Reporting In

It occurred to me that only two things have been obvious from my posts of late:  I have spent most my time totally off the grid and when I have surfaced I have verbosely gone on and on about whatever happened to be on my mind at the time.  So, I’ll balance that out with a little factual update.

After seven consecutive weeks of travel (including Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Years) I had my first official “weigh in day” on my home scale in three months—February 1^st.  The results:  I have lost 17 pounds from the time I started blogging.  That doesn’t put me back down to where I want to be, but it puts me back to within 4 pounds of my reasonable “goal weight” and one size smaller than I was in October. (Okay, the vanity part of me is not content to be a healthy weight…I want to be an AMAAAAZING weight, so I will keep plugging.)  And it definitely relieves some of the worry I was feeling about being out of control and being afraid of gaining back 180 pounds of lost weight.

Anyway, hurray,  hurray,  hurray!  The program works if you work it!

I left California early last Thursday for two more weeks of travel.  First stop: the very cold regions of Ottawa, Ontario, Canada.  My husband decided he was tired of traveling home each weekend and figured I could come visit him instead.  I have to admit I was a little concerned.  I have been freezing in California, so how on earth was I going to survive that fact that the high temperatures during the day here have only been getting up to between -15º and -7º C? That is a problem that even chocolate wouldn’t fix.  I have actually done remarkably well.  My husband is used to eating every meal out—three times a day.  That wouldn’t have done well for my weight.  So, first stop in Canada…Costco!  I loaded up with an obscene pile of produce and a few other staples.  I have cooked every meal except two here in the hotel—weighed, measured and abstinent.  It helps that the hotel he booked is basically a condo-type apartment with a full kitchen, dining room, living room, bedroom, storage room etc.  Gee—all the luxuries of home minus my rice cooker and vita-mixer.  But, it has the added advantage of daily room service.  I could get used to that without too much trouble.

Anyway, tomorrow evening I fly back to California and arrive home late (i.e. 2:30 in the morning).  I leave at 6 a.m. the next morning to go for another 10 day road trip off to St. George and the more northern parts of Utah.  More food challenges to be faced, but I am feeling up to the challenge.  Amazing how different life is when you eat to live rather than live to eat!