20 Pounds in 60 days

I'm pretty good at dissappearing when I don't want people to know I am failing.
Well, life has been nuts for a few months, and I have failed to the tune of about 15 pounds...as in, I have GAINED 15 pounds. Geeeeeeeeze. On a good note, I am still running, still going to the gym and working out, and still feeling healthy. I just need to stop eating! The goal :20 pounds in 60 days. The reward: A January trip down south with Tim.
Here goes!

I'm going to post this picture of Demi Moore on my fridge and inside my cupboard...and everywhere else I tend to go weak. I need all the motivation I can get. Ohhhh.... to look half as good at my age, as she does at her age...

If only my will power was as strong as my desire.

I find it interesting how 90% of the time, I can want something so bad that I will make promises and resolutions with myself that I am completely sure I am going to, no, NEED to, follow.I feel completely focused at that moment. Like wild horses couldn't pull me off track. But during that other 10% of the time I can manage to completley sabotage the those very things I want so very bad. Break every promise. Fail every ressolution. And within minutes, I can start the cycle again. I see a woman with the body I want. I hone back in on my desire, and the cycle starts over again.
I am envious over other people's control and/or disinterest with food. I keep waiting for the day I will wake up and suddenly not really care about the chocolate cake and french fries. Seems that I wake up feeling the opposite. I want them MORE! So for now, it would really help if my will power was as strong as my desire.

I have eaten well for two days. Very well. I ran a bit yesterday, and went out for a 8KM run this aft. It has been 9 days since the marathon so I still have some sore muscles, but I have to run. I feel like running is my only hope sometimes.

Monday Eve

Monday Eve (ie, the Sunday before the dreaded MONDAY) is once again coming to a close. And once again, I am looking forward to hopping back on the wagon tomorrow. Oh ya...it's gonna be great. Gonna do start a 9 day Isagenix cleanse again tomorrow. Gonna hit the gym every single day at lunch and lots of runnning. I'm going to get this 10 (probably more like 13 at this point) pounds off again. Oh ya...feeling VERY confident right now.
My confidence and moticvation are a reminent of eating like it's my last day on earth again today. I took the kids to a movie this afternoon. Movies with the kids are my cover for getting to eat a ton of junk. My boyfriend left today for work. He will be gone all week. So it was just me and the kids. Sad to see him go...but as I wave at him from the window while he drives away...images of candy, chocolate, and sugarplum fairies dance in my head. You mean...nobody to stop me?? Nobody to give me the look of repulsion and dissapointment while I stuff my face with everything I love most? Just the support of my loving children and fellow candy lovers. Sweet!! BRING ON BULKBARN! I probably bought about 8 bags of assorted candies and chocolates. M&M's, Bridge Mixture, Big Feet, Chocolate covered almonds, peanuts and raisins. We get to the theater and buy popcorn too of course. OH MY GOD...Carte Blanche!!! I opened each bag. I had a few of each thing. Something weird happened this time though. I didn't enjoy it as much as I imagined I would. Just an off day I guess. (My kids didnnt eat much of their candy either...which is even wierder.) So we are home now. Just about bed time. My brain is screaming "Laurie...go eat the candy. If you don't eat it now, it will still be there tomorrow. Calling you. Tempting you. Trying to sabotage you." But stomach is saying "Don't do it or we will barf" So...I'm not going to do it.
I have no problem convincing myself to excersise lately. My body is aching to get running again soon, which I will do this week. It's the eating. I gotta get a grip. A real grip. Not a temporary handle that lasts until the weekend. Or until I accidently eat a cookie which turns in to a whirlwind eating fest.
Alas...tomorrow is Monday once again. Another fresh start. Another new day.
You never know...this could be the Monday that leads me through success.

Where am I at now anyway?

OH MY GAWD! You dissappear into blogger hiding for a little while, and when you poke back in, you find your readership has TRIPLED?? Sounds huge...but in actual numbers, I went from 2 to 7...but I am thrilled!

I have no idea where I am at right now. I guess I am sorta...nowhere. The past couple months I have been doing my best to eat as healthy as possible. Marathon training is not a great time to deprive the body of calories...so 'weight loss' has been on hold for a bit. Marathon is over. Summer is coming. It is time to get back on the bandwagon. I have not run in 5 days since the marathon, and my body is truly craving a run. Come Monday, the running shoes are back on, the gym becomes my second home again, and I find my focus again. Some day, I will stop procrastinating everything I do until Monday. Maybe I will start that on Monday. :)

Oh, and in the last couple months, I have gained 10 pounds back. Sucksville. Turns out that running 50 KM's a week does not give you carte-blanche at the dinner table. Who knew?!

