ETL: Results

Final results:

Pounds lost: 6

Verdict: I can't really LIVE like this. It is not practical to keep all meat, grains, and dairy out of my diet (although, of the three, meat would definitely be the easiest to surrender). I know there are people who do, and more power to 'em, but it's not me. Doing ten days of ETL was effective, but I really need something more sustainable. Whoever said maintenance was harder than weight loss was SO RIGHT. I've heard people say they fast one day a week, I've heard people say they follow all the rules during the week and on the weekends they allow things like bread and dessert. I've heard people say they just permanently cut out pizza and french fries. I've heard people say they eat a pea-sized-portion of pizza and french fries (which to me is worse than not eating it). I've always said that anything will work if you stick to it, and while I believe that is true, sticking to it is, well, hard.

And...we are heading into the holiday season. Mashed potatoes. Stuffing. ROLLS.

Ugh. Taking suggestