Kitchen Fail

I'm going to preface this post by saying except for the next paragraph, this post has nothing to do with weight loss.

The preparing myself during the day for eating out at dinner has gone well, for the most part. Now it seems that my hubby is finally going to see the logic in not having our meals in restaurants so frequently! (Cross your fingers!)

Ok, now that that's out of the way, on to today's topic. My most recent kitchen failure.

After I got home from school, I was hankering for something sweet. I thought about making cupcakes but didn't really want to go to all that effort. Then it hit me, No Bake Chocolate Cookies! Mama used to make these for my sister and I as an after school snack for us to eat while watching Wishbone before we started our homework.

No Bake Cookies are SUPER easy. All you really need is some sugar, milk, butter, peanut butter, oatmeal, and vanilla. It seriously takes like 5 minutes. They turn out delicious. Go Ahead, visit the link and look at the yummy pic of delicious chocolateyness. I'll wait.

Anyway, typically, I'll assemble my ingredients before starting a recipe but I was all gung ho and started without fully taking an inventory of what I needed vs what I had on hand.

Because of this lady, my great grandmother, Lois Key or Granny as everyone called her:

I am well versed in the art of substitution. My husband has started to understand that sometimes my recipe substitution is a good thing and sometimes it's not. Just ask him to tell you about the chicken I made once in our old apartment, he's NEVER going to let me live that one down...

So, like the great granddaughter of the master substituter I am, I substituted my heiny off on this recipe.

Me: Oh, I don't have actual milk.... But I DO HAVE Almond milk. That's pretty much the same thing, I'll use that.
Me: Shoot! I'm out of oatmeal.... That's ok, I'll  use Special K in its place and make it more like corn flake cookies.
Me: I don't have enough peanut butter! Hmm. Maybe if I just add more sugar...

Turned out the only thing I did have on hand that was actually in the recipe was sugar, butter, and vanilla.

My husband would HATE how they turned out.  So let's keep it our little secret.

The Special K turned out kind of chewy and the extra sugar gave it kind of a "dirt" consistency. Overall, they have a pretty good flavor. But I wouldn't recommend doing these particular substitutions again. So, that's my latest kitchen fail, anyone else out there have substitutions go haywire?

Doctor's visit

I know it's not Sunday yet but I wanted to check in really quick. I had to go to the doctor as a sort of emergency visit today. I was having SEVERE pain. We still don't actually know what is causing the pain but at least I now have some pain medicine that's making it at least tolerable. However, I did have to get weighed. I was up 6 pounds from my last weigh in. So now I'm moderately depressed AND still in pain. It just reconfirms that I'm going to have to really get back to paying close attention to what I eat. I also expressed to the doctor my concern over the rapid increase in weight. She suggested a thyroid imbalance blood test and possibly further testing once I feel better. Just wanted to put this info out there so maybe I'll get better at monitoring myself.

How making the bed led to a weight loss epiphany

There's an old adage that goes, "If you keep doing what you've always done, you'll keep getting what you've always gotten."

I've always knew this to be true but never really thought about it, until now. This weekend, I would have a total of 6 days off from school and work. I had planned to maybe do a little organizing of our house and read two or three books. Basically, I wanted to be lazy for the sum total of those days. That didn't happen. The first day, I had breakfast with a dear friend and for some reason, it inspired me to not be dormant. I came home, changed the sheets, and made the bed.

That may not seem all that miraculous to you. But for me it's HUGE. Never in my life have I consistently had a made bed. I always brushed off the comments of people saying that making the bed just starts their day off right. Honestly, I'd tell myself, how could that make a difference at all? Wasn't it just hogwash? Now I know it's not.

Because I'd made the bed, it made me feel a little better about not being in our actual master bedroom, STILL after six months. I truly had gotten to the point that I was so dejected about our living situation that I really didn't care if it even looked halfway presentable. I'd gotten in the mindset of, because the house isn't done, my husband won't allow anyone to come over so what did it matter if the bed was made for just us? Let me tell you, it does. I really and truly feel better about the state of our home by completing that one little task.

It also made me think about what other barriers I might have created for myself that I didn't even realize. When I was single and doing so well on Weight Watchers, I only had meals in restaurants maybe once a week. So now that I can't fit any of the clothes in my closet and am getting frighteningly close to my start weight, one of the big things for me is; "I've gained so much weight because my husband wants to eat out all the time." Ok, let's examine this. First of all, I'm not blaming my husband, who I love, for my weight gain. Yes, ever since we started dating I have gained weight. And Yes, my husband wants to eat out almost every night, never mind that it isn't good for our pocket book OR our waist lines. But it's MY FAULT that I let it go to my waist. Eating in restaurants makes him happy. I don't really understand why, but it does. His happiness means so much to me and he gets so upset when I try to dissuade him, that I give in.Then I feel guilty about ever trying to change his mind. He works so hard and all he's asking is that I let someone else cook for and serve us, who am I to complain? So I give in, and what do I do when we go out? I eat what I WANT to eat, not what would help me stay on plan. Why? Because I don't want to go out to eat and not be satisfied. It really is a fear thing with me. I'm afraid that if I don't order the pasta or chicken strips or the potato soup and pretzels, that I'll be hungry later or I won't like the meal I ordered and it would have been a waste of money for me to have eaten something else in the first place.

Basically, I feel out of control in this area. After spending over two years of my life on plan, I know that if I were to have gone to a WW meeting and asked for help, I would have heard these suggestions:

1. Find something on plan at the restaurant to eat and/or choose a WW friendly restaurant.

2. If you've already eaten out X number of times, don't go with him.

3. Realize that the odds of you going to a restaurant when he gets home are good, and plan accordingly.

Option #1 When we go out, it's typically always my husband's choice in restaurant. That's not to say that he forces me to go to places I don't like, I DO like these places. But many times, these places are not at all WW friendly. For instance, there's a burger place that we LOVE to go to where literally everything is fried. So for our outings option #1 is almost always out.

Option #2 is not an option because my husband works often 7 days per week, 10-12 hours per day. I WANT to spend time with him. The argument could be made that if I stopped going, it would stop being pleasurable for him to go and we'd start eating at home more. But that brand of passive-aggressiveness is not for me.

Option #3: EPIPHANY ALERT: Failing to plan is planning to fail. One of my favorite leaders ALWAYS said that. I think what has been happening is that I've been just going with the flow and not taking responsibility for my eating in areas that I could control. The great thing about WW is its flexibility. If I were to start getting Activity Points during the day AND wisely use my Points for breakfast and lunch, eating out for dinner would become a non-issue. 

Effective immediately, this is my new strategy. I'll check in next Sunday and let you know how it works for me.