Lent or No Sweets for Kiera, Day 33-40

Easter!  YAY!!  What do you know, Lent really is 40 days.  So...really I gave up last week and had a TON of crap this week.  All kinds of candy, I made chocolate chip toffee cookies, bought donut holes, molasses cookies, chocolate caramel filled eggs, cadbury eggs, peeps, jelly beans, etc...and I made a cake.  Needless to say I did not lose any weight this week.  So what have I learned from all of this?  That next baby I should totally do this the first six weeks instead of binging during my last six weeks of guilt free eating.  That it really is possible to go without sweets and when you're in the middle of it it really doesn't seem like such a hardship.  You hear other people saying they couldn't do that and you reflect on how sad it is that we are so dependent upon sugar that we feel physically/mentally unable to go without it for any real period of time.  Of course, then you give in and have some and it's suddenly very hard to go without again.  I've also learned that I will lose weight like nobody's business if I lay off the sweets...but they are very satisfying on a psychological level sometimes.  A treat is a reward you give yourself for accomplishing an unsavory task, it is a common element that helps strengthen bonds in a relationship as you share a special sweet together away from others, it is a moment of solace in a chaotic and deafening world and it relaxes you when you're tense.  Of course, substitute "sweet" for alcohol or cocaine and you have a serious problem.   Something to think about I guess. ;)

This is my zen/philosophical reflection pic...

Lent or No Sweets for Kiera, Day 26-32

Yeah I suck.  I was planning to get right back on the no sweets horse come Monday...but I went grocery shopping instead and gave in to the temptation to buy these cute Little Debbie snack cakes that were all pastel and sprinkled for spring/Easter.  There were 8 in the pack and I think I at four and a half of them.  This was incredibly stupid not only because I was not supposed to be eating sweets but also because I know, and I mean I KNOW that eating more than two of Little Debbie anything will make you sick to your stomach.  So after my third I was not feeling too hot but I still went back for more later in the day.  Bah.  So then I thought I'd start again...I think it went okay for two days.  Thursday I decided to try the two day fast thing I've done in the past to get rid of the four pounds the cookie dough incident of the previous week had added.  (It's not actually a fast as you drink a slim-fast type mix drink for meals and if you get too hungry you're allowed to eat apples or bananas.)  This went pretty well except the drink was chocolate flavor.  So chocolate at all was a definite no no but that was the kind I had.  This made me feel like I was cheating the entire two days even though I wasn't really eating any "food."  I finished up Friday night and went to see The Hunger Games with my friends (it was pretty good).  Afterwards we went out and I broke my fast about twelve hours early and got food...and a dessert.  At that point I decided that the whole Lent thing was pretty much down the tubes.  So Saturday after Patrick attended the priesthood session of conference in Sherman I asked him to get me a strawberry shake.  Today I made chocolate chip/toffee cookies and ate WAY more than my fair share.  I will make a token resistance against sweets this week, but there are only six days left of Lent and I think I've pretty much blown it at this point.

Lent or No Sweets for Kiera, Day 26-32

 
So this week sucked.  If I were really Catholic I would probably feel very badly about this past week rather than just vaguely disgusted with myself.  Tuesday Patrick wanted cookies.  I said I'd make him some but he made them so I wouldn't be tempted.  I snitched some cookie dough.  The cookies were baked and he didn't get me any, but I took a bite of his...then I ate my own cookie.  After that I felt completely satisfied and was very impressed that my sugar deprivation seemed to have freed me from my cravings.  I honestly had absolutely no interest in another cookie.  Before bed I snitched some more cookie dough just to see if I still liked it.  Nope, didn't want any.

