Lemonade/Watermelon Diet 3.29.17

Okay, yesterday wasn't a good day for the diet.  I had a meeting from 11am - 1pm and afterwards we had lunch.  I'm not lying I was hungry because I didn't have a chance to eat anything prior to the meeting, so I caved.  I ate salad and chicken (not too bad???).

The good news is my weight was unchanged.  This morning I still weighed in at 159.6.  The bad news, that one indulgence will prevent me from reaching my goal of 156 by Friday.  :-(  

Funny though, usually when I'm only eating watermelon or drinking lemonade, I don't wake up hungry the next day.  This morning I'm starving, can't wait to dive into my melon.

Here's hoping for a better today.

Lemonade/Watermelon Diet 3.28.17

This week makes 2 months for me doing the lemonade diet and maybe 3 weeks combining it with watermelon.  Right now I'm not sure when I'm going to end my journey, my focus is learning to eat right and making better decisions when putting food into my mouth.  I know I'm planning vacation in May so maybe that's when I will end it, but for now it one day at a time.  For me this way of eating is becoming habitual - eat on the weekend, diet during the week.  What I do enjoy is not having any headaches about what to cook for breakfast, lunch or dinner - hassle free.

Yesterday, my mind kept jumping back and forth on food, nothing too serious, it's just that I wanted to pop something in my mouth to chew on.  It was extremely busy in the office, what with us being short on staff, etc. so I didn't get very much in.  I managed 10oz lemonade and 30oz water.  I probably got 3-4 cups of watermelon in.  Not the best, but I'm just happy my water intake has increased.

I weighed in at 159.6 this morning, so maybe I will make it to 156 by Friday.  Once the weather warms up a bit more I have several dresses I want to begin wearing, I like how my body is changing and my clothes are fitting.  It make me happy that I've stuck with this for so long.

Several of the girls at the office are beginning their egg fast, promised to lose 24 lbs in 2 wks.  It sounds great and I was tempted to give it a shot, but watermelons are so much cheaper, plus I don't have to cook the watermelon.  Just cut it, chop it and stick it in the fridge.  So, much easier  :-)  But I won't knock the egg diet, it's something I may look at later during the year.

Lemonade/watermelon diet 3.27.17

I have a great weekend, although a bit tiring.  Still doing a lot of work on the house which have my buns aching this morning, but I won't complain because I got lots done.

I find I can only eat 1 meal a day, where it was difficult for me to accept that initially, I decided to embrace it and move on.  I've been living in the Bahamas for years now, and there's a food they call Boil.  Well I never knew what Boil was, but I was told if you want to eat healthy by Boil.  Well Saturday when I went to the store I saw they had this Boil.  Actually all it is is boiled veggies and meat.  However, this particular day it consisted of boiled ham, cassava, sweet potatoes, cabbage and yams.  Initially I thought, ok look bland, but the seasoning they used made it fantastic.  It was a bit too much starchy veggies for me so I just had the ham, sweet potatoes, cabbage & green beans.  Now being on this diet for so long has has cause my stomach to shrink, so I was only able to eat a few spoons for lunch & dinner.  I threw the remaining in the freezer, with plans of finishing it up on Friday.  I can't get over how well seasoned it was, I loved it!

I stayed on track on Sunday also, fixing pasta for dinner and having a glass of wine (something I don't usually drink) kept me bloated for the day.  I later had 1/2 cup ice cream for desert.  I woke up this morning still feeling full and so happy to not have to worry about food for the next few days.

My weigh in this morning was 161.4 that's up 3.8lbs from Friday.  I just hope the scale is nice to me on Friday where I will see 156 - keeping fingers & toes crossed.

Today I'll be tweaking my diet with lemonade, but rather than using maple syrup to sweeten my lemonade I'll use stevia instead.  That's because watermelon has natural sugar and I don't want too much sugar in my diet.  I'm also going to try consuming much more water, something I've been slack in doing - I'll push for 60oz but 30oz will be cool to.

