The Road Less Taken

I find myself this week having traveled on the road less taken.
At least, it's been less taken by me over the course of about a year now.
It's the road towards good health.
And I finally got on it!  At least for a week.  Oooh, a week and a day now!  I'm on my way to actually making this a habit if I'm not careful.

My Weight Watcher leader, Becky, issued a 12-week challenge for all of us Weight Watchers who have difficulty...or inertia....when it comes to tracking what we're eating.  So, we have a 12 week tracking challenge, and I accepted the call.

Thank God she sent out an email the next day to remind us, because I'd already forgotten about it.

But, her email spurred me to action, and not only did I track that day, but I've tracked every morsel of food I've eaten for the past 8 days.  I began by telling myself that it didn't matter if I went over my daily Points Plus allotment, the object of the game was just to track what I ate.  And at first, I did go over my Points.  By a lot!  But throughout the week, I stuck to it, and even exercised, which helped me earn back some of those points.  And by the end of the week, I had only eaten one point more than I was allotted.

That one little point didn't seem to do too much damage though.
Because I lost 3.6 pounds this last week, my friends!
I'm doing a lot of celebrating because I'm only 2 pounds away from the lowest I've been since I started Weight Watchers, AND I've lost 40 lbs. since I first started Weight Watchers, which was not all that long after Lily was born.

It's taking me awhile to get the hang of it, but at least the scale is going down bit by bit!
I'm just so incredibly proud of myself.

Another proud moment just happened today.  My family went out to an AMAZINGLY DELICIOUS Italian buffet called Cinzetti's.  (And yes, it's so good that I had to say AMAZINGLY DELICIOUS in capital letters.  It really is that good.)

Yesterday evening, I actually planned out exactly what I wanted to eat today for lunch.  I started with desert, knowing that I wanted some of several things, and then worked my way backwards to main course, and then starters.  I added up all the WW points that it would take, and even though this one meal used all of my daily points, plus a big chunk of my weekly bonus points, I thought it was worth it.

And you know what?
It SOOOOOO was!!

I started out with a big antipasto plate filled with fruit, veggies, and salad.  Then, I went back for some chicken, fried rice balls, glazed carrots, and fried potato pancakes.

Dessert was half of a molten chocolate cake, bread pudding with vanilla sauce, ice cream, and tiramisu.

Was it a lot?
YES!
Am I stuffed?
YES!
Is that okay as long as I count it and am accountable for what I choose to eat?
YOU BET YOUR ASS!  YES!

I'm just really, really happy with myself, in spite of eating so much I felt the need to unbutton my pants on the drive home.  In the past (and by "the past" I mean 2 weeks ago), I would have eaten that much, and maybe even more, and not have been at all mindful of how many points the food was worth, much less bother to look it up and write it all down.

So yea me!  Unbuttoned shorts and all!