I'm my own guinea pig...

Trying a few things right now.
1. Eliminating HFCS. Mostly packaged products that I don't eat a ton of...but I am watching for it now, and staying away from it.
2. Not counting calories. I am paying little attention to the number, but everything that goes in is (in my opinion) HEALTHY! Tons of fruit (probably more than I should eat). Lots of veggies. Homemade soups like always. I do find I am eating a lot though. Steady grazing. Not good.
3. Eliminating cheese and nuts for a bit. I miss you Cashew!
4. I have been a semi-vegetarian for 2 years. (for me, semi=NO land meat, but I still eat seafood and fish) I am reading a book called 'Eating Animals'. I am about half way through. With this, I am seriously considering increasing the scope to cover sea animals as well. I had to idea how many things ended up dying just to catch the one thing I end up eating. I also was unaware of the factory fish farming etc. Blissfully ignorant I guess. Just like my pre-veg days...being blind to where my food came from was convenient, so I chose not to seek further info. But now I know. This is a tough one though. I eat a lot of fish and shellfish now since I stopped eating landmeat. I really enjoy it. But I'm feel pretty strongly against eating things that have died, or against eating things that caused other things to die.Hm. I'll have to get back to you on this one. :(
5. Running a lot by default right now. Marathon is in a little over 2 weeks. Covering a lot of Kilometers.
6. Increasing intensity a bit at the gym on the workouts. More often, more weight. Not a ton, but definitley more. I can feel that I am a bit stronger in areas.

ALL this being said, I continue to gain weight efficiently and rapidly. This of course causes me to feel depressed and frustrated. Making me WANT to eat and making me NOT want to excercise. I'm feeling like I can't win! To be fair, I have not given myself or my body much time to settle in to this new system. I'll give it a bit more time. Even if I am gaining weight, I can feel a little (and I mean LITTLE) comfort in knowing I am fueling my body with lots of good and healthy food.

All this being said, I continue to put on weight.

Weekends are Impossible...period.

Every Friday I wake and say to myself...THIS weekend is giong to be different. By Saturday afternoon, I'm telling myself, yet again, that I will start fresh on Monday.
Seems that this 'thing' is stronger than me. I am watching the pounds creep back on, and as badly as I don't want it to happen, I feel powerless to stop it.
I am confident that there is no human on this earth that I could not 'out eat'. I seem to be able to start grazing at the point of waking, and continue to the point of sleeping 16 hours later, with intermittent feasting in between. I think I need miraculous intervention.

My response to Jack Sh*t's request for note cards...

Thought I would post my response to Jack Sh*t's blog request, since it took me a good portion of my work day to create! :)
to see the request, go here.....http://jackfit.blogspot.com/2010/05/taking-notes.html)

I'm Even Annoying Myself With This Obsession

Where the hell have I been? Well, in short...I fell off the wagon again. And fell quite hard. Again. I picked myself up, dusted myself off, and continued on my merry way for a short while, only to fall off again. Food, health, weight, calories...they consume me. Honestly, it has come to a point where I even annoy myself. I want to just relax SO bad. I went to see my therapist. We talked a lot about this wee problem. In short, I'm nuts. Well, she was way too nice to say that, but I could tell that was what she was REALLY thinking. She said that if I could just relax about food, stop trying to 'diet' and deprive myself, my body and I would settle in to a happy place where we could simply be content and not constantly obsessing about what I am and am not eating, what I can and can not eat, when I can have what, who else is eating what...etc. I believe her. I believe that this issue is for sure about something else other than food. I try SO hard to figure out what that is. Every time I find myself craving something, or standing in front of the cupboard pouring corn syrup down my throat and hoping I don't get caught...I try and figure out what else is going on. But I can't figure it out. I have two GREAT super amazing sons that still love their Mom, I have a boyfriend that is so good to me and loves me very much, I am in good health (as in, I am not in poor health I don't think?), I have a job, I have an awesome dog, I have a good car and a small house. For sure, I have some crazy 'issues' too....but from the outside looking in...things don't look so bad? I have other issues for sure. But I can't connect them to the eating. I don't feel like I am connecting those dots when I am having food issues. I truly feel like my food issues are about the food! About the craving! About the desire to lose weight. About the desire to be fit and heathly. It just happens that I am a compulsive, all or nothning type personality. So everything I do, I do big or go home. I do want to just relax. I really do. But that is even scarier than the thought of going on like this. Just relax? If I do that, GAWD only knows what I will end up stuffing in my mouth, and how much I will weigh after a couple months. No way. Can't do it. Not gonna do it. But it's food for thought...or in my world, thought for food.

