1 Week + 1 Day

I've been dieting now for a week and a day and I'm pleased with my progress so far.  I weighed myself this evening (I was supposed to weigh in last night but I fell asleep on the couch instead... oops) and discovered that eating right and exercising actually does help you loose weight, who knew!

Tonight's Weight
With clothes: 184.8
Without clothes: 183.2

So, since my starting weight was 190.2 with clothes that means I've lost at least 5 lbs!!  I say "at least" because the clothes I'm wearing are always different and I figure that makes for a margin of error of 1-1.5 lbs, I'm not interested in margins of error, I want exactly scientific perfect weights (alright, not exactly scientific perfect, but as close to perfect as possible with my limited technological capabilities).

Therefore, I'll be weighing myself from now on "sans clothing" in order to get a better idea of my actual weightloss.

Aside from fixating on my weight I've been having a pretty good week.  I've discovered that I can enjoy somethings I like on this diet.  I can still drink Starbucks coffee, albeit with soy milk instead of 2% and no caramel on my caramel macchiatos (I drizzle honey on instead) but it still tastes pretty good.  I'm also allowed to use margarine (instead of butter) and I like to put that on the cinnamon & raisin Ezekiel bread that I found at the health food store and that makes a tasty breakfast.  I'm making an effort to find pleasure in the smallest of culinary delights.

I have had a couple of inadvertent slip-ups though.  On Saturday Neil suggested we take the kids to McDonald's for dinner (he hadn't been in the new one yet) and I figured I'd just get a salad so we went.  I ordered a Thai Chicken Salad with the chicken grilled and no glaze.  I also did not put the dressing or the crunchy chip things that they give you on the salad.  So basically I paid $7 for a tiny chicken breast and a little bowl of salad (that I picked the red peppers out of, by the way).  The slip-up was that I'm pretty sure there was some sort of BBQ sauce on the chicken breast.  But I figured that I'd done the best I could with what McDonald's made available to me.  Arguably, one could say that the slip-up was going to McDonald's in the first place, but I didn't even try one fry or nugget (pat myself on the back).

The second slip-up was much the same situation.  Neil's parents (I'm detecting a pattern here... Neil) celebrated their 30th anniversary on Sunday evening at the Orion Restaurant.  There were about 12 people there so they ordered a variety of Chinese dishes that everyone shared.  Of course, no one was interested in the rice noodles with egg strips and curry sauce that I ordered for myself.  Once again I had to pick out the red & green peppers but I cleaned my plate of everything else.  The slip-up came with the sauce, while curry is on my list of Neutral spices I'm pretty sure it was mixed with all sorts of other things that are not beneficial to my diet of choice.  I make this assumption based purely on the fact that it was just so damn tasty that it must have been bad for me.

All in all, I figure those two little tiny black marks on my otherwise clean record are pretty minor and definetly merit overlooking considering my INCREDIBLE self control and discipline that I've practiced over the last week (+1 day).  I can honestly say that I haven't once outright blatantly cheated on this regiment.  I did hungrily gaze at the Hallow e'en candy my kids were eating, and I do occasionally lick my fingers while making tomato sauce for my family, but I haven't once snuck a mini chocolate bar or a spoonful of meaty tomato sauce when I had the chance.  I have been very well behaved, I'm happy to report, and after losing 5+ lbs in just over one week I think I'll stick to my self imposed purgatory from all thing delectable and mouth-watering and see just how far I can go.

... but I have to say, I am REALLY looking forward my one (previously mentioned) cheat day, Christmas!