMAZING to me at the time.  I needed to get into the next lane so that  I could pull into KFC.  I even looked in my rearview mirror to see if I could switch lanes.  I could have done it, but I didn't.  I don't know why I didn't or what kept me from doing it.  Maybe it was my subconscious?

I remember thinking about what I would have ordered...a chicken sandwich.  I could see the sandwich.  A nice breaded chicken breast inside a sandwich bun with lettuce, tomato, and mayo.   In my mind it was the sexiest chicken sandwich ever!!  I could visualize the feeling of biting into it and how it would taste.  But I knew the guilt I would have felt after I ate it.  I knew I wouldn't be able to lie to Sarah.

I hate the saying "Nothing tastes as good as skinny feels."  That's a bunch of crap.  Of course there are things that taste better than skinny feels.  You just can't let the thing that tastes good run your life.  Just because you get to your goal doesn't mean that you're done.  You'll always be working to maintain and your goals might change.  Maybe you want to run faster, maybe you want to lift heavier.  You're always going to be working towards something.

So, while in this post I talked about the occasional dietary slip up and yet not caving in to the temptation for a fast food chicken sandwich, I guess you just have to choose your battles.   I knew that one chicken sandwich would have destroyed my 7 month freedom from fast food and could have started a huge backslide that I would have come to regret.