I noticed that while things were real bad...I didn't want to even see or think about my blog. I didn't want to end up on that dashboard page and see all the people I follow and their success. I didn't want to tell everyone (or all 3 people) that I failed again. I just wanted to, well, disappear I guess. I probably gained about 6 pounds over the past couple weeks (above and beyond my starting point!). Oh, and yes, I earned it. Making batches of toffee and not even sharing it with my family. Homemade ice cream. Pizza. DQ Blizzards (that's what started this whirlwind of eating actually) chip stand fries, Cadbury Minieggs...and the list goes on and on.

Today is a funny day. Yesterday was yet another 'start again' Monday. Today, I went to get on my scale. It was broken. Said I weighed 118, then 113, then 108, then 108 again. For a second I thought..wow, maybe I am one of those people who just THINKS I have an extra 15 pounds, but really I am super skinny! OMG, that would be AWESOME! Then I stepped of the scale and stood in front of the mirror. Nope. No such luck. Unless of course someone replaced my bathroom mirror with one of those circus mirrors...there is no way I am 108 pounds. Maybe if I chopped a leg off!

So I have no real idea how bad things are. I'm going to guestimate based on the past weighins...127-129. I'll confirm tomorrow if I get my scale fixed, or get a new one tonight. I just know that I deserve every ounce of extra weight I have gained in the past couple weeks. I know that it totally sucks to be starting over AGAIN from an even worse starting point then last time. And I know I need to get control of this obsession. I just don't know how.

That being said, I am now shopping for a new body fat/weight scale...anyone have the most super duper one ever that I should know about??

Tuesday - Day...8ish?

Tuesday morning weigh in: 122.6 (yippe, I lost 1.2 pounds in over a week)
Calories In: I was so hungry by 8:00PM I was like a hoover. Did so well all day (and by doing well, I mean I was still STARVING) then get home at around 8:00 and started eating things I would normally not even eat. Chocolate mini easter eggs..I hate cheap plain chocolate...but I ate em. Pita bread loaded with nutella. (omg, it was so good), some peanuts, some mini M&M's (only about a TBSP cause that was all that was left). It was bad. But I counted it all and still ended the day around 1900 and change. Doesnt SOUND like the worst day ever, does it?? (Well, here's a sneak preview of tomorrow's post. I got on the scale this morning (wed morn) and weigh 124.6. So not only have I gained back the 1.2 from above...but added on to that by .8 pounds. I don't even know what to say. It just sucks so bad.)
Excercise: still a bit sore from the 30K, so I walked uphill on a 15% incline for 32 minutes. Machine said I burned 360 calories. So, 300 maybe. Then did about 10 minutes of arms and shoulders. ALMOST did a 5th chinup today but couldn't quite squeeze it in. Soon though.

I was walking out of Costco last night. THey make it so you have no choice but to walk past the food court to see everyone thouroughly enjoying their poutines and icecream cones. In order to avoid feeling sad about not being able to eat the food, I tend to take a good look at the people sitting and eating. I feel sad and frustrated when I see really thin people eating really shitty fatty bad food. I want to be able to eat it too and also be as thin as them. But then I see the other 95% of the customers. All overweight. Many of the very very overweight. When I notice that, I feel strong. I feel proud of myself for fighting the cravings and temptations often enough to avoid getting that way. As hard as it is and as much work as it is, I know the sadness and depression I feel now is NOTHING compared to how I would feel if I was carrying an extra 100 pounds around instead of this 10 or 20. I have been 50 pounds too heavy at the very very most, and that was after giving birth. So I really have no idea how hard it is to be 100 pounds overweight. I hope I never do.

It's hard to do math when you're this hungry...

I feel a little like I am running up the down escalator right now. I spend the days hungry for the most part. I spend a lot of time at the gym and running. Yet, my efforts are futile.
Here is a calculation I found for BMR etc, that is making this feel even more hopeless!

