A smart choice after all!

The last few days have been hungry days for me.  I hate these kinds of days--where you continue to be hungry no matter what or how much you eat.  But, many weight loss journeys have shown me that these are something that I just have to deal with periodically.  Today was hard--I am home alone with not only my food but also my daughter's snacks and husband's candy.  I'm also stressed and tired, and when it came to lunch all I had the energy for was to heat up a can of soup with some crackers.

In the end, I had three strawberries, a can of Progresso soup, 10 Ritz crackers, 4 cheese straws (sort of like grown-up cheetos), and a single Hershey's Bliss dark chocolate square.  I was feeling pretty bad about my lunch until I really thought about what I ate and how I chose it.  I'm making a carb-heavy dinner, which translates into high points.  So, I compared all three cans of soup in my pantry and chose the one that was the least amount of points.  I was feeling a out of control while it was heating up, and instead of binging on my daughter's snacks, I ate three strawberries (0 points!) and only half a serving of the cheese straws that I was given for Christmas, which I can usually eat by the boxful.  Then I looked up the point value of my crackers and counted out how many I could afford to eat and put the rest away.  Knowing that I would be craving dessert, I got a single chocolate square out of the freezer (1 point).  After I ate, when I realized that I was still thinking about food and was likely to go back in the kitchen, I made myself a cup of coffee with a tablespoon of creamer (1 point), which I savored long enough to kill the rest of my food cravings.

The result?  A reasonable 14 point lunch.  I get 57 points a day right now, so that is very acceptable.  If I hadn't stopped to think about what I was eating, I would have eaten the high-point soup I wanted when I went into the kitchen, all of the crackers in the Ritz short stack, at least a full serving of the cheese sticks, and probably some goldfish while I waited for the soup to cook.  The result?  Most likely a 25-point lunch.  Maybe more if I couldn't stop myself.  If the rumors about the points-to-calorie conversion are true, thinking through my lunch saved me 550 calories.  Not bad!

I also got my home gym set up yesterday (see below).  It has a treadmill and a stationary bike, and a cable hookup.  We bought a refurbished tv to put in the room that will be here next week.  My daughter's things are still in the closet (she wanted to switch rooms so we did that as well and put the gym in her old room), but we will finish that part next week.  In the meantime, the equipment is up and running.  So exciting!