Day 4: Man Your Battle Stations!!!

Whew.  Day 4 was sailing along smoothly, no bumps in the road, no wind in the air, just a still, sunny day...and then BLAM! a slice of triple chocolate bundt cake landed in my hand.  My office is big on celebrating birthdays, and yesterday was the party for my boss.  When I found out we were having cake, my plan had been to sing happy birthday with the group, and then to quietly slip out before the cake was doled out.  Unfortunately, that didn't happen because I was engaged in a conversation with a coworker, and then my boss shoved a piece of the cake in my hand before I could move away from the group.

I took the cake back to my office, and for a few minutes we were in a dead stare down.  What was I going to do?  Eating it would break the RESET rules, eating it would break the commitment I'd made to make better choices, eating it would taste SO FLIPPING GOOD.  It was a gorgeous 2" slab of cake, all dark and chocolatey, filled with chocolate chips and covered in a chocolate ganache and a dark chocolate drizzle.  The old me would have savored every bite of this cake, scraping the last bit of icing off the plate with the flimsy plastic fork, and been somewhat sad when it was all gone.  The new me crumpled the cake up in its el cheapo white paper plate coffin, purposely mutilating the cake in the process, and stuffed it into a ziploc bag.  I then promptly escorted the cake to its final resting place of the trash can in the office kitchen. I walked back to my desk with mixed emotions of sad and triumphant, but glad I was able to summon the power to say NO.  I just decided I wasn't going to poison myself with all that trans this and saturated that, when I had just spent the last few days working on getting rid of all that.  The fleeting happiness that would have come from eating that cake is just that--fleeting.  The satisfaction of taking charge for once--lasting. And writing this 10 hours later, I am definitely glad I said no.

Sugary Evil

After the cake incident, the rest of the day went really well.  My weight was down again, for a grand total of 5 lbs on the week so far.  This also meant I'd met the first of my unspoken goals--to be under 200 lbs.  It was great to check that off.  My next goal is to get under 195.  I was thinking about goal setting yesterday, and I decided to stay away from trying to set a larger goal of losing 50 lbs, etc or even setting the intermediate goals on the 0's.  Something about trying to get past 200 or 190 is much more mentally challenging that trying to get under 195.  It's like those 0's build a better wall than the 5's or something. Or I could just be crazy overall :-)

I finally remembered to take a photo of the peanut butter crunch bar--they really are like eating a candy bar. They are also smaller in size than the oatmeal bars. (Sorry it isn't rotated correctly; I couldn't get it to change.)

I realized tonight as I was making my dinner shake that my RESET box is almost empty!  Only Friday's goodies remain.

As a recap to the week, I've realized a couple of things.

1.  I actually don't mind the shakes as meal replacements.  I always thought I hated this idea, but there was bliss in the pure simplicity of only having to choose a flavor for each meal.  I felt like I had gobs of free time to do other stuff because I wasn't standing in front of the stove or the grill making dinner.  Mornings were incredibly simplified with the shakes.  Lunches were more difficult, only because lunch time for me is a food break and a mental break, and I normally take a lot of time coming up with a tasty lunch.  I'll still do this come Saturday and the days after that, but just from a different repertoire than what I used to use.

2.  I prefer the shakes to be made with ice.  I didn't take my personal blender into work, but I really thought about it, and I still might do it as I move into the next phase.  They are good by themselves just in the blender bottle, but they really are nicer in the blender with ice.  The extra effort goes a long way to helping me feel like I'm not being cheated out of food, or out of an experience. And that personal blender was a fabulous investment.  I could make 4 shakes before having to wash cups.  I was only washing the blade every time.  MUCH better than having to clean out the entire blender every time.

3.  I need the support of people I know AND strangers.  Sometimes the people closest to you unwittingly do things that sabotage your efforts.  Strangers help keep that in perspective. I know my bf wasn't being mean when he told me he was getting Chipotle for himself, but it stung none the less. Will I eat at Chipotle again?  Probably.  Just not during this RESET week, and when I do, I'll skip the rice, the tortilla and probably the cheese, and opt for extra vegetables.  I know they'll do that--my friend is a vegetarian and he always gets the fajita burrito bowl with extra veggies.

4.  I didn't order my vitamins soon enough.  They aren't going to be here for Saturday, so I'll be going a few days without those supplements.  I'm not overly worried about it, I just wish I had made that decision faster.  My shakes and bars did arrive today, so I am set to replace at least one meal and one snack come Saturday.

5.  Overall, the week was easier than I thought it would be.  I consider myself a sugar-a-holic, and aside from the initial impact of taking the vitamins Monday and then a bit of a headache Tuesday, there really was no pain in this process.

6.  Lastly, a practical tip: DO NOT leave a cup with just a little bit of any flavor of the shakes in a hot car for the day.  It will smell AWFUL.