BMR Calculation for women:
655 + (4.3 x weight in pounds) + (4.7 x height in inches) - (4.7 x age in years)
= 655+(4.3*123)+(4.7*64)-(4.7*34)
= 1325
For lightly active, add 30% = 1325*1.3 = 1722

So 1722 is how many calories I can have on a daily basis to MAINTAIN my weight.

If I want to lose 1 pound per week, I have to subtract from that. So 3600/7= 514calories per day.

1722-514= 1208

1208 Calories per day. Let me tell you...that is NOT a lot of food. No matter how creative and low calorie and healthy you are, that is simply not a lot of food.

This sucks.

Just so I can wallow in self pitty just a little longer...here are some foods that are 1200 calories:


Add a side of soup and an extra sauce to this meal for 1160 Calories.



Oh Tostito's, how I love you so. But you always love what you can't have. 48 restaurant style chips and half a jar of salsa...1145 calories.


It only takes 2 PB&J sandwiches to reach 1280 calories!


Dairy Queen Blizzard. My favorite food in the world by a landslide. If I ever have one again, it would have to be the only thing I eat in the entire day. :( I love you Cookie Dough Blizzard. I will miss you. :( One large cookie dough Blizzard...1300 Calories.

Note to self about losing this 10 pounds? Good luck with that...

The Monday morning wtf?

Monday morning weigh in.......drum roll please....123.0!
Huh? 123? Seriously? Body...if i may speak to you for a moment. Need I remind you that we ran for over 3 hours and 30 kilometers yesterday? And we ate clean, healthy and low cal for the rest of the day. And 123 is what you give me? This is starting to feel a bit like a battle I can't win!!!
Despite feeling achy and sore, and despite my legs and hips begging me not to, I still went to the gym last night. I walked uphill on steep incline (10 on the treadmill) as fast as I could without falling off, for 32 minutes. Then did a 1 hour MMT (metabolic military training) class. Keeps your heart rate up while you circle around the room doing crazy exercises for short intervals. First time I did this class. It was tough, but I will be going back for sure.
Estimated Calorie burn: 450
Calories In today: 1213 - Isagenix bar for breakfast, salad for lunch, 1/2 Isagenix shake for supper and air popped popcorn

I am very frustrated right now. I am working like crazy, eating very light and very little, and seeing almost no result on the scale. This is making it real hard to keep going....

Sunday Funday

Sunday morning weigh in: I was too scared to get on the scale after last nights mishap.
Sunday excercise: 30.5 Kilometer run. Took 3 hours and 20 minutes. Me and my beagle. It was a great day in Ottawa for a ridiculous run. I am hoping it makes weigh in tomorrow and acceptable number!
Estimated calorie burn:1500
Calories In: just under 1200
There was a lot of laying around for the rest of the day! :)

Saturday Status

Saturday Morning Weigh in: 121.0
Saurday's excercise: zilch. none. notta. none. nothing.
Ate great all day. Was extra careful knowing I had no intention on excercising.
Around 7:00 PM we went to a friends house for a few drinks etc. I didn't 'drink'...just had some tea. My girlfriend, bless her heart, put out a bowl of chips. The bowl emptied and I didn't have even one! Amazing eh?? Ya....then she filled it, and put out cheese and crackers, and pistachios, and more chips, and chocolates, and I dove right in. I ate and I ate and I ate and I ate. While I am putting the food in my mouth, I am hoping nobody is noticing how much I am eating, and I am just shovelling it in. So...what started off as a great day, ended as a really really bad one. I hate that I ate so much, but I had a great time with great friends too. So I don't regret going...I only regret losing control. :(

Friday's Report...Stupid Kit Kat

Friday Morning Weigh In: 121.8
Friday exercise: Ran 5KM and fast walked another KM on a steep incline
50 sit ups, 20 push ups, 4 pull ups, lots of ab and arm work
Calories burned guesstimate: 400
Calories in: Around 1150. Isashake, Isalean bar, grapes, shrimp stir fry, half slice of white bread with 1tbsp of peanut butter

It was beef cake day at the gym today so I get a bit intimidated and want nothing more than to leave. 'Beef Cake' is what I call it when I walk in to the gym and see nothing but extremely fit guys with huge muscle lifting huge weight, usually chatting up young fit little blondes. If you listen carefully, you can hear the flirtatious giggling in the background. On these days, I walk in, see a bunch of girls wearing the same LuLu tank top that I have...so I put on a tshirt instead so that nobody thinks to compare me to these far better looking, far younger, far fitter women. I know that's totally gay, but I can't help it. I just want to lay low. It is a smaller type gym (not a chain) so it is usually pretty good. Evenings and Friday noon hours seem to attract all the hotties. I still get my workout in...I just won't do any new things or do anything that makes me look like a wiener compared to everything else in the gym! Ohhhh what I wouldn't give to get rid of the part of my brain that seems to care way too much what other people think.

