SO.

Whew. I've been avoiding posting.

Because last week ended up ril ugly, y'all. Ril ugly. It's nice to be back in the blog-it-out community though because I feel a lot better about committing the sins I committed and much more capable of returning to a place of piety, knowing that I have the support of my gals.

Things were moving along reasonably when Friday rolled around. I was more than 35 flex in the hole for the week, but it wasn't close to the 70ish flex I'd been using in the past few weeks.

I went to the gym during my lunch break and prepared myself for a night out. I lifted at the gym and tried to make good food choices during the day. Then I met Dan and Kev for drinks. I was pretty hungry, but I had an apple before drinks to help tide me over. Then we had nuts with the drinks. Then Kev and I went to see a show and only had time to grab a slice before hand. Not ideal, but it was all that was available. Then I had some gelato later on for no good reason and spent the rest of the night resisting the urge to have a second dinner. No joke. I ended the day 11 points over, to make a grand total of 59 flex used for the week so far! And there were still two whole days left before weigh-in day! I was feeling pretty defeated about getting up close to 70 flex used again, but I was determined to make it through the week without getting to 70 flex points. Foolish.

Because then Saturday happened. Ugh. I started out with good intentions - had a relatively healthy breakfast with Kevin at a diner before we both had to go run around fulfilling committments all day long. After I left him and started my full day of activities, I got pretty peckish but decided to get a lower-cal spinach wrap at starbucks. It wasn't enough though. When I finished it, I just kept eating. There were candies where I was rehearsing and I had a handful of those, I finished Faryn's chinese food, only a few bites, but still. I also drank the latte I'd gotten at starbucks and had a small cookie (ugh) and I just started to feel like I was losing control. I didn't want to keep eating, so I vowed to make good choices for the rest of the night, even though I still had so much day ahead of me. (More rehearsal, a show to perform, and then a christmas party to attend.) I did pretty well until we ended up at this christmas party around 11pm - and then I just fucked around. I drank and smoked and ate and ate and ate. I was probably a lot less than I thought it was but it FELT like a lot. And it felt like I was just mindlessly, anxiously eating. I had bites of EVERYTHING. Many bites. Blech.

I have to walk into those events with SOME kind of plan or all hell breaks loose. It's really ugly.

I didn't even write down what I ate on Sunday. I was feeling so incredibly disappointed in myself for Saturday night. Sunday basically went to shit too. Normal breakfast, then some nachos for lunch (?!?!) which I shared and didn't eat too many of, but still. THat would have been fine if we hadn't gone to another gathering after that where I had a zillion cookies and a fuckin brownie. Then we had to go see a friend's stand-up act because he was auditioning for a tv show and needed a supportive crowd and Kevin ordered fries and I had some of those too.

All in all, when I write it all out, it seems a lot less horrific than I've been letting myself believe, but it was still very mindless, very anxious eating. And it was mostly bourne out of scenarios that I didn't plan ahead for or scenarios where I let a craving or a desire to munch get the very best of me and I just gave in and let go. And I didn't exercise to combat it either. Also, the two times I overate the most were at the two parties. Sometimes I get anxious about making small talk. And you can't small talk if your mouth is full, so I anxiously eat. Interesting to learn about oneself.

There were definitely some small victories in there somewhere, so I'll remind myself that it could have been a LOT worse. At no point did i just "give up." So there's that. (And there was a two-drink minimum at the stand-up club and I only had coffee and diet soda instead of alcohol.)

I got back to it yesterday, though, and put my nose to the grindstone. I decided I need to really work on avoiding a ton of sugar, especially early on in the day, because it just causes me to eat more and more sugar all day long. I did well yesterday for the most part. No exercise, but smart food choices. I also went to the grocery store so I can eat breakfast and lunch in again this week. Glad I did that. Feels much simpler to stay on track that way, plus cheaper which is important right now. I'll go to the gym tonight and hopefully be able to spend a good hour plus there.

I started my period this morning/late last night and I'm so glad I did. I was having the worst PMS yesterday - I was clumsy and moody and irritable and I felt like shit. I still feel pretty crappy and exhausted today, but now I know there's light at the end of the tunnel. I'm hoping things will only get better from here.

I definitely don't want to go to the gym tonight, I want to go home and sleep. But I'll go and it will feel good and that will be that.

It's the holidays. And I am going to promise myself that I will workout as often as I can, and eat as well as I can. But I can't promise miracles. I can't promise I will get to exercise every day or eat like a saint for the next week. It's just too difficult this time of year to do it all. I know, though, that being this mindful is really going to help me. It will be good to be home in the midwest because my family eats very mindfully and I always eat well when I'm there. Plus there's plenty of opportunity for exercise, since we're a family of health nuts and people will be going on jogs and getting to the gym, etc. Things will be a little crazy, though, too, because besides the actual holiday, my little cousin is getting married on December 29, then Kev and I have our one year anniversary on January 1, plus New Year's Eve. So there's plenty to challenge me. But my focus is to be MINDFUL. To exercise when I can and make really good choices when I can and be strong and remember that I will feel so much better if 2008 rolls around and I don't have to start all over.

I need a nap.

p.s. I have no idea what the scale says. I refused to step on it yesterday.