Here's hoping  for an eventful week!

Watermelon Diet 3.24.17

Today is day 5 my off day.  I weighed in this morning at 157.6 that's much lower than what I was expecting.  I'm excited because I'm now 2 lbs away from my goal weight of 155.

So far, I've been enjoying the diet with watermelon, however, my preference is to mix it up with the lemonade.  I found the lemonade takes away my cravings for food and the watermelon keeps me full.  I did sip on some lemonade mixture yesterday and can happily say I did not experience any digestive problems.  

The  best part about this diet is the savings...no expensive foods or ingredients, just simple watermelon or lemonade.  No all night preparations, and no worries over what to have for breakfast, lunch or dinner.  Really simple, the way I like it.

Next week I will take pictures and measurements,  I'm hoping I can be at 155 before Easter.  I'll try to be cautious about what I put in my mouth over the weekend and make sure to monitor my intake of food.

Today I'll have chicken noodle soup for breakfast/lunch and perhaps bbq wings to go with soup for lunch.  I'm not sure about dinner, I have a porkchop in the freezer from last week.  Usually I can't eat too much, so we'll see.

My feast days will be about learning to eat in proportion.  :-)

Watermelon Diet 3.23.17

It's been an extremely busy week.  I've been meaning to post but something always came up or I was just too tired to turn on my computer.

My last post was Monday, where I weighed in at 161.4.
Tuesday - 160.4
Wednesday - 163.4
Thursday - 159

I'm sure you're looking at Wednesday and saying Whoa!  Unfortunately I got side tracked.  We held an award ceremony on Tuesday at the office which included lunch.   And of course, you know who, was responsible for putting it together.

I busy and hungry all day, with nothing to drink but a cup of green tea.  I had brought my watermelon to eat on, but running up & down prevented me from doing that.  Sooooo, by the time the event was over I found myself in line with fish & coleslaw on my plate along with a bun.  Not too bad, but later the awardees cut their cake, and who was standing by to get a slice???? You got it, me.

 Actually, I'm not too disappointed in myself.  I think I did well controlling my intake of food, it's just that I really didn't want the cake, and I should have remembered my watermelon, but I succumbed to cake.  :-(  I'm so angry, because my New Year's resolution was to refrain from eating cake, cookies, etc. until April...I came soooo close.

But what I'm thankful for is that I now realize I definitely need to work on resisting eating foods or junk that I'm really not into eating.  Once I come off of this lemonade / watermelon diet I want to make sure I know how to control my intake of food.  It's going to take a while for me to do that, and I think a lot of it can be controlled mentally.  Learning to say NO.

Take last night, one of my friends came by and she knows I love chips, so what did she bring for me to munch on while we talked...chips.  I so, wanted to put my hand in that bag and stuff my mouth, but after some thought  I just said no.  At one point I wanted to take out a chip and just lick the bbq seasoning off of it, but I stood strong, well maybe a little stooped, but I didn't give it.  I was actually proud of myself for being able to stare down those spicy chips.  :-)

I plan to be on this way of eating for a few weeks longer, and I'm hoping, no praying, that I develop a strong mental attitude where I can just say NO when I'm not hungry or when I don't want anything to eat.  So whereas before it was a battle between my stomach and food, now it's a battle between food and my mental capacity to say NO. 

3/20/17 - Watermelon diet

I weighed in this morning at 161.4  which means I had a 1.8lb increase over the weekend.  I still need to play the mental game by convincing myself that it's okay that I don't eat as much as I use to. For  dinner/lunch yesterday I had 1 steam pork chop & potato salad.  I didn't get frustrated and I was content that I was full, but then I turned around and bought 1pt butter pecan ice cream and ate all... :-( I'm not disappointed that I ate the ice cream, I'm disappointed that I felt it was okay to eat the whole pint in one sitting.  :-(   These are the issues I have to work out before coming off my diet.

