This week has been stressful and I figured as much. Week 2 has always been my biggest hump to get over. I think I'm doing pretty well so far.

Week 2 has been all about figuring out how to satiate my bad food cravings without making bad choices. It's funny I never had a huge sweet tooth or been a big snacker. I love to cook and I've almost always cooked at least 5 times a week, we much prefer to go out to a nice dinner than get greasy takeout. I mean don't get me wrong I love fries as much as the next guy, I'm just not a weekly greasy food kind of person EXCEPT when I tell myself that it's off limits for a while, that it's "a very rare, once in a while kind of food". By week 2, I'm in the throes of that discussion with myself, which my mind rewards with WANTING EVERY BAD FOR ME THING KNOWN TO MAN!

I mean this week alone I've craved apple pie a la mode, an eggplant parmesan sandwich with a side of fries, A Grafton black bean burger on a pretzel roll with cheese, grilled onions, guacamole and fries with a side of curry sauce. I could go on and on but to suffice it to say I've wanted every fast food item I've ever eaten this week, don't even get me started for my insane craving for deep dish pizza this week!

So this is what I've been focusing on: finding healthier ways to satisfy this little grease monster that lives in my head.

For lunches this week I went for Morningstar Farms Spicy Black Bean Burger on half of a ciabatta roll with mixed salad greens, .70 oz of Cheddar and 1 tbsp of homemade guacamole. I have never been able to eat a burger without at least a side of chips, so I was delighted that the Black pepper Lentil Chips I bought were not only tasty but less calories and more protein than your average chip (not to mention that I got 22 chips in a serving). I have to say I felt like I was really shushing the bad food addict in me.

I also discovered that I just needed a little bit of the sweet to quiet the Cookie monster inside me. I bought a 99cent single serve container of light vanilla ice cream and only ate half because apparently that's all I needed to send a signal to the brain that I was getting the good stuff, hehe!

Also a Skinny Cow 100 cal fudge pop saved me from a near run in with an apple pie.

I've also managed to log all my food (I did go over by 140 cal one day) but I managed to add in an extra day of cardio to my goal of just 1 per week and have been doing the rest of my exercises.

For the last three days I have started to get the amount of protein I need, which is huge for a non tofu eating vegetarian like myself .

All in all so far it's been a pretty successful week 2, one of my best!

Now let's just hope I can make it through the dinner party I was invited to tomorrow night. I hear there's going to be a taco bar, yikes!