Tips from gaining health

The Day After the Cheat Meal

Hi,

Its official! I lost an average of 2.5 pounds in week two for a current total of 9.5 pounds lost so far.  My blood sugar on Saturday morning was 99, too. Of course I expect an increase in weight after the cheat meal but if it happens to go like last week that should right itself by Monday or Tuesday.

I had my spaghetti cheat meal yesterday with my friend Julie. I had been thinking about and planning on cooking the spaghetti myself and on Saturday (my day seven) I was surprised that I enjoyed waiting. I chose to follow the rules and not have it for breakfast so I had salad and eggs for my morning meal. I actually kind of put it off till later in the day and savored the expectation that "today is the day." Part of me wanted to even put it off till the next day just so I could savor the expectation a little longer. How funny!

The day itself, was rainy. In fact I have not seen the meadow across from my home so full of puddles and run off before. The deep drainage ditch was about half full of water and I was kind of amazed by that. It started raining some time in the night and when I woke in the night it was coming down heavily and steadily. When I got up in the morning, it was so rainy that I wanted to stay in bed. I turned up the heat to my normal daytime temperature and crawled back under the covers until the place warmed up. Of course I then fell asleep and did not actually get up until noon!! It was still raining and I decided to do indoor exercise rather than go for a swim. I just did not want to go out in all that rain.

I got out my exercise plan and did all the "land" exercises plus traction for my neck. That felt pretty good. Then I got the idea to call Julie and see if she wanted to join me for dinner. I knew I could never eat all the spaghetti by myself. I had decided to cook it all to avoid having "remaining" ingredients in the house. I was glad when Julie decided to come over and join me. I had forgotten about the Parmesan cheese and garlic bread so called and asked if she had any. She stopped at the store and got some of both. We had a real good time and the spaghetti was some of the best I ever made -- even though I burned the onions. Julie kept telling me they were carmelized -- but I did not think black edges was exactly carmelized. I thought it might ruin the flavor, but, it really did not seem to even affect it. Then afterwards I gave all the leftovers to Julie and she happily took them home with her!

Been wondering where Tricia is. I thought maybe she would post last night but I did not hear from her. Hope I did not scare her off. That would be a shame. I was really enjoying the back and forth between us.

Today I seemed to have a bit of a hard time getting back on the program. At one point when I was napping between church sessions I fell asleep and was dreaming about eating bread from a loaf that never seemed to dry out no matter how long the bag was left open. In the dream I kept going back to get more and more of it to eat. When I woke up, it took some decision power to make the right food choices. If I had had some left over spaghetti in the house, I think the temptation would have been more than I could resist, but since it was not there, I simply ate right and moved on.

I did not have such strong feelings after the last cheat meal but every day is a new day and you have to deal with what is current. I did take a tiny side step for my evening meal (by the way I did not go to evening service). I did seem to want some "carby" food pretty strongly, so I steamed some broccoli and ate a quarter-pound hamburger with spicy brown mustard. The steamed veggies just seemed to lay on my tummy for quite a while and I did not feel "right" after eating them. Later I had some raw salad and then began to feel better.

I think I am back on track again and am looking forward to making a new salad tomorrow morning.

Not much more on my mind about all this so Im signing off.

Hope you are doing well!

Be back soon,

Marcia