This week I will stick with just watermelon & cantaloupe (I have a little left from last week).  I had some lemonade over the weekend and the belching started back, so I'm going to let it rest for the week and give it a shot next week.

 
  

Day 5 Lemonade & watermelon combined 3.17.17

Today is day 5 of my diet and stepping on the scale I'm still at 159.6...that doesn't surprise me because I'be been pretty stationary at me desk all day yesterday and when I got home I sort of sat around and then went to bed.  This new timing along with everything else is really getting to me, plus it's been cold for the past few days which means all I really wanted to do for the week was snuggle under my blanket.

I've been wondering if I should continued with combining my diet with lemonade or go back to straight lemonade for the week, but I remember on Day 3 (I think that's when it was) after drinking my lemonade mixture I once again started experiencing indigestion, it wasn't bad, because I haven't been drinking that much, but it was definitely there.  Quite annoying.  So I think I'll pick up another watermelon over the weekend.

Now we are having an event at the office on Tuesday, lots of food involved, so I have to figure out how I'm going to work that into my routine, or do I skip that day and feast???  More than likely I'll probably munch on something but I'm hoping to stay on track.  I'm beginning to enjoy knowing I don't have to worry about lots of food during the week, and I feel I'm beginning to lose my fascination of food....well not too much, but I don't sit at my desk or at home constantly thinking about what I want to eat and that's a good sign for an "over eater anonymous" person like me.  :-)

I was suppose to stop at the store to pick up some soup for breakfast & lunch, but I just chopped up another cantaloupe and grabbed that frozen chicken breast I had in the freezer.  I know that's not much of a meal but things are really crazy right now and I really don't want to worry about food.  I think so long as I have something to eat I'll be okay.

I'll try to take my measurements over the weekend and maybe even take a few pictures, but that depends, if the plumber comes I'll probably be too busy moving around the house to do very much of anything.

Gotta run! 

Day 4, lemonade & watermelon combined - 3.16.17

Today I'm combining cantaloupe & lemonade for my diet.  I love cantaloupe but I recognized some years ago that it's a trigger food for me and cause me to crave other foods.  Well so far I'm safe, I haven't had any serious cravings yet.

This week the diet wasn't too problematic, actually I'm contemplating if I should have cantaloupe again tomorrow of have soup.  I'm really not that hungry right now.  It's after 3pm and I only consumed maybe 4oz of lemonade and 2 cups of chopped cantaloupe (the chunks are big so it can be more or less).

Maybe it's because I'm still in my depressed mood right now and frankly don't give a dang right now...

Good news I weighed in at 159.6, yea! finally made it to the 150's, I love the way my clothes are fitting and it's nice to know I finally get to wear some of my winter suits (that were too small) before Spring.

I haven't done very much in active minutes this week, perhaps 10 or 20 at the most, actually I haven't checked so it may be less than that, well I'm almost sure it's less than that...  I guess sometime this week I'll link into the system to get the actual readings.

I really need some sun on my face I'm tired of feeling dismal....

Day 3 again, 3.15.17 combining watermelon & lemonade

I should be ecstatic today but I'm not.  I'm now at 160.2, however I don't think I'm eating enough melon nor am I drinking enough water.

Yesterday I got in 10 oz lemonade and today it was the same, however, my water intake is way below it should be something like 10 - 15oz.

I'm under a lot of pressure right now, trying to get my house up to par for the market and now my son is having some personal issues that seem to be taking forever to resolve.  For the past few days I've been feeling like throwing the towel in and quitting.

Having children is suppose to be a joy especially as they get older, I wish I could say the same... every year it seems to be an uphill battle. :-(  Somedays I secretly wish I could move away where no one can call or contact me, someplace far, far away.

I'm out of watermelon but I do have cantaloup.  Not sure if it will be as effective as watermelon, but it doesn't matter right now, I'm determined to use what I have.

Hoping for some sunshine in my life tomorrow.