Came home and cooked a wonderful shrimp and veggie stir fry for my boyfriend and I. It was delicious and SO much food for few calories. We ate and headed to the horse race track. We played the ponies for a few hours. There was a canteen there that made the entire place smell like old dirty cooking oil. There is a lot of lingering time when horse betting. Some people sat down a few seats away from us...they were eating nacho's with cheese sauce. OMG, it took forever. They ate them so slow. It was very very frustrating. I wanted to scream at them to hurry the frig up so that I didn't have to look at them and smell them any more! Later I saw a lady with a Kit Kat bar. She was smiling as she opened it. I know exactly how she is feeling and what she is thinking. It made me feel so frustrated and angry. Why can she have a kitkat and I can't?? How is it that her brain is wired so different than mine that she can guitlessly tear in to that kitkat bar while I sit here so hungry, struggling not to do the same. Why does she appear completely comfortable despite the fact that she is at least 150 pounds overweight? And I have an extra 10 pounds that makes me unbearably depressed. I just don't get it. But in reality...my wish is not that I could just eat what I want, weigh any amount, and still be happy. My wish is to NOT WANT that Kitkat. To not feel deprived I can't have it. I want to be healthy. I want good food choices to be natural, and treats to be just that...occasional treats. I want to stop feeling like I need them. I honestly don't feel that I will ever get myself to that point. The pull towards sugar is so strong and such a difficult struggle. It is so frustrating that this is something that I will have to fight forever. I guess when I see that girl happily eating her KitKat...I am just jealous that she is not feeling the same frustration that I am. At the same time, I felt bad for her. I wonder if she is happy with herself. I wonder if she wants to lose the weight, but feels like it is impossible. I want to sit with her and tell her all the reasons not to eat the kitkat. Why she should care about her health and her weight and her heart. I want to tell her that there are so many people that want a kitkat right now too, but they are choosing not to. But maybe...maybe she really just doesn't care. All this stuff going through my head while sitting at the races. I wish I could turn that part of my brain off so bad.

Thursday's Report...

Thursday Morning Weigh in: 123.4 (down .4)
Calories on Thursday: It was an Isagenix cleanse day, so not very many.
Excercise: Ran 5Kilometers and did a crossfit class. During crossfit, I did 7 sets of 10 pushups (real ones, not girl ones!) which is big for me. 7 sets of 15 squats with no weight, 55 dumbell deadlifts(20lbs), 55 Dumbell Presses(12lbs) and 55 squats with weights (12lbs) and 50 sit-ups.
Calorie burn guestimate: 400

The weekend is coming, which gives me a ton of anxiety. We are going to the horse races tonight. There is a buffet there. DILEMA! My boyfriend is in the military. He works out A LOT (I would to if it was part of my work day and I got paid for it!!) Because of that, he can basically eat whatever he wants, whenever he wants. I know he wants to go to the buffet (it is a nice one...big salad bar, prime rib) but if I go there, I am going to overeat and eat badly. No question. I just asked him if we could have a veggie stirfry before we go instead of going to the buffet. I feel bad though...why should he suffer because I am weak and compulsive? Anywho, he has agreed and seems ok with it. He is very supportive no matter what I am doing, but that doesnt make me feel better about him having to lose out on things he wants to do.

I DECLARE WAR!

Today, I declared war on these last 10 pounds. I whine about them constantly. They irritate me all day long and make me feel crappy. They are horrible to look at. They hang over my jeans. And they cover up the muscle tone that I am working so hard to build. Well NOT ANYMORE! I am getting rid of them. I am doing it by summer...in fact, hopefully before the marathon at the end of May. When running 42 kilometers, not having to drag an extra 10 pounds around is pretty handy. So that will be the goal. 10 Pounds by May 29th. Actually, 10.8.

