Day 5 &6: 435...The true test!

I had the MOST stressful day yesterday. Stress at work, then stress when Tanner got home from school. It was the kind of stress that slowly amps up until, before you know it, your blood is boiling, you are between tears and rage..oh yeah, it was bad. I won't bore you with the details because, well....they are boring, but by the time we were ready to decide what we were going to do for dinner, I needed a drink and a box of chocolate STAT!

I don't normally get this stressed out anymore. A few years ago, this was fairly commonplace though. We usually always felt like one of those clowns with the sticks that end in rotating plates, doing this crazy juggling act while swimming in shark infested waters. There was always at least 5 things going wrong at once. Typically, this was when I gave myself FULL permission, diet or not..to eat whatever the heck I wanted. I didn't even look back. Usually, that one meal would start a sudden spiral into another meal and then weeks of fattening meals and poor food choices and it was always harder to get back on a diet later.

I won't lie to you, yesterday I was stressed out enough that I had a tiny *whisper* of suggestion to go off my eating plan, but heck...I was used to this drill sergeant style voice ORDERING me to get a fix NOW NOW NOW!! To make matters worse, I had promised Tanner that if I couldn't find a way to get him to this school function (no car remember...poor kid doesn't get invited to much and he really wanted to go), we would order out. I know...bad mom, but I couldn't think of a better way amid all the stress to soothe the sting of missing an outing at a pizza parlor for kids from his school. I'll work on this later.

So, I pulled up the menu of his favorite place to see what I could eat. Tanner wanted his usual hamburger and fries and these cinnamon balls he liked, but I told him I was drawing the line at the hamburger and fries. If he wanted dessert, he could have some fruit or a skinny cow bar (that relieved a smidgen of guilt I felt over using food to comfort him). I couldn't decide what to get for myself so I called the restaurant and told them I needed a salad with some kind of low cal, low fat dressing..what did they recommend? I have NO idea what it is called...it is some Mediterranean salad..pushka, babushka? I don't think it is on the menu, but there is a picture of it at the top of my blog. The HUGE pita is above the salad, I know it is blurry, but best I could do with my phone. I had her describe it to me and honestly...it didn't sound all that great..your typical salad with a Mediterranean spin (lettuce, onions, tomatoes, green bell peppers, garlic). The dressing was a bit of EVOO and lemon juice. I had them throw some grilled chicken on it and was done.

I have to tell you, it was SO good! I honestly think Tanner was jealous because it smelled amazing! MUCH better than his hamburger. It came with a huge piece of pita bread and between the bread and huge salad, I wasn't able to finish it, but I came close. By the end of the meal I felt a bit overfull, but so good knowing that I had made a healthy choice and had actually enjoyed it. I think I'm a little nervous though because of course, they don't have nutritional information and in my head...anytime anything tastes THAT good, there is a catch...some hidden fat somewhere that is going to show up on the scale in a few days. Guess we'll have to wait and see.

For now, I am down to 435 from 444 most recently. That was down from 452 around Feb/March, but I'm only really counting from 444. So, I'm down almost 10 lbs the first week. Erik has been encouraging me to do something for myself on my days off (today and tomorrow). I had a friend come over today, but we ended up chatting a bit and before we knew it she had to go get her daughter from school. I had asked her if she could take me to get my glasses fixed tomorrow and she agreed so I figured that was how I'd spend my day tomorrow. Erik happened to text me about that time telling me that I needed to do cancel any work I had planned and schedule something just for me. I texted him back and told him about the glasses. He didn't text me back, but in true Erik form, he came home to get ready to go to his second job. The first thing he said was, "Ok, now when I tell you to go out and do something for yourself, I didn't expect you to go all HOGWILD and schedule something like an eye exam!" I just laughed and he said "Come on now, let's not get crazy," and again reiterated that I needed to do something else!

So, to shut him up...I called shannon and told her we were going for mani/pedis tomorrow instead YAY! I still had some birthday money (mine was april 21st) and I knew if I didn't spend it soon, I was going to use it to pay a bill or some other practical use. I will tell you the truth though..I'm dreading it a little bit because I never know what sort of position they are going to try to get me in for the pedi or how long they are going to curse my overgrown toenails and elephant skin feet in vietnamese, but wth... Nice to be getting out and doing something for myself that I feel I actually deserve :) Update tomorrow ;)