Day 2 again - combining watermelon & lemonade

I was reading on various sites where persons had actually did a watermelon diet or cleanse.  The amount of watermelon that had to intake was unbelievable.  I can barely eat 2 cups of watermelon, and I consider myself to be a watermelon lover.

Anyways the watermelon along with the lemonade had me running back & forth to the throne all day yesterday, I think if you're suffering from high blood pressure, just eat watermelon.

This morning  I weighed in at 161.6.  That's .2 lower than Friday which was 161.8.  Combining the two is interesting.  When I'm tired of lemonade, I munch on melon, vice versa, while the melon keeps me full for a while, the lemonade actually takes away my appetite.  So if you want to be full eat melons...don't want an appetite, drink lemonade.  I thought that was interesting.

I'm thankful for this new time but I've been feeling so exhausted lately.  Between studying, working on my landscape and trying to fix up the inside of my house so that I can put it on the market is tiresome; plus coming to work.  At least with it being light outside when I get home I was able to work in my yard.  This afternoon I'm going to do some touch up work in the house.  One of the rooms need to be painted and I need to work on my vanity where I saw a small crack.  Not sure how I'm going to fix that yet.  If I'm still alive I'll spend time on my studies tomorrow.

I think one thing that has been helping me with my weight loss is Steps.  I've been trying to get at least 30 active minutes in every day.  I don't think I got that much time in yesterday, but over the weekend I did quite well.

Oh, I also noticed I didn't have problems with indigestion yesterday, so maybe combining the watermelon with lemonade is a good thing.  I'll keep monitoring it.  I drunk about 20oz lemonade yesterday and ate about 3-4 cups of watermelon, they were cut in huge chunks so I'm really not sure.  Anyways yesterday was a pretty good day and I'm hoping for the same today.

Going back to Day 1, combining lemonade & watermelon 3.13.17

My weekend started good but I messed up big time.   But since starting the lemonade diet I realize I can't consume half as much as I use to.  On Saturday my food intake consisted of fried snapper.  Loved it but that was the only food I could eat, afterwards I as stuffed.  I had no breakfast, fried snapper for lunch and nothing for dinner.  No salad, or coleslaw to go with my fish, I couldn't, I was too stuffed.  And then it dawned on me, eat some chocolate....so I did.  The chocolate didn't fill me but it made me happy...:-)

I had already eaten chocolate that Friday and then turned around and had it on Saturday & Sunday.  Definitely a disaster.   I'm now telling myself if I can't eat food eat chocolate.  I don't need that type of mind set especially when I start back eating 2-3 meals a day, so I now have to condition myself to think differently.  I don't want to get into the rut of eating junk food again...

That was the down side, the good side is I weighed in at 164.4, that's about a 2.4 weight gain.

Because the lemonade messed up my stomach with indigestion last week, I decided to see if I can tweak my diet this week.  I made 20oz of lemonade using less lemons and maple syrup and I'm going to to try eating watermelon along with the lemonade.  I understand watermelon is suppose to be a good diuretic plus it's low in calories while be high in water content, something I seriously need.

I'm not sure how this is going to work, and it might mess up my weight loss, but I need to try something different.  I'm loving the way my clothes are beginning to sag on me, it's a wonderful feeling and my knees don't hurt as much.  I definitely want to stick with this for a while longer if I can.

I ate around 3 - 4 cups of watermelon along with the 20oz lemonade, I'll keep my fingers crossed hoping I have a weight loss and not a gain tomorrow.  

Finally Day 5...3.10.17

I'll be lying if I said I wasn't excited about today.  Last night I went to bed hungry and all I dreamt about was chocolates.  I'm not sure why chocolate and not food but it was an all night-er.  I woke up this mornig extremely happy just knowing I could eat food, by food I mean my soup.  How can somebody be so excited about soup???  When you've been deprived of food for a few days any and everything can make you excited.