Today's weight: 123.8
Today's calories in: 1240 calories (isagenix shake, watermelon, 1.5 isagenix bars, salmon, tiny boiled potato, cauliflower, asparagus, Isadelight)
Today's exercises burn: approx 400 calories (5.5KM run + 20 min strength training + hockey)

I have tried so hard. So many times. I have gotten a few off here and there, only to spend the weekend playing 'Eat Eat All I Can' and gaining it back plus some. Not this time...I am going to make it. I am going to get them off. I am going to feel better about myself by summer. I am going to be willing to wear a bathing suit at the lake so I can swim with the kids. I am going to be able to look at our summer pictures and not delete every one that I am in. Yup. This is it. Here I go!

Just for fun, here are some things that weigh 10 pounds. I can't wait to 'lose a large cat'! :)

Geeeze...I've been good for 2 days...Why arn't I skinny yet?

Why does time seem to stand still for the first few days of getting back on track. Honestly, I am not even done day 2 and I am already frustrated that this isn't happening faster! Being ME is a real chore! lol
I have done well today. It was a successful cleanse day, and I got my fat butt to the gym. Ran 4.5 miles, practiced chin-ups (I say 'practice' because I can only actually do 3 or 4. But I keep working at it), 50 sit ups, 20 consecutive push-ups (this is a new for me, it was not that long ago I could only do 10!), lots of ab work and some shoulder and arm work. Then lunch hour was over and I had to go back to work. I find that really frustrating. (pesky WORK always gets in the way of working out!) By the time I get in the 'zone', my brain and body in a place where I feel I could work out for hours...that's right about the time I have to wrap it up. I know that going and cutting it short is better than not going, but geeeeeeeeze!
How great would it be to get paid to work out and be thin and healthy...oh what a different world this would be!
Only have to make it through a few more hours without breaking down and stuffing my head in the fridge...then on to day 3. :)

New Jersey woman striving to weigh 1,000 pounds, become world's fattest lady - NYPOST.com

Things that make you go HUH????

New Jersey woman striving to weigh 1,000 pounds, become world's fattest lady - NYPOST.com

HOLY ROAD BLOCKS BATMAN!

Geeeze, and it is not even 2:00 PM.
I had to go to the grocery store this morning to buy stuff for work. Seemed like every single thing that I think is delicious...was on sale. And the Easter candy was all half price too. I'm a sucker for a sale...as my 8 year old son said to me the other day..."Mom, you would buy a sheep if it was on sale." Well, I managed to get through that without buying anything stupid. Then I had to go to Costco...where not only is everything delicious, it is also giant! Two of my favorite things! I again, did not do anything I would live to regret. Leaving Costco, I reached in to my purse to find my keys...and what do I find?
The leftover M&M's from the movie I took my son to last night (Otherwise knows as, Start-Over Monday Eve final celebration, ie, excuse to eat lots of chocolate and junk). I can't seem to throw them out...but I have not eaten any either.
At lunch time, I started getting ready to head over to the gym...only to realize I was wearing and I had left my gym bag at home. ARG!!!! I have made a promise to myself that I will grab my dog when I get home and go for a run, then have a bit of a workout in the basement. I play hockey tonight so I can't go too crazy...but I am SO not skipping my work out on Day 1! So I just finished eating my lunch
and now I am thinking of all the things I could have eaten today, and didn't. Not sure if that makes me happy or frustrated. On the upside, tomorrow, today will be over.

Why does being healthy seem like way too much work??

So, I had this thought this morning as I began my, what feels like, extremely tedious routing. Maybe the time it takes each day to put the healthy super things in to my body and to do the exercise, and the healthy cooking, is likely equivalent to or MORE than the time that may (or may not) be added to my life by being healthy!? (I won't even attempt the math to compare the financial cost of being healthy compared to being lazy and unhealthy) 20 minutes of vitamins and greens and healthy stuff and my shake every morning. A minimum of half hour running plus another half hour of working out. (On weekends the half hour of running can be up to 3 hours or more!) Stopping at the store a few times a week and buying fresh veggies so that I can go home and cook a healthy meal. Wow...I can see how the drive thru can be a very tempting option! As soon as I was done feeling sorry for myself, I plugged my nose and drank my fruit/greens health drink thing. I took all my vitamins like a good girl. I made my kids take their vitamins. I drank my chocolate protein shake. I grabbed my green tea and headed out the door. I smiled as I drove to work today. I woke up with options. The hard and healthy route, or the easy and lazy route. I did the right thing today. YAY! It is another 'Start-Over Monday'. So far, so good. :)