Turning Failure Around

So after my optimistic posts of last week, I blew it again.  As you know, I did pretty good Sunday and Monday and Tuesday (well, most of Tuesday), but then it all went downhill.  Beginning with an altercation with some brownies.  From there on out, the week flew by in a food-bliss haze.

But I turned it around!  I didn’t blow it.  Isn’t that a terrible phrase anyway?  It signifies that something is a complete failure; that it is past all redemption.  And my weight is not.

In fact, while I was practically in a food-induced coma by Saturday night (pizza, donuts, etc.), I turned my weekend into a success.

Saturday morning, before the food-fest, I went hiking.  Even though I’ve only really gone once in the past many, many months, I tried the advanced trail.  Um, it kicked my butt.  I was gasping for air quite a bit (and trying to not show it when people passed, of course), but I did it.  I made it back out.  Of course, I wasn’t not going to make it out, because my only alternative would be to call 911 (as I don’t have the park’s number programmed into my cell phone) and have them contact the park to get them to come get me in a golf cart.  And that wasn’t happening.  But while I was a muddy mess (thanks to the downpour early Saturday morning), I did it!  I think I walked over two miles on those hills.  At one point, as I tried to slowly make my way down a steep hill (that was almost totally mud with a few rocks), a guy that was passing with his family said to them, “this is like Colorado.”  Now, I’ve never been to Colorado, so I don’t know how accurate of a statement that was – and I’m sure it doesn’t even touch Colorado for hills/mountains in most areas – but I was just doing my best not to land on my ass in the mud.

Here’s proof:

It really was a gorgeous day.  Here’s a pic from part of the flat area at the highest point of the trail:

I even took a souvenir of my accomplishment (hint: it’s an acorn):

But as I said, my hiking and errand-running was followed up with a crazy food-fest Saturday night.

Sunday is when things turned around.  As soon as midnight hit, I was back on plan.  I got up and mowed the lawn, ran a few more errands and spent the rest of the day watching the first season of “Bones” with my dad and then The Amazing Race.  But this time, I counted every single thing that crossed my lips in my WW tracker.  I did the same today.  This is a major victory.  Even last week when I was “on plan” for those first few days, I didn’t track completely.

Sunday night, when I made my dinner, I made extras for my work meals this week.  I made whole wheat couscous mixed with peas and corn (yum) and meatloaf muffins.  I’ve been wanting to try to make meatloaf muffins ever since I joined WW, but never got around to it, because, well, it involved cooking.    I know there is a popular Stove Top stuffing meatloaf muffin recipe, but I didn’t want to have to buy stuffing.  So this is the recipe I used (by tweaking another that I found):

I just mixed it all up (disposable gloves are great for that) and then separated it out into a muffin tin pan.  For me and my stove, 350 for 35 minutes was perfect.  And they were YUMMY.  Or at least I thought so.  The best part is that one muffin is only 2 points and if you’re really hungry, it’s only 4.5 for two (which I actually did Sunday night).  So now I have couscous and meatloaf muffins for my work meals this week.  Here is a before/after cooking comparison (the oily looking stuff on the pan is just PAM).

Now, I know the true test will be to see if I can get through tomorrow.  I think I can.