Because my New Year's resolution is no black tea or coffee until after March I decided to go with a nice hot cup of coco, with 1 tsp of coconut oil and of course cream & sugar.  Let me back up just a sec though.  I've been putting coconut oil in my coffee or tea for year now, I had read up on it and found that it was beneficial for reducing or preventing Alzheimer and a good way to boost the immune system preventing colds.  I've been taking coconut oil since 2014 and only had a cold once.  That was when I came off of coconut oil for six months because of my diet.  I came down with a horrible cold that lasted for 10 full days.  I now try to always make sure I slip my coconut oil in something, soup, tea, oatmeal, doesn't matter, so long as it's a tsp.

Now that I'm doing this lemonade diet I always try to remember to get in from Friday - Sunday.  Once or twice I slipped it in during the diet because I was weary of persons coming into the office with a cold...but so far I've been okay.  I have some information posted on my other blog here if you need to read more.

Oops, so sorry for straying, but anyways I was excited to step on the scale this morning to see 161.8!
Yep, my goal was 162 but I surpassed it by a few points.  Who cares if its just by a few points, I can't believe I did it.  My body has been extremely nice to me this week.  What did I do to deserve it???

So this morning, I sipped my coconut oil, popped my iron pills and chewed on my gummy multi vitamins, I'm all set to go.

Took out a small portion of fried chicken breast, I had in the freezer, chopped it up and threw it in my soup that I'll be having today, along with some other seasoning - salt, black pepper, coconut oil, crushed red pepper & turmeric.  I then chopped up some cantaloupe and placed that in my lunch bag along with a tangerine.  What I realized with the tangerines is that if I eat (swallow) the seeds it helps with a good BM in the morning.

Remember, I said I dreamt about chocolates?  I have a small box of chocolates, that someone had give me for Valentines Day in my office desk, there's about 5 pieces in the box.  When I got to work this morning I put the box in the freezer, if I'm tempted, I like my chocolates cold and solid.

Although I lost weight, I don't like that I had problems consuming my lemonade and that my water intake was low.  I'm really going to look at how I can tweak it so that I can get the proper amount of calories in to make this work for the next few weeks.

Here's hoping I don't go over 5 lbs this weekend.

Day 4 of 4 3.8.17

Jumping on the scale this morning made me smile, I weighed in at 162.6, yesterday I was 163.4! Yep, I reached my goal, maybe not a flat 162, but it's better than 163 :-)

My intake of lemonade was disastrous, only 10 - 12oz and even worse with water.  I had meetings to attend, the phones were running crazy and there were non stop walk-ins.  Definitely not a happy day.

Indigestion started bothering me again also, which is why I couldn't get much lemonade down, I've already decided next week I will have to do some tweaking to make this work for me.  Why torture myself?  I really enjoy this way of eating because it requires me to choose my choice of food carefully because I get full so fast I can only consume small amounts of food. Also, I have enough lemon juice in my freezer to last for another 4-5 weeks, so I want to see this through.

Tomorrow is my feast day so I picked up 2 cans of Healthy Choice Chicken Hearty Soup and a cantaloupe.  But because I was so hungry when I got home I fed my face a slice of cantaloupe.  I'm not lying I'm extremely hungry right now but I refuse to sip the lemonade, I'm tired of green tea and I don't want to give in to another slice of cantaloupe.  In a few more hours I'll be knocked out in bed dreaming of my hot hearty soup...

Day 2 of 4 back at it again 3.7.17

The first thing my mind wandered on when I got up this morning was baked potatoes, all I could think about was how long it's been since I had a nice, large, hot baked potato.  I'm not craving the potato it's just that I can't get my mind off of it.  It's like my body is sending messages saying you gotta get that potato on your feast day.  So, I'm already planning my Sunday meal, baked potato with toppings - not sure what kind of toppings but I know there will be lots of broccoli.

This morning I weighed in at 164.4 about 2.4 lbs less than yesterday.  However, I'm not jumping up & down celebrating right now.  My goal is to be at least 162 by Friday, but my body has shown me that it hates giving up lbs and it's not going to be an easy task.

