I had stopped doing this, but I have to brag a little about yesterday's shopping score. I stopped at the grocery store on the way home from a happy hour (!), which could have been a disaster since I'm discovering that alcohol and I are not friends-- I had about half a beer and it made me feel strange for 6 or 7 hours. But not only was there only one small impulse buy, I also got some serious bargains. I came home with:

--1 gallon skim milk
-- bag of 4 frozen Lightlife brand portobello veggie burger (new to me, but there was a coupon)
--2 pounds butter
--1 tub spreadable light butter
--can of light hot cocoa mix, 26 servings (I use it as a calcium supplement--it has 35% DRV for 20 cals)
--2 one-pound boxes shredded wheat cereal
--1 box generic Cheerios
--1 qt cottage cheese
--1 can crushed tomatoes
--1 pkg sugar-free gum (my impulse buy)
--3 one-pot size coffee samples
--3 large mangos
--2 boxes Nutrisse foam haircolor

And the grand total? Wait for it....

$22.14 !!!

The haircolor was on a clearance shelf for $1.99 and I had 2 coupons for $2 each, so that was totally free. Usually that brand is around $8.99 a box. It's one shade lighter than I usually use, but I find that on my hair, anything lighter than medium brown turns out pretty much the same color. Then the cereal (store brand) was on sale for $1.98 and there was a coupon for $3 off of 3 boxes. The butter was on clearance for $1 a pound because it's getting close to its sell-by, but I'll freeze it and it'll be fine. The light butter is Smart Balance brand, and there was a $1 coupon in last Sunday's paper; I have 2 copies, and the catalina or carolina or whatever they call it at the checkout spit out another coupon that's good until August. If I like this brand, it'll be cheap for me until fall. So... all in all, a pretty good haul.

The other thing is that I'm on day 6 of the no-sugar streak, and it's doing me good! By day 3 the cravings were gone, and for the last 2 days I've been much less hungry overall. I'm not fanatical about it; I eat sugar-sweetened yogurt that I already bought, and I use regular jam (although part of the time I've been using some freezer jam that my mom made which has a lot more fruit than average and might have been made with Splenda.) I have some diet soda, too, which helps, but I haven't been drinking as much of it the past few days, either. Anyway, my calorie totals are looking good, and I think I've lost a little weight already, so I'm back to where I was before I overate on Easter. Still 4 or 5 pounds to go before I'm officially not overweight, and another 10 that I would really like to lose after that, but at least it's moving in the right direction!