Wednesday I snitched more dough...and more....we didn't make cookies that night which was good, but we did bring the bowl of dough over and dig in with spoons.  Thursday we made twelve more .  As I had been eating the dough out of the fridge all day I decided the day was shot and ate 4-5 cookies plus a bunch of dough.  Friday I kept eating dough before finally deciding to just scrape the rest out of the bowl and put it in the sink so it wouldn't be there to tempt me anymore.  The resulting cookie dough ball was much bigger than I anticipated, but I ate it anyway even though I felt ill afterwards.  Saturday we went to an open house my gym was having, to the gainesville zoo and the park with a picnic lunch.  I included rice krispie treats for everyone but myself in the lunch.  I brought carrot sticks, banana's and apples for me.  Patrick didn't want his snack.  While everyone was playing on the toys I ate it.  Later at home I ate a chocolate one to see what they tasted like.  Today (Sunday) I remembered the box of 24 mini ice cream sandwiches I bought for the kids earlier in the week.  I decided the entire week was a wash and ate one...I got one for Patrick and ate another.   While the kids were getting ready for bed and I was feeding William I ate one more and when Patrick and I sat down to watch a show I had another.  So that was...five mini ice cream sandwiches I ate today...but they are mini so two is like one regular one.  So in conclusion I make a pretty crappy Catholic and plan on changing my name to gluttony in the near future.  I also gained back four of the seven pounds I lost the past month or so...hopefully those disappear when I got back on my no sweets thing tomorrow.

Lent or No Sweets for Kiera, Day 19-25

First let me say thanks to my MOM for commenting.  The rest of you are total slackers.  Just say'n.  Okay, let's see this week I think I had one of Patrick's Valentines candies again.  I also may have had a fruit snack.  Other than that I think I've done pretty well.  I've found that when I'm craving sweets if I have a handful of roasted almonds the craving goes away.  I am ordering two batches of frozen cookie dough from my daughters school though...you know to help support her education.  But they're not arriving until after Easter so I'm all good.  So far I've lost 7 lbs on this no sweets thing.  This seems like a good habit to have.  I'm thinking next baby the no-sweets rule gets applied immediately post-partum and lasts at least the first six weeks.  Maybe this will help me lose all the pregnancy pounds faster next time.  As it is I think when I go off this Lent thing I'm still going to limit my sweets to only once every week or so.  (and no that doesn't mean once a week I make a huge thing and the parcel it out to last the rest of the week so I get some every day....)   In other news I went to this cool thrift shop with my friend Thursday and got a whole bunch of clothes for way cheap.   Unfortunately I washed them right away 'cuz they were stinky and a single, day-glo orange, t-shirt of James's that I bought leaked orange onto anything white.  I know, don't mix your colors right?  Well there were only two white shirts and I wasn't going to do an entirely different load just for them...and I've never had that actually happen before.  So I re-washed them three times.  That worked for one of them the other is still orange.  I guess I need to look up how to properly bleach a shirt online.  So yeah.  Lent = Good Times had by all. ;)

Guess I should have used one of these...

Lent or No Sweets for Kiera, Day 13-18

Sigh.  Well birthdays really throw things off don't they.  It's a good thing I'm not actually Catholic or I'd feel really bad about myself rather than mildly disappointed in my lack of restraint.  I believe I had a fruit snack on the 13th day of lent, the day before my birthday (tuesday).  The day of my birthday I had cake.  I sampled the batter and the frosting.  I ate so much dinner (yummy chicken curry from Chopsticks in Denton) that I really didn't want any cake at the end of the evening.  However as I planned to go back on my strict "no sweets" plan the following day I made myself have some and tried to enjoy it.  It did not taste like pink lemonade.  It smelled like pink lemonade which was nice and the batter did seem to have little burst of tartness which was delightful, but the cake was just...cake.  As I was eating it and attempting to savor the flavor I suddenly remembered that I don't really care for cake in general.  I've forgotten this fact the past few years and have eaten cake like there's no tomorrow whenever it presented itself.  I believe this is a common problem I have of disassociating myself from my actual taste preferences and hunger cues.  If it's there I eat it.  If it's easy to grab and sweet I eat double.  Bad habit to have.  So I went to bed that night glad that I had had that moment of self realization.  I thought that this would, of course, mean that I would no longer be tempted by cake in the future.  How wrong I was.

