Well, in spite of my best intentions, I did manage to have a gain this week. However, though I had mentioned before that I don’t keep Christmas (thus, meaning that it would not have a negative impact on my weight like most people), I had two parties to deal with this past weekend.
The first was the reason for the extra housework over the last two weeks. It was a 50th birthday party for one of my wife’s sisters. We had a total of 22 guests and a ton of food since we had decided on a potluck style which allowed for a lot of variety.
There was one bright side of this party. I had not eaten as much as I might have had I not been conscious of my choices. I loaded up my plate first with garden salad, pasta salad, one fried chicken wing (the smallest in the pan) and one strip of brisket. Thus, I was already filling up on healthier choices before getting something else. In the end, my second plate had a small bowl of chili and a variety from the veggie tray and some potato salad. All in all, I avoided the heftier items. My drinks, on the other hand, could have been better, but also were not as bad. I had one soda, a small glass of wine and a glass of champagne & cranberry juice. After that it was water the rest of the night.
The second party was on Sunday evening which was thrown by a friend of mine who was celebrating his 40th (minus 1) birthday by having a poker party. I had never played Texas Holdem before so I “crammed” by playing some free games on Pokerstars.net to bone up on the general play action. It was only after we started a practice round for real that I learned what big-blind and small-blind meant. I ended up coming in 2nd place on the first “real” game (with a $2 buy-in, that meant the winner won $12 in the first game and $14 in the second game when my friend’s wife joined in after delivering the food).
He and his wife provided fajitas from a local Mexican restaurant. Again, my choices could have been much worse than in the past. I got a few chicken fajitas in the flour tortillas with a lot of the onions and bell peppers, a little sour cream and pico de gallo. No cheese, no refried beans, very few tortilla chips and a little rice to round out the meal. I’d had one Smirnoff Ice and then water the rest of the evening (there might have been one soda, but I cannot remember exactly).
All in all, I did make better choices, but not the best choices and I paid for it on the scales. Thankfully, that should be the last major event/celebration for a few months.
I do want to leave you with this quote from a member at our meeting tonight (it applies to a lot of things in life, not just weight-loss):
Slow in the right direction is better than any speed in the wrong direction.
Starting weight: 319.0 lb
Previous weight: 285.8 lb
Current weight: 287.8 lb
Current loss/gain: +2.0 lb
Total loss/gain: -31.2 lb
Cross-posted to WebCudgel.com
{ 3 comments }
As I look back on everybody’s weight loss here, I notice that we all have had weeks where it just didn’t work out and we ended up gaining a few pounds. Really…in the long run (and that’s what we’re shooting for) it’s no big deal. It’s natural for us to get discouraged, but make sure that doesn’t last for very long. It’s easy to get into the “ah screw it” mentality after that and just go off on a binge of some type.
Great job on the overall loss so far. That’s a great quote at the end of your post.
Don’t feel bad. Between Thanksgiving and January 4th I put on 10 lbs. At least I can look back and laugh about it.
I got some flack on my blog for the Week 52 post, but I believe that having a plan to deal with these bumps in the road is key. Rick hit it right on the head, under the pre-2006 way of operating, if I looked back on a month like the one I had in December, I would have chucked it for a couple weeks, if not longer. Looking at my skinnyr graph, my lowest weight was back on 12/20 and I’m not back there yet.
Keep heart, don’t give up, we’re all in this together… and in the words of Red Green… Keep your stick on the ice.