I've been feeling so proud of myself, working out and tracking calories meticulously then WAM! out of nowhere, this overwhelming need to eat a bunch of snacks last night. I wasn't having a more stressful day than any other, the scale moved, I worked out and I ate my dinner. I hopped on SP and read some articles etc. I made my lunch for today (recipe at the end), closed the kitchen so to speak and settled in to watch one of my shows from the DVR.

At about 8p.m. I started feeling for a snack. I knew I wasn't hungry, I had only eaten dinner an hour or so before (1 cup brown rice and 1 baked chicken thigh) so I tried to ignore it and sip some water. I am now drinking 12-14 cups per day by the way. My knee ached a little from slipping when I cleaned the snow Monday night so I tried to focus on massaging the area.

I found myself thinking about how far I still had to go and wondering and doubting if I would make it. Suddenly, I was wandering in the kitchen. I had an ounce of cheese and started opening all the cabinets. I stopped myself and returned to the family room and started reasoning with myself. The conversation sounded like this.

Today, after 3 weeks of watching your eating and working out, you lost 10lbs. You can do this, it hasn't been hard. You actually like the energy you have the rest of the day when you work out in the morning. You're going on vacation in March, surely, you want to keep this up to reap the reward of looking better at the beach! You need to do this or you're staring weight loss surgery in the face and you don't want to go there. You have to have resolve. Just make it through tonight and tomorrow and will be better. And so on and so on.

That helped a lot, I didn't snack and I decided to go to bed early. I woke up this morning with some of the same feelings but I didn't succumb. I worked out, drank my protein shake (Muscle Milk) and headed out the door. I could have used yesterday as the 1 day per week that I slack off a bit but somehow I felt that if I did, it wouldn't just be one day. I don't know how I'm getting through the next few days, please tell how you manage these period.

What do I think brought this on?

Last night, I spent some time online reading about whether I should be eating my workout calories back and trying to calculate my BMR and daily calorie needs to see if it matched SP and Myfitnesspal's recommendations.

I feel like the 2lbs I gained (water weight) in the first day of cycle last week Monday never really left even though it's been a week so I had to re-lose those.

I started thinking of the rest of my week, it's a minefield:

Today, I have an evening board meeting, they serve dinner and it's always heavy. I'm praying it's not the seafood lasagna the Chairman likes, I have to try to skip if it is and if it isn't, I plan fill my plate with salad and take a few ounces of protein.

Tomorrow night, I'm taking a client to dinner, they picked a nice italian restaurant, I've been there a few times, there isn't much on the menu that fits what I'm trying to eat. This client likes to have a 4 or 5 course meal. I figure I could have tomato with fresh mozzarella for an appetizer, house salad with dressing on the side and skip the croutons and the cheese, get the chicken on the bone with peas and carrots for an entrée and only eat 1/2 (it's a huge portion, almost 1/2 a chicken, browned on the stove then finished in the oven), beg off from a calories bomb dessert and take a coffee with biscotti and skip any wine.

Friday, I'm taking one of my mentee to lunch. This one is still a grad student so the general routine is that I take her to a nice restaurant when we meet once per quarter. That's much easier foodwise, she eats like a bird and I can order a salad without feeling like I'm forcing her to do the same. I find they try to mimic whatever the mentor is eating or at least stick to the price range but this is my third year mentoring her so I think she's comfortable enough ordering what she really wants.

I think I panicked.

I need a lot of encouragement today, sigh.