  The next day (first thing in the morning I might add) my cake was sitting there on the counter looking so pretty.  I lifted the clear cover (big mistake there having a transparent bowl as a cake cover.  Must buy opaque version at some point) and smelled it.  After all I had already discovered that this was the most enjoyable part of the cake.  So I'm standing there smelling it and looking at the cake server sitting there all forlorn and thinking about how disappointed I was that the cake didn't taste like pink lemonade.  It SMELLED like pink lemonade so it should taste like it right?  So I pick up the sad lonely spatula and cut off a little corner of cake.  I reasoned that maybe I just didn't get a good taste of it the night before since my taste buds were probably stymied from the curry or something.  Nope.  Still didn't taste like pink lemonade.  Two or three more times during the day I tested the cake until I was utterly convinced that it really did just taste like plain old boring cake.  I gave my kids big pieces of cake at every opportunity to try and get rid of the thing.  Friday I think I did okay...I may have sampled the cake once more, but only a small bite, not a whole piece or anything.  Or maybe I didn't...it's all a blur really. ;)

Anyway, so Saturday our friends Margie and Josh were coming over...and they were bringing the Better Than Sex cake.  It was delicious.   I had a very large slice even though I had already eaten too much pizza at that point.  Then I had another just because I wanted to enjoy it.  I did enjoy it right up until the last five bites or so.  At this point I felt on the verge of puking every time I chewed.  But I was determined to finish it, so I did (Patrick would insert here that this is the stupidest thing in the world to do.  If you're full, stop.  End of story.  If you feel like puking.  Stop.  Why do you feel the need to finish what you don't want?  To which I reply; I'm no quitter!  ;)). Afterwards I felt physically ill at the thought of any more cake.  I thought this was a good thing as I was going back on Lent the next day.  They left us half the cake.  I planned to give it all to my kids.

Sunday after church I promised the kids cake after lunch.  Patrick had to go do something so he ate some cake right off the edge (you know rather than cutting a slice) so he could have some, knowing it would most likely be gone when he got back.  I wanted a bite.  He gave me one.  I suddenly remembered how this particular variety of cake is even better the next day after having been refrigerated overnight (it's the whipped cream on top...).  So after lunch I cut each of the kids the smallest piece of cake I could and tried to cover it up by also offering them a fairly large piece of leftover birthday cake.  They bought it.  I ate the rest of the cake.  (BTW they left half of the leftover cake not half of the entire cake, so it was really more like a quarter of the cake that was left and what I ate wasn't THAT much as it had already been divided four ways before I got my part)  So...not good, but not too bad right?  Then we had company over for dinner.  She made...a chocolate walnut cake.  I didn't want to be rude so I ate the rather large slice she gave me...and some of the leftover from my kids plates. (It was REALLY good, and I'm not generally a fan of chocolate cake)  Then while they were out looking at our chickens I had another small slice about half the size of the one I originally ate.  Then she said we could keep the three child sized remaining slices.  I transferred them to a plate and ate one in celebration.  That evening as Patrick and I sat down to watch a show (BBC's Sherlock.  It is brilliant btw, you should totally check it out.  Second season is much better than the first.  A season (or 'series' as they call them) is only three episodes long which is kind of a bummer, but each ep is 90 minutes so that's nice...this one was the Hound of the Baskervilles so it was ruined since I knew that story and guessed...but I digress), I told him he should eat the cake so I wouldn't.    He said, both pieces?  and I said yes.  So I brought him the cake and then thought; but hey, why should he get cake while I just sit here?  I ate one.  he ate the other.  So just today I had the remaining Better Than Sex cake, one adult sized slice of Chocolate walnut cake, and three child sized pieces.  You can see I have some control issues when it comes to food.

