Making great efforts

So as you are very aware I struggle with snacking (mainly post dinner snacking, no matter what time dinner is). I do amazing through the day away from home with my pre-packed meals and snacks with no real cravings to ward off. I get home or say I get to my second evening job, blamo! Snacks available and too readily accessible. This has been the downfall, or should I say up-hill-climb in my weight lately. So I am working hard, and making great efforts to cut out the post dinner snacking.

Here is how I did for the rest of Tuesday.

I was mildly thrilled about the cheese string (perfect 1oz serving size)I packed to eat with my fruit, but OMG! Once I opened it, and had my first string, I was in love!

I love it when its all stringy like this!

Nessy Neptune - You were too good to me to be so stringy good! It's like finding cheese curds at the peak!

While driving between jobs, I snacked slowly on my afternoon snack, but thought that I should snap a picture to illustrate how dark and damp it was yesterday.

ARE YOU KIDDING ME! ? ! ? ! ? ! So Allison at my job was the evil culprit who brought the Jelly Beans the other week. I told her how the table snacks are so tempting and difficult to resist. When I get to work, what do I see on the table?
Look at all that Easter Chocolate!!!!!! Unbelievable. Sticky note on the chocolate telling staffers to 'help yourself'. Allison was in the office. I turned to her and asked her what we had talked about on the weekend. Allison laughed sympathetically saying Jelly Beans. She explained that both the Jelly Beans and Chocolate were her daughter (who is 2 years old) that she didn't need all those treats at home. I laughed as I told her I didn't need all those treats at work.

For the most part I was strong and able to resist, however I did have 3 (but only 3, not more) chocolate eggies.

Long before snacking on the chocolate, which I ate right with dinner, I had my afternoon snack.

1/2 an apple and 1/2 a banana.

I had also made a pit stop on the way to work, to grab some coffee to warm me up from the rain.

Tall, non-fat, sugar-free, 2 vanilla shots (instead of 3) chi tea latte a baggie of dried fruit and nuts.

It was perfect with one small exception, the nuts were salted. Though salted nuts are magically delicious, they are way too salty for me. I make huge efforts to avoid eating unnecessary sodium, so when there is suddenly a lot of sodium in my system, I feel it right away - water retention (I feel it like crazy almost right away in my fingers).

I did however have 2 handfuls like this to try and fight the chocolate monster.

Dinner, I was looking forwards to. Maybe because I was so looking forwards to my filling dinner, this helped me stay away from the chocolate.

Don't let the name of the soup turn you off, for those omnivore out there. If you like your veggies you will like this soup.

Homemade Vegan Lentil Soup

The changes I made to this recipe to make it my own were:

• Use sweet potatoes instead of yellow potatoes
• Only used 2 cups of broth and 6 cups of water instead of all broth.
• Blended the final product (in small amounts, pulsed for 2 seconds) to thicken it up & get the consistency I was looking for.

TUESDAY'S Goals:

1. Stay below calories - YES
2. No snacking after dinner - YES
3. Weight train after spin class - YES
4. Slow down and stop rushing - YES, though could slow down more.

Total water 11, 8oz glasses of water (that's 88 oz!)

Total calories burned, 550 (40 min spin & 30 min weight train)

Total calories eaten, 1,454. (Daily allowance w/o exercise, 1,390 - today with exercise allowed 1,930) .

WEDNESDAY'S Goals:

1. Swim for 30 mins after muscle moves
2. Stay at or below calories for the day.
3. Be present, enjoy the moment & slow down.
4. Go to be between 10 & 10:30pm.