Yesterday I had a good day downing 50+ oz of water, but today I barely got in 30oz.  I gotta work harder on the water, I'm thinking that's one of the causes of my indigestion problem last week, not taking in enough water.  Unfortunately I can't get in any more that 20oz of lemonade today, we're having chilly weather and cold lemonade in chilly weather doesn't do much for me.  Maybe tomorrow, but I do know if I don't get in those 500 calories my body might go into starvation mode and hold on to every oz of fat on me.  :-()

All in all I have lots of energy today, I'm not hungry and I don't have any cravings where I would want to break my fast.

DAY 1 of 4 - Back at it again - 3.6.17

I had a great weekend!  The weather was nice and I was able to get some plants down in my yard, painted my front door, and almost completed painting trays with pictures of the grands.  I was also able to keep my eating healthy, but I did indulge in some chocolates Saturday & Sunday.

It's amazing how much your stomach shrinks after doing this fast, what you think you can eat and what you can actually eat is mind baffling.

I have a friend who had stomach surgery I remember we were talking and she said the most frustrating experience for her, after the surgery, is that she couldn't eat as much any more.  I thought that was crazy, I mean, how can you be frustrated for not eating much????   That was several years ago, but over the weekend I understood.  I did my fish and salad for lunch and had 2 very thin slices of cranberry oat homemade bread that I had in the freezer.  I was stuffed and could barely finish my food.  Around 7pm I thought perhaps I could have a small slice of fish and another small salad.  After all I didn't have breakfast and I only had that one meal for the day.

I only manged 2 bites of fish, and couldn't get another bite down.  I couldn't believe I had to throw everything away.  I was so upset with myself.

Sunday, I did bbq chicken & salad for dinner.  There was no breakfast or lunch.  Why force myself?  Now I understand the frustration my friend had gone through.  When you're use to eating all your life, it's hard not eating as much.

This morning I weighed in at 166 lbs that's 3 lbs more than Friday.  I'm thinking one of the reasons I was having problems with indigestion is because I didn't drink very much water last week, some days I was only getting in 20+ oz.  So, my goal is to get down 40+ oz of water or more.  It's gonna be a little difficult because it's pretty cool over here, but I will give it my best shot plus I'm going to use slightly less lemon juice.

Oh, well, here's to day 1 hoping my digestive system treats me well.

FOUR DAYS COMPLETED 3.3.17

Okay, it's the lemonade that's been given me indigestion.  Because I've been having problems with indigestion for the past few days I decided to skip the mint tea and drank green tea instead, I didn't experience any problems, actually that's all I had until around 2:30pm, I then decided to sip on my lemonade slowly.  After about an hour the problem recurred.  Constant belching and feeling bloated.

Because of this I only drank maybe about 10 oz of lemonade yesterday most of it diluted with more water.  I'm not sure why the problem is persisting, I've never had it before.  Thankfully, yesterday was my last day, so I don't have to worry about the problem for the next few days, I hope.

I had a cup of chicken vegetable soup for breakfast and I stopped at the store to pick up some tangerines.  If the tangerines gives me problems I'm ditching them, indigestion is nothing to play with.

This morning I weighed 163.2 I'm hoping not to go over 4lbs by Monday when I start my fast all over again.

It's funny all of those delicious aromas I was smelling in our kitchen during the week, and all the thoughts of eating ham, biscuits, etc.  are gone, all I really want is my soup for today and perhaps a nice big salad for Saturday and Sunday.

Day 4 of 4 - Mar 2, 2017

The fragrance of food trailing throughout the office this morning is enticing.  It smells like chicken, maybe roasted or baked with garlic roasted potatoes sprinkled with salt, black pepper and Parmesan Cheese.

