Weekends are hard.

Saturday night I got together with a bunch of people from karate. We were celebrating all the April birthdays. This included dinner at a Chinese Restaurant - it was a set menu. The only healthy choices were hot and sour soup and Deluxe Vegetables. I was tired and hungry from a long day, so I just went with it. I tried to only eat until I was no longer hungry (instead of cramming food in until uncomfortably stuffed, which is how I USED to do Chinese). The last dish that came out was Peking Duck. I was full by then, so I passed. 3 small glasses of wine accompanied my dinner.

After dinner, we went to one of the instructor's homes for drinks and desserts. Seriously, there was about eleven different kinds of wine, champagne, mojitos, Midori Sours, and 3 kinds of cake. UGH! I managed to limit myself to one piece of chocolate cake, one glass of champagne, and 1 Midori Sour.

After we got home, I had fully intended (with the help of a wine-champagne-Midori-induced buzz) to fall face first into the massive pile of leftover Easter chocolate that is in my room. I was going to eat chocolate until I passed out. After 4 pieces from a Whitman's sampler (what used to be "warming up" for me and only cost me 5 points), I was over it and stopped eating chocolate. I completely stayed away from the Reese's Peanut Butter Cup Eggs (we have regular size and King-Size) and the giant See's Bordeaux Eggs, and the "Ginormous Chocolate Egg" that JP bought for me (because the word Ginormous on a product is funny), and the dark chocolate bunnies, and the bunnies with extra big ears, and the M&Ms and Dark Dove Eggs. Yay! So even though I ended up being well over my WW points for the day, it wasn't entirely hopeless. I said I wasn't going to journal. Of course, first thing in the morning on Sunday when I woke up, I went through and journalled everything. I know, I'm weird like that.

Sunday morning my tummy felt gross from the excess of the day before. That didn't stop me from eating 11 points worth of breakfast, though. It was all healthy stuff, but come on, 11 points?! Seriously...

Guilty feelings about food leads me to work out a lot, even when I don't feel like it. Is that good or bad? I don't know. It gets the job done, though. I had run three days in a row previous to Sunday, so I wasn't sure how I would feel or how many miles I would want (or have time) to do. I talked JP and my 7-year-old Justin into coming with me for my first lap of 3.89 miles. Oy, they run slow! We did a 3:1 jog to walk ratio. It took us 50 minutes to do the 3.89 miles. It took some major convincing to get Justin to finish all of the jogging intervals. Especially when we saw a dead raccoon in the gutter. It freaked him out. LOL. Thinking about it now is making me laugh. I did a second 3.89-mile lap after dropping them off at home. That one took me 37 minutes. My stomach felt so gross, though, and I was sweating a good deal, so I decided to call it quits. 7.78 miles is nothing to sneeze at! I'll run tomorrow, too, as long as my knees aren't too tired. I'm still heavily considering signing up for the SF marathon again this year. I feel very confident that I'll improve my time substantially from last year. I am a lot stronger and a lot faster now.

Lunch was rushed as I had errands to run and things. One thing I DID have after my run, though, was a "Dark-Berry" flavor Mix1 High-Antioxidant Fiber Drink. I LOVED the orange-carrot flavor I tried the other day. The berry flavor has almost identical nutritional stats, and tastes just as good! I DEFINITELY need to go back to Whole Foods and get some more of those. At 2 points they are a nutritional bargain, and with all that protein and fiber in them, they really provide long-lasting satiety.

Dinner tonight after church was at Shari's Restaurant. It used to be Bakers Square. I am bummed that they don't have anything on the menu that is the same as Bakers Square except for some of the pies. No more dino tots or Honey Mustard chicken or fried cheese or stir-fry with rice pilaf. :( I ordered a veggie burger that came with fruit, and a side salad. It was delish! The bun the veggie burger was served on was dusted with cornmeal and just really hit the spot. I looked online to see if Shari's has nutritional info for their menu items. They have the calorie count, saturated fat, and a couple of other things listed. Not helpful from a WW point of view. Plus, it stated 713 calories for my veggie burger and fruit. The burger didn't seem to contain cheese. It was grilled, not fried, there was no mayo on the bun as far as I could tell, and the fruit cup was small. I have a hard time believing it had that many calories. I counted 8 points (7 is how many for Burger King's veggie burger with no mayo, which is comparable, and 1 for the fruit cup).

After dinner, I wisely opted for a cup of coffee instead of dessert. This was a victory indeed. Shari's has all the same pie that Bakers Square had, plus a variety of milkshakes, a chocolate lava cake, a turtle sundae, a banana split, and a cheesecake sampler on their dessert menu. Ohhhhhh, all of those things looked SOOOOO good. But I didn't want to negate the work I did running today. I had a 2-point WW ice cream bar when I got home instead.

Tomorrow my girlfriends and I are starting a month-long challenge where we set our own goals and earn points if we stick to them. I am hoping that we will have a good competition and push each other to do well. I am coming up on 1 year of being hard-core on WW this time around. I don't want to lose momentum! I want to keep going all the way to goal, and I think this challenge will help me do just that!