Back to the grind

I'm home!  My trip was pretty amazing.  Probably cause most of it was free for me. :)   London was gorgeous.  It was so nice to be in a foreign country that speaks the same language.  That makes things so much easier.  We didn't have a lot of time to do stuff because we were working M-F but we did finish up and take a half day on Friday.   That allowed us to go see Windsor Castle.  

I traveled to Belgium to see my friends and meet my little Goddaughter.  :) 

Living with a baby was quite an experience.   The baby rules the house, the life, the daily plans.  Whew!  

I ate so much yummy food!  I was worried about how much weight I would gain.  When I got to Belgium I got on my friend's scale.  I converted the kg to lb and thought - this scale must be whacked.   But imagine my surprise when I got home and saw I only gained 2.6 lbs.  Not too shabby for eating an *not* clean diet and eating out most of the time. 

I was at my lowest weight this year when I left!  I'm kind of sad to say I am 190.0 today.  I've gained a whole pound since I've been home.  *cry*  It's hard to buckle down and get back to the clean eating, but I can do it! 

 But given the food I've eaten I'm still happy with the fact that I'm within 5 lbs of where I left. 

London food: Honeycomb Cream Slice, Spotted Dick, Fish & Chips and Steak and Ale pie. 

Belgian food: chicken kebab, food from the frituur, home made videe, and croquette in Holland 

Belgian waffle with chocolate sprinkles! 

It's a go!

Flights are book.  A coworker and I will be spending a week in London at the end of March.  In the next 3 weeks we have to complete the software and I gotta tell ya, we have no effing clue what we are doing. None.  He has worked on it a teeny tiny bit, but not enough to know what's going on.  I've never seen it.  And it's causing me to lose sleep. I was so happy around lunch time as I thought we made progress.  Then we hit a huge as road block and we don't know what we are doing.  And he's taking off tomorrow and that frustrates me cause we are suppose to work side by side on this thing.   I won't get anywhere tomorrow and I may refuse to work it until Monday.  

But after that week in London I will be going on to the land of Chocolate. . .  BELGIUM!!!!  I will stay with my friends for 5 nights.  I'm super excited but a bit nervous.  Flying makes me nervous.  Which is funny given that I work for an aeronautical company. :)   But I'm also seriously stressing over getting this software done in time.  But I'm kind of ready for a vacation!  Especially one like this.   

London!!

Looks like I'll be going to London in a month for work.  I'm freaking stressed out.  Nothing has been booked, I've never worked on this project before. . . . the person that wrote the code for this project is no longer with the company and actually passed away in Dec.   It's just a lot to worry about not to mention unbooked foreign travel.  Ah!!!   After a week in London I'll go to Belgium for a few days to visit my friends and meet their baby.  I'm excited about that if a little nervous about getting from point A to point B by myself.

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This weekend was . . . well successful for me in terms of weight loss.  We went to some hunting expo that was really boring and the admission was overpriced.  My hubby and I shared a soft pretzel and a beer.  OMG that beer was SO good.  It's just been that long.  We then went for Vietnamese food.   I had ran 3 miles on the treadmill at the gym that morning but I was still kind of concerned.  The next day the scale dropped and I thought I am not going to push my luck.  I was *super* good yesterday.  I pretty much skipped breakfast and went to the barn to ride so I wasn't thinking about it. 

Today the scale dropped again. . . . 

191.2!!!  That's 19.8 lbs.  I'm *so* close to 20.  I suspect it'l take a me a couple days to get there.  I suspect I'll see a small gain before that just based on the pattern I've been seeing.  I haven't done my fat % in some time.  So I remembered to do that today.   I'd like it to be close to or below 30% so I have a bit to go.  I wish I had remembered to check that number when I first started my 24 day challenge. 

In terms of Advocare I'm still taking MNS.  This is the last week I have product, unless I order more.  I'm not sure what I will do.  I still take Catalyst and Thermoplus.  So maybe I'll stop the MNS and see how I do.  I still drink one spark a day.  Lots of water.   Lots of fruit.  There is room for more exercising in my life but I'm not very motivated.  So I'm working on that.  Right now I'm just really happy with the scale and that's unusual.  Fingers crossed I can get down some more before I travel.  Travel is going to pack on some water weight at the *very* least. 

Clean Eating

That was a snack that I ate yesterday.  Admittedly that was more than I'd normally eat for a snack, but I was hungry.  I ran 3.5 miles yesterday so I think eating a big more was ok.  However, the scale did go up today and that makes me sad.  I'm still not going to the bathroom though.  So either that's the issue or I ate something I'm sensitive to (that cashews?) or I didn't drink enough water.  All possible. 

Prior to this challenge I would have snacked on packaged food. . . a fiber one bar. . . a bag of chips. . . chocolate. . . all of the above cause those things make you want to eat more and make you crave bad things. 

Will I continue this? I don't know. . . I'd like to think that I will continue to make good choices.   It's really not *that* hard. 

Saturday my husband and I went to the auto show in St Louis.  There were beer vendors. . . popcorn. . . soft pretzels. . . smoothies. . .  . we bought an overpriced bottle of water and shared it.  We were there before lunch and had plans for lunch.  But I commented "If it wasn't for this challenge I'd buy a pretzel".   And I have no doubt I would have.  Would I have needed it?  Nope.  But I'd have eaten it.  So it's all about choices.  There's a time in my life for pretzels.  I know that.  I will be going to ballgames this summer and I will eat crap food.  I'm ok with that.  But right now I don't need it.  I can continue to make good choices for a while and I'm really enjoying seeing how my body responds.  

We went to Red Robin for lunch.  Doesn't that sound horrible?  I got a lettuce wrapped turkey burger with a side of fruit salad.  My husband got a lettuce wrapped hamburger (no cheese or condiments) and a side of fruit salad.  We both left happy and full, but not bloated.  I love that Red Robin offers any of their burgers wrapped in lettuce.  It's fantastic and I wish more restaurants had that on their menu.  

So . . there's this chance. . . I'm told 8 out of 10 chance. . . that I will be going to London for work for a week.  Probably sometimes in March.  I'm going to have to keep making good choices and make that scale go lower and lower.  Travel like that is destined to put some pounds on me.  Not necessarily from bad choices, but different foods, eating out. .  . salt. . . travel. . . lack of exercise.   Yikes.  I haven't yet decided if I want to go or not, but the choice isn't really mine.  Lol