Maybe I'm smelling what I would like to have, because it's 8:30am and I'm sure no one is having that for breakfast, but rather than fight it, I'm learning to embrace it, and always tell myself I can have that to eat on my off days.  :-)

Yesterday evening I had an awful battle with indigestion, once again I found myself taking 2 tums to relieve me but it took almost an hour to get some relief.   This morning I'm feeling it again.  I had a cup of green tea that helped somewhat, but I can only hope it doesn't develop in full bloom later today.  I wish I knew what was causing the problem.  If I was eating food then I would monitor my food intake, but for now my only intake has been fluids - mint tea, green tea, lemonade and water.  I have a feeling it might be the mint tea so I'm going to lay low on that for today and see what happens.

Confession: I haven't been drinking the recommended amount of lemonade this week.  I've only been able to down 32oz, and that's by forcing myself to drink it.  It's not that it doesn't taste good, it really does, but I'm not feeling it...I'm also bad at getting my water intake in.  I'm managing somewhere between 30oz - 40oz a day, I really want to get it up to 60oz, gotta keep working at it.

I had lots of energy yesterday evening when I got home so I got some painting in and then I threw in some steps.  I was so proud of myself I got 50+ active minutes, Yippee!   Got up this morning and managed 21 active minutes...boy I'm on a row with this energy! 

Our insurance company is sponsoring Yoga on the Park today and I'm pondering if I should go.  I hate driving in the evening, but I use to do yoga years ago and found it relaxing, really taught me to meditate, which is what I needed at the time.

The scale was nice to me this morning, I'm now at 163.4 but with the way my weight has been fluctuating I'm not expecting much of a change tomorrow.  However, I'm comfortable with my new low for the week.

I was watching an inspiring video last night "The Weigh we Were".  The show is produced in GA and it's about people who talk about their fight with obesity and how found ways to get their weight off and have managed to keep it off.  Losing weight is about finding what's right for you, what fits your life style and stick with it.

Tomorrow is my feast day and I'm longing to sip on a cup of soup. :-)   

Day 3 of 4 - Mar 1, 2017

I still seem to be having problems with indigestion, not as bad but it's persistent, plus this morning I feel bloated (ugh).

What I find amazing is the energy level, I went home and did some painting and afterwards some course work before flopping out on the bed.  Woke up this morning full of energy, ready to go. :-)

This morning I weighed in at 166.

Doing the lemonade diet this way is a slow process, and I'm only looking to lose perhaps .5lbs to 1.5lbs per week, but the great thing about doing it this way is that I become more aware of what I eat when I eat and I don't over eat.

When I did this a few years back my only cravings were for chicken and salad, every Saturday and sometimes Sunday's during my eating days I had chicken and salad that went on for months.  And I'm now having those same cravings.  I want a chef salad or chicken with salad.  Sure when I'm smelling food or walking pass a bakery I might desire something more but in the evenings I find myself longing for a nice big salad filled with all the trimmings.  So this weekend I'm dying to have a filling salad, with lots of kale & spinach....

I'm a junk-aholic when it comes to junk food, especially chips, so I was a bit shocked when I saw a commercial with Lays and the first thing that came to my mind was 'oily chips'.

I think another reason this worked so well with me when I did it before is because I told myself I could eat anything I wanted on the weekend so long as I got back with the diet on Monday, it really makes you feel better knowing you can eat to your heart content Monday - Friday (or Thursday).  You find you don't won't half the stuff you were craving during the week, but you can eat it if you want on the weekend.  It's a mind game that keeps you from feeling deprived.  :-)

I never get tired of reading Chioma Okoli blog, definitely keeps me motivated.

==============

It's now lunch and I'm smelling homemade biscuits, with ham, drizzled with honey and a pat of butter.....is it my imagination?  I'm talking those melt in your mouth buttermilk biscuits my aunt use to make when I was younger.  I remember the first time I tasted her biscuits.  I begged my aunt to make 12 biscuits just for me.  Oh, they were the best.  Maybe I'll have biscuits and ham on Saturday.  :-)