But...tomorrow is another day and the start of a new week so I am back on the lent gravy train and hopefully I will lose another 5 lbs before this is over...of course I could always just cut out sugar all week permanently.  But no, that's crazy talk. ;)

I felt a bit like Marie Antoinette this week..."let them eat cake" indeed. 

Lent or No Sweets for Kiera, Day 10-12

Blah, blah, these updates are boring.  I didn't eat any sweets, yay me.  I had a fruit smoothie this evening with no sugar in it..it was okay, but I like it better with ice cream.  Yesterday I really wanted a cookie.  No cookies for me.  I've lost five pounds, that's nice.  Now if I could just lose another ten I'd be almost back to my pre-pregnancy weight and could maybe get to actually enjoy it for a bit before getting prego again.  Fat chance of that I'm sure.  It's my birthday on Wednesday.  I'm making Pink Lemonade cake.  I saw it at the store and it sounded interesting so I bought the mix.  If it's good yay, if it's bad then I won't eat too much.  My friends are coming to party Saturday and Margie is bringing Better Than Sex cake.  If you have not had this you are missing out.  It is delicious.  Chocolate cake, with carmel sauce (I think) drizzled on top (after poking holes in the cake so it seeps in), covered in whipped cream with toffee bits.  *drool*  I may gain back the five pounds Saturday.  But it's my birthday and I'm getting old, so who cares right? ;)

Lent or No Sweets for Kiera, Day 8-9

Did good yesterday...Patrick brought home some salted cashews and almonds and we snacked on those.  They were yummy.  Today I snuck one of Patrick's Valentine's chocolates.  Bad Kiera, bad!  It was just one though, so it wasn't too bad.  Did you know that snuck isn't a word?  I've said that my whole life.  Hmm... I'v always thought that "sneaked" sounded stupider.  Shows what I know huh?

Lent or No Sweets for Kiera, Day 6-7

Not feeling very wordy today either.  My cold/flu whatever from last week is mostly gone, (my voice is still messed up), but it seems to have settled in my lungs now.  I feel like I can't catch my breath, but there's nothing to cough up that's blocking the airways or anything.  So it feels like my asthma flaring up, which it has a tendency to do in response to any lung related illness.  So that's fun.  On the no sweets front:  yesterday I had one of James's fruit snacks.  Just one, not a bag.  I don't think I had anything I wasn't supposed to today.  I did have some hot apple cider this evening as I've found that sometimes helps open my airways, but I don't think that counts.  I've noticed that at the times when I suddenly think I need a treat or something, if I pay attention I realize that I'm actually just hungry.  So if I notice myself getting hungry and go eat something right then I don't really have a craving for sweets later.  It's only when I'm really hungry that I suddenly think I need a candy bar.

 In other news I have been thinking about ideas for writing a book.  I tried going back to school and I'm just not feeling it, but I'm getting into this book writing idea.   I actually know real live people who are authors and have been published and stuff, I think I could totally do it.  I have a couple of good ideas now that I'm trying to work on when the mood hits.  The problem has been that the mood hits when my kids are on the computer and I have nowhere to type.  Today for instance I was folding the laundry and thought I should think about my story I've got going in my head.  So I was doing that and I think I came up with some pretty good ideas, but then I couldn't type them up 'cuz James was on the computer and the fight from throwing him off wasn't worth it.  I suppose I could have hand written them, but that seems to take forever.  So to keep myself from forgetting I went over them again tonight with Patrick....I guess it would make more sense to go type them instead of this blog but I'm tired from my 5:30am boot camp class this morning and I think I'll go to bed instead.  Oh and I got the newest Kim Harrison book waiting for me in my room. :)

