And those two pounds ... they are pesky!

My weight loss has slowed down a tad. Earlier than I expected but I did expect it. I am still losing weight, so it's OK but it's harder to motivate yourself when you see a 0.2 loss instead of a 2 pounds loss.
I have stayed under my calorie goal every day for the past 20 days (when I started), I have worked out 5 days a week and I even made sure to get my two or three times a week weight training in.
I am definitely leaving the "honeymoon phase" now. I am not as motivated as I have been but I am nowhere near wanting to give up. I think what is important now is that I stick to my tracking and planning meals even more. I have to eliminate everything tempting from my surroundings and at the same time I need to make sure to allow myself treats as long as I can fit them into my calorie range. Like yesterday, we went to a kid's birthday party. His mom is an avid baker and she made three different kinds of cookies, cake and lemon squares. A week ago (when I was still in my super-motivated phase) I would have just said "No way I am going to touch any of this". But I knew this was not going to happen yesterday, so I gave myself a 300 calorie "budget" for the party. I shared a chocolate chip cookie with my daughter, I at the smallest lemon square I could find (which was really just a bite) and I shared a small piece of birthday cake with my husband and my daughter (we even left some on the plate).

Going out for a meal is really the worst for your diet. We went out for lunch yesterday - I had Eggs Benedict and a small potato pancake. I didn't even touch my country fried potatoes and I still consumed about 800 calories. I ate soup for dinner to make up for it but the worst was that I was starving two hours after lunch. Lesson learned - don't waste your calories on tiny portions of high caloric foods.

As I mentioned in about every one of my posts - our holiday is coming up and I am a bit anxious about it. At least we'll be cooking our meals in our cabin and not go out that much since we'll be in a cabin in the middle of a forest in the mountains. I hope I can motivate my husband to do lots of fun, sporty activities like hiking. But I think there will be lots of big family meals. I am going to stick to small portions and try and have a salad for lunch everyday so I'll have more leeway in the evenings.

I am two pounds away from my next goal and my plan was to reach this goal by tomorrow. Well, that's not going to happen. I am re-setting my goal for Thursday - when we leave for our trip. Hopefully I can get two really good work-out sessions in before we leave. By the end of July I want to have lost another ten pound from my next goal. Wish me strength! Hopefully I won't hit a plateau!