Falling off the Wagon (50 Day Challenge, Week Three)

Ok, fried food has never been my weakness so I figured this would be an easy week. Wrong.

I'm three weeks in (out of seven) and already getting tired and discouraged. I'm tired of creating ways to get two fruits/veggies into EACH meal. I'm tired of searching out whole grains. And I'm tired of avoiding refined sweeteners. I just want to let loose and eat!

And so I did...

This week's challenge was:

1. no deep-fried food
2. no "low fat" or "lite" products (= whole milk)

Aha moment(s): 

• I couldn't bring myself to buy whole milk. I wanted to give it a try, but it felt so strange! And there were only large cartons available, which would have been so wasteful. Instead, I went with one percent. I do taste a difference and my smoothies are more filling. It's nice. I intended to make my own almond milk this week in lieu of buying whole milk, but it took me nearly a month just to find cheesecloth. A project for another time...
• Frying food at home is too messy for me, so it's not hard to stay away from it. I just had to watch out for fried chips and crackers.
• I decided to note all of my sugar consumption for one day this week, wondering if I am near the recommended 25g or less. Sweetener seems to be in everything; it felt like so many foods were off-limits (spaghetti sauce, for example, or my homemade dijon vinaigrette). But I did pretty good! I had an estimated total of 6g before the chocolate chips binge, and 31g after!

Biggest hurdle this week: 

My food planning fell apart when I had to be a single parent for a couple of days. It made me realize how much I am affected by changes in the routine. (Also how much I rely on W!) 

Weight change: 

So I gained 1.6 lbs since last week! This is so frustrating because I am actually keeping to all the week's challenges. It's just that I am keeping to them AND eating other stuff= too much food.

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How I did it, in photos... 

Roasted chickpeas helped me through any fried-food cravings

Oops, fried potatoes with my breakfast. I was a few potatoes in when I thought, "These are so yummy, how can they still be on my eating plan?!" Then sadly realized they aren't. 

And this is how you gain weight: these were my cheats. 

1) W made whipped cream using Sucanat (sugar cane that retains molasses, and does not have chemicals or bone char). We ate it over fruit and a whole wheat pancake. I licked the bowl, the beater, and the table. 2) I dragged this Ben and Jerry's evidence out of the trash just for this blog. It was my single-parent-late-night-comfort-food binge. I ate 1/4 of the carton plus a huge pile of homemade pumpkin sauce on top. 3) Gelato eaten in fresh air, bellissimo! 4) A friend baked walnut raisin bread. I stayed away for a few days, then dove in. And white flour goes really well with dark chocolate. 

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Next week's challenge (challenges are cumulative, btw): 

1. try two new foods
2. avoid food with more than five ingredients

I have the added challenge of out-of-town travel this week! 

Where I'm at:

• no fried-foods
• no low-fat/diet foods
• two fruits or veggies with each meal
• no refined sweetener
• 100% whole grain
• no more than one glass wine/day

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I'm now including my measurements for added encouragement:

Today (end of week 3):

155.2 lb

Waist: 31 in

Hips: 42 in

Navel: 37.75 in

Start of week 1:

154 lb