Day One, Again....

Today is weigh-in day...and waking up this morning I just didn't know what to expect.  I kept telling myself that after my weekend, a gain was very possible.

You see, I may have celebrated my birthday just a little too much.

I'm not going to say that I cheated.  Because I've decided that the word "cheat" isn't allowed.  I want to think of it more as me eating foods I'm trying to stay away from.  I ate foods that I shouldn't be eating at this point of my plan.  And while saying that may just sound like I explained the very definition of diet cheating - explaining that way doesn't make me feel as dirty or ashamed.

And I shouldn't be.

I mean, OK, I ate some carbs.  I ate some sugar.  But...and this is a very big but... I didn't gorge myself on anything.

Friday night, I enjoyed the chocolate covered strawberries that one of my kiddos had bought me for my birthday.  There were three of them.  They were delicious.  I enjoyed them.

On Saturday, my mom took me out for a meal before we played bingo.  As I scanned the menu, I knew I was going to be in a little trouble.  It was a diner type restaurant, with an array of fried, breaded, carb infused foods.  My safest option was steak.  Even then, I tried to barter to get some kind of veggies with my steak instead of the only options given:  Fries, tator tots, or mashed potatoes.  But, come to find out, they didn't have any veggies that would have been any better.  Meaning, I could have had corn drenched in butter.  Not exactly a healthier choice.

So, I had my steak with coleslaw and a few fries.

My mom and I then enjoyed a small slice of lemon cake later in the evening - while playing bingo - that served as my birthday cake/ dessert.  And that's all I ate on Saturday, besides my Atkins bar that I had eaten for breakfast.

Yesterday, I had a couple of the chocolate chip cookies that came with my birthday treats.  I ate on plan all day, but call me crazy - it was just so hard to give up all of my birthday treats and give them to the kids without eating a little.

Probably my carb infused mind still controlling me...and that's why it's still so important that I stay on the first phase of Atkins.  I'm just not ready to move on yet.

I'm not going to sit here and say that I feel guilty and ashamed and terrible for eating a few sweets and a few french fries this weekend.  I know that I shouldn't celebrate anything with food, but if I was going to deviate off plan for a bit - it might as well have been on my birthday weekend.

Which is why I was fully intending on seeing a small gain on the scale this morning.

But, I didn't.

I stood on the scale to see...

A loss of 0.6lbs

Not fantastic, but not a gain.  And that's something to celebrate.

Since starting Atkins, I've lost 8lbs.  In three weeks.  I was really hoping that I'd hit that 10lbs mark this week... but to lose 10lbs in 4 weeks would be pretty awesome, too.

If I have any chance of doing that, though, I'm really going to have to start all over today.  Because I did eat some foods I'm trying to avoid, my body will have to go through the adjustment phase all over again.  The first week my body had to do that, I lost 5.6 lbs. Not that I'm expecting to lose that much again, but I'm going to stay optimistic that I can get my body burning fat once again...once all the carbs and sweets are pushed through my system.

And one thing I noticed this weekend?  Not once did I think "well, I've eaten off plan, might as well give up".  In fact, I caught myself slipping another "I don't" instead of "I can't" in to my vocabulary.  When my sister made me a cup of coffee, she asked if I wanted milk.  My response?  "I don't drink milk".

And another thing, I also told myself that just because I had eaten one thing off plan during the day - it wasn't a free ticket to eat bad for the rest of the day.  My deviations were small, calculated, and controlled.

So, to some people, it may appear that I had a very weak mentality this weekend and gave in to temptation. That maybe the case.  But, in reality, I had several successes thrown in to my failures too.  I'm starting to see that I am changing - both physically and mentally.

The fact that I at least tried to stay on plan while going out to eat.  The fact that I limited the "treats".  The fact that I bounced right back to plan for the rest of the day.  The fact that I'm still optimistic and not loathing in self doubt or guilt.

I'm ready to get right back out there this week and start all over.  And I'm totally fine with it and still rearing to go.

Oh yes.  I'm changing.  And that's something to celebrate.  Regardless of what happened this past weekend.