Lent or No Sweets for Kiera, Day 3-5

Sorry, I was sick and we had company and I got behind.  Let's see....Friday I was feeling a little better...I did have one small bite of some chocolate that Patrick's sister brought because they wanted me to try it.  It was dark chocolate with chili powder in it...interesting.  I also had a small, small bowl of Apple crisp.  Saturday we went out for lunch and I didn't even get dessert (no one else did either, but usually I at least consider it) so that was good...today they handed out small bags of my favorite store bought cookies at church.  I took one and was just about to happily open it when I remembered I couldn't have cookies. :(  Sad day.  I then decided to take it home and save it for after Easter.  Halfway through class I decided that was probably a bad idea and that I would probably eat it.  So instead I divided it amongst the kids for being good.  Bah.  Sharing sucks. ;)   [usually I'm in nursery but there was only one of the little nursery (18months-2yrs) there (the rest were home sick, surprise, surprise) so they just put her in the big nursery as there were only two kids there, so I got to go to class]
  I'm still a little sick.  My head hurts and I get dizzy if I bend over, which is weird, and Friday I started losing my voice.  It's still not really back.  I also still have a deep phlegmy cough.  Yuck.  I'm super tired too, but I'm sure that's because I stayed up until 2am reading my new book.  Oops.

   Saddest thing ever.  Patrick's sister stayed over Friday and brought with her a grocery bag full of goodies.  I didn't even look in it 'cuz I knew it would be too much (temptation).  Unfortunately she left it by accident and I looked in it to see what it was.  Yummy cookies, gummy bears, mint m&m's, homemade chocolate covered pretzels....sigh.   Also the three pounds I lost from being sick turned into five at one point.  I've already gained back three of those so that's too bad.

  This post wasn't funny.  Sorry.  My head is still muddled from being sick and not up to witty repartee.

Lent or No Sweets for Kiera, Day Two

Good news:

• Being sicks makes all sweets completely unappealing.
• As I'm sick, I seem to have lost three pounds.
• Everyone was quiet and asleep for two + hours

Bad News:

• I'm sick
• Being sick freak'n sucks
• I used the two plus hours to finish my book rather than taking a nap like I should have.
• Now William is crying and wants real food...you know, in the highchair...
• So dizzy I thought I might crash going to pick up Isabelle

That is all.

Lent or No Sweets for Kiera, Day One

Okay so let me start off by saying that I am not Catholic.  Most of what I know about the religion has been gleaned from books and tv shows where a character was Catholic.  So I'm sure there's probably more to this whole Lent thing than I'm aware of  but here is my basic understanding of it;  You give up something for 40 days/nights, or you "fast," if you will, from that thing (food item or behavior) until Easter.  This shows your faith and/or willingness to sacrifice for blah, blah, blah... (that's not sacrilegious right?)  Anyway.  One year my mother-in-law gave up speeding for Lent.  I have decided to give up sweets.  Some of you may be laughing right about now as you remember my chocolate giving up fiasco of 2010 .  However I think part of the problem with that experiment was that I was free to indulge my sweet tooth in other ways.  Ways that turned out to be merely gateway drugs to my true chocolate addiction.  So this year since I'm still trying to lose baby weight from William I've decided to incorporate a religious observance into my weight loss strategy.  Because, hey, when has including God in stuff not helped (uh...the Crusades anyone?  Spanish inquisition....Shush no one asked you!) Ahem.   So, yeah I have decided as of today that I am off of sweets until Easter.  That is Sunday, April 8th.

One exception to this plan;  my birthday is in two weeks and I plan to have cake.  Also should we have a friend get together in celebration of my birthday on a day that is not actually my birthday, I will eat cake or whatever then as well.

So "sweets" include; cake, candy, pie, brownies, chocolate, sugary cereals, fruit snacks, pop tarts, chocolate chip carrying granola bars, syrup for pancakes, ice cream, chocolate milk, peeps, etc...

I did have some apple crisp this morning.  Technically that should count, but I'm not counting it 'cuz I just made it yesterday and we accidentally made a 9x13 pans worth rather than the normal 8x8.  If I didn't help eat it it may go to waste.  Also apples are healthy. ;)