Its been a few days since I last blogged and a lot has gone on. First, we finally got through all the birthday celebrations on Monday. On this day we had to celebrate my sisters birthday by going to Logan’s and after that a movie. I managed to eat ok at the restaurant. I did have a few peanuts along with 2 (very buttery) rolls. But the rest of the meal with the exception of the loaded mashed potatoes and macaroni and cheese was pretty…decent…who am I kidding, the only thing decent about the meal was the grilled porkchop. But still under normal circumstances I would not have chosen that particular meal. I might have chosen something more fattening.

I almost managed to *not* eat any popcorn at the movie theater. I didn’t buy any because I wasn’t hungry after eating lunch but my sister always has to buy popcorn and toward the end of the movie I took a few handfuls. To top this evening off, we had homemade pizza for dinner and chocolate cake for dessert. My sisters favorite foods, nowadays. I tried to stick to my plan yesterday but went overboard somewhat on the homemade chili that I had last night. After coming home from babysitting my niece I had a *nice* *chunk* of the cake.

Today I have started out strong…so let’s see if I can end this day strong. We still have birthday cake left so the temptation is going to be strong when I go home.

Last night, much to my dismay, I totally went off diet. It wasn’t intentional because up to the time I was scheduled to go home, I had been sticking with diet plan and had planned on sticking right to it for the rest of the night. I learned, when I left work, that my mom decided to invite everyone (brothers, sister-in-laws, niece) over for a birthday celebration for my brothers and sister. She had been trying to arrange a get-together for the longest time now but finally something had been agreed upon. We had steak, baked potatoes, corn, fried pickles and dinner rolls. I was starving by the time I arrived home and dipped into the fried pickles and grated cheese as well as take a scoop or two of the chocolate icing from my sister’s birthday cake. By the time we actually ate, it was around 8 p.m. and to be honest I really wasn’t as hungry as I was earlier that evening. Now, dessert is another story. My mom bought a ice cream cake from Dairy Queen along with baking a chcolate cake for my sister. My sister-in-law brought a cheesecake she had fixed for my brother(whose birthday was on Tuesday). And again to be perfectly honest, I had a little bit of everything. I normally love cheesecake but to me the cheesecake wasn’t that great. I ate it anyway. I loved the ice cream cake and the chocolate cake was okay as well.

Was it worth it, in the end? Probably not, since I really didn’t get much enjoyment out of eating those desserts. To make matters worse, today was weigh in day. Even though I pigged out last night, I still managed to lose .8 lbs. I am sort of disappointed because I had weighed myself earlier this week and had been down several pounds since last Friday. But at least I didn’t gain any weight. It just makes me sick that I slow myself down by doing stupid things like I did last night.

I have been in a funk these last few days. I just really haven’t felt like “dieting” anymore. Despite that feeling I have continued to try to eat right. There were a few times when I screwed up, like for instance when my mom made some homemade pimento cheese. I had a pimento cheese sandwich. I have had bits of candy each day. Not as much as I used to shovel down my throat but enough for me to reason with myself that is is okay this “one time”. This one time ends up occurring everyday. Despite eating candy and pimento cheese I have managed to lose weight from last week.  My official weigh-in day is not until tomorrow so cross your fingers that I lose a substantial amount.

These next two months are going to be very trying for me. Thanksgiving is going to be a little different this year. We will be going to my brother and sister-in-laws house. She is not the greatest cook in the world and the food she does cook is sometimes weird. Later that day we will have our own Thanksgiving with some of the traditional foods. Christmas, it looks like, we will be all alone.

I haven’t forgotten about pictures. I have taken new pictures the past two Saturdays but just have failed to upload them to WordPress. I may be a little bit biased but I can see a little difference in the way I look. Hopefully it is not just my imagination running wild on me because it really would be good to hear from others that they see a difference in me as well. Well, in fact my mom told me on Saturday that she could tell I had lost weight. She wasn’t the first person to notice but it still feels really good to hear someone say they noticed.

It seems like everyone in my family was in a “foul” mood this past weekend. I know who or what I can contribute my foul mood to but for the rest of them I don’t know. I haven’t been taking all of my medicine for about a week now simply because I don’t have the money to get the two I need refilled. I will fill them on Friday but until them I will just have to make do without them. This is really something that I should never allow happen. When I go off my medications, it is never a good thing for myself or those around me who catch the brunt of my “ill-path”. It simply could not be helped this time. I simply had too much payment going out to various people. And I have only myself to blame for this but I have come to realize over the past week that I may have to let certain things go, in order for me to afford my medication.  It is more important for me to take my medication than it is for me to pay some random bill. As it stands now, I have two $20 medications to fill on Friday.

On a more positive note, it appears that I am still losing weight. I am down another six (6) lbs since Friday. Even the bad sweet tooth I had this weekend didn’t deter any weight loss which was coming my way. I am amost to my first personal goal of being under 400 lbs. Just another 3 lbs to go and I will have met this goal. Here’s hoping that the scales this week will bring me some good news.

