13 to go for GOAL! And a recipe I can't wait to try...

Well, I am down 1.2 pounds over the past 2 weeks. YAY! I could not BE more excited about this week's Weight Watchers weigh-in. I expected to be down, but from here I have THIRTEEN POUNDS LEFT until I am at GOAL WEIGHT!

I found a recipe I am just dying to try out - Cranberry Walnut Pie. It is a crustless cake-like pie and it sounds amazing. I got the recipe from another blog I really like, CanYouStayForDinner. Here is the link to the pie recipe:
http://www.canyoustayfordinner.com/2010/09/16/cranberry-walnut-pie/
I'm gonna write it again... Cranberry Walnut Pie. SERIOUSLY!?! I am going to make an adapted version of it this weekend, with a little less sugar, and egg beaters and applesauce instead of the eggs and butter. I will let you know how it turns out - I really can't wait to make this!

For those of you who like to bake, I have found that substituting egg beaters for eggs and unsweetened applesauce for oil or butter in a recipe yields really great tasting results with far fewer calories. Sometimes, the substituted version of the recipe is even better than the original. I use straight measurements to substitute, i.e. 1/2 cup oil becomes 1/2 cup unsweetened applesauce. 1 egg = 1/4 cup egg beaters. Pumpkin pie, chocolate cake from scratch, breads, muffins, boxed cake mixes all do very well with these substitutions. I have yet to find something that doesn't really work with it, but I'm not sure cookies would work as well. The cakes, breads and pies are great with it, though!

And so I now leave you with this - there are 33 days left in this year. There will probably be a lot of baking in those 33 days. Substitute! And at the end of these 33 days, I will be (at least) 3 pounds lighter and make my mini-goal. Did I mention I only have 13 more pounds to lose until I am at GOAL? ;) YAY!

35 days until New Year's, Thanksgiving and STRESS

For whatever reason, I miscounted before and I have 35 days from TODAY until it is New Year's Day 2013. My goal is to be 5 pounds lighter by then. Five pounds in six weeks is no easy feat. But I want to be there.

This past weekend was Thanksgiving and I did not keep up my CBL (Carb Back-loading) eating. And I felt AWFUL. I did get a fair amount of activity, including the 4-mile Mile High Turkey Trot and also a 27-mile bike ride, but that ride was followed by consuming margaritas, which led to, well, not the best night. And that led to not the best day as I tried to recover. (But I did *thoroughly enjoy* those challah french toast slices that aided in my recovery! :) All I can say about CBL is that I feel better both physically and mentally when I eat that way. I'm going carb-free until Friday to sort of detox myself from Thanksgiving and be back on CBL.

As for losing these five pounds by New Year's, I'm giving myself the license to eat whatever I want on Christmas Eve, Christmas Day and New Year's Eve. Otherwise, it's CBL and tracking and working out regularly. Those five pounds WILL be off come New Year's Day - or by my Weight Watcher weigh-in on January 3rd!

One other thing I want to address. I was very stressed out last week. I had an incident at work with a friend/co-worker that left us, well, no longer friends. It was very disappointing and I was very upset about it. I do believe that the stress contributed to me being lackadaisical about my eating all weekend, and that I went further from my CBL plan than I would have had all that not been going on. (I see this now, in hindsight.) One positive takeaway is that I did not talk negatively to myself over my poor eating choices. I just let it be, and chalked it up to my mood and the stress and moved on, finally climbing back on the wagon Monday. So perhaps I am improving how I treat myself.

And with that, I'm working on being five pounds lighter by New Year's. I will just do it.

fifteen to go, and GOALS

Since I last posted, I've lost just one more pound. I will take it. The current weight-loss slowness is attributable entirely to ME. I had a work conference in Florida (yes, ANOTHER trip to Florida), FIL went into the hospital, managing work has been very difficult with the departure of my boss and now my IT support guy... and I allowed all these things to get in the way of my goal. And that sort of leads me to this:

When I started this blog, my goal was to lose twenty pounds by the end of this year. It is *unlikely* that I will lose the remaining fifteen pounds before the end of the year, given that there are only six weeks to go. (However, if I keep this relatively low-carb CBL thing going, that may be a reality!) Sometimes we have to revise our goals.

I can't get to the original twenty pounds I wanted to have lost by New Year's, but I will still get to twenty pounds. Just because I don't reach the goal in my original timeline doesn't mean I can't reach it at all. But by the end of the year, I can certainly get myself to ten pounds gone. After I reach that stepping-stone goal, I will continue working toward accomplishing the big goal by losing the final ten pounds.

My new stepping-stone goal of losing five (more) pounds in six weeks is completely realistic. I just have to stay on track for those six weeks - thirty-six days of staying on track. I am going to come here, EVERY DAY, and post my on-track status.

Today is DAY ONE of THIRTY SIX DAYS on track.