Today was my official weigh-in day. As of today, I have lost .8 lbs since last Friday, which is not bad considering I went hog wild on Halloween. I could have just as easily gained .8 if not more lbs this week. On Wedneday, something weird was happening to my body. When I weighed myself after work (which was around 6 p.m.) I weighed the same as I had that morning. Granted I drinked enough water to fuel a camel for a year but I have drinked plenty of water like that before and had never maintained the same weight as I had earlier that morning. I was expecting to lose big this week due to last week being on my monthly cycle but due to Halloween this has been changed. I never really planned on eating that much on Halloween. And surprisingly enough, it wasn’t the candy that did me in. It was the homemade pizza and hot dogs that did me in, although not enough to warrant a change in weight. I had a few pieces of candy but not as much as I would if I had not been on a diet.

I totally pigged out for Halloween. I really didn’t mean to eat so much but as it turns out I did. But as I look back, I really didn’t have as much food as I would have if I hadn’t been on a diet. I would have thought since it was Halloween I would be pigging out on the candy but the candy was the least of my worries. Sure, I had a few pieces but it was nothing compared to from previous Halloweens. What got the best of me was the homemade pizza that my mom made. I originally was going to eat hot dogs, which I still did, but after seeing the pizza I couldn’t help myself. One piece turned into two, two turned into three, three turned into four, etc. The fortunate thing about it was the crust was not that thick so I know I wasn’t getting too much fat from the crust. There was, however, a lot of cheese.  And to be completely honest, eating homemade pizza was a whole lot better than eating pizza from Pizza Hut or Papa John’s. So, in the long run, I probably did better than I thought I did. The good thing about it was this morning when I weighed myself, I didn’t really put on any pounds, which is always a good thing when you are dieting. I decided that I deserved a break, since I have been continuously and faithfully staying to my diet for over a month now. I have no regrets to speak of this morning. Hopefully when I weigh in tomorrow morning for my weekly weigh in I won’t have any regrets either.

I have never been more happier in my life but I do fear that things may change and everything that I have worked for will go down the drain. Things like that seem to always happen to me, for one reason or another. It is all part of chemical make-up in my screwed up head. So far I have been very positive about things and how one mistake does not nor should not consititute a total diet meltdown on my part. But in the end it almost always results in my abandoning all diet efforts. I am working really hard to not allow that happen to me this time around. There is one question circulating on SparkPeople that I can’t seem to pinpoint an answer to and that is: What makes this time different? I really don’t know how to answer that question but I do feel like this time is different. Maybe all the efforts in the past were just practice for the real thing. Let’s hope so, for my sake and for the sake of those who are rooting for me. I think that maybe I am really ready for a change now. Since the birth of my niece and the changing of my parents health, it has made me much more aware of how fragile life is. I have always assumed that I would have plenty of time to correct my miscomings and mistakes but that is not aways possible. Now is the time for me to make changes that both my family and I can be proud of, not tomorrow or next week or even next year. Nothing is going to be of benefit for me to wait. The sooner I get up on my two feet and start believing that I deserve these changes, the better it will be for everyone in the end, especially for me.

No, I am not feeling down today. I was two days ago but today is simply my reflection on things as they stand now. I know I will have continued support from everyone around me so there should be no doubt in my mind that I will succeed this time. Having the right attitude is the key to anything that needs to be done successfully.

I have been PMSing real bad this weekend. I knew it was coming so I didn’t expect any weight loss on Friday. I gained .4 which is not bad at all. Despite the PMSing all weekend I have managed, for the most part to stick to my diet. I did a lot of sleeping this weekend. I have also had headaches and feelings of nausea during the weekend as well. I hope that I am not coming done with what my parents had. I am hoping it was all part of the PMS, partly because I want to see Shelby this week. Kristel is supposed to be dressing her up as Raggedy Ann.

Thanks to my Sparkpeople scheduler I remembered to take pictures this weekend of myself. I can’t really notice a big difference yet but I can sure feel it. Tonight I was rubbing my arms and to me they feel skinnier. My thighs and legs feel smaller. The scale has finally turned after two days of water retention. Hopefully I didn’t ruin it by the food I had today. I pretty much stuck to what I could eat but I did slip up a bit. For lunch we had carry out lunches from the church. It had chicken and dressing, green beans, cranberry sauce, dinner roll, sweet potato casserole and a slice of peanut butter cake. I ate all the chicken and dressing, green beans, cranberry sauce, dinner roll and cake. My sister didn’t want her slice of peanut butter cake so  I ate her slice later during the day. Take in mind, that the slices were not that big so I don’t think I totally blew it. I don’t beat myself up over it because this is exactly what I would have done in the past and would have ended the diet on the spot. I just learn from mistakes and allow myself to make an occassional slip up. After all, I am human.

Today I had an appointment with my psychiatrist. I was long overdue for a visit with her but things have been going so well that I have just put things off as well as having money difficulities. My last visit was in June so a lot of things have happened to me within these few months. Overall, everything is going well. There is no signs or symptoms of the depression or OCD relapsing. I told her that work couldn’t not be better and home life is going well. She gave me prescriptions for my meds and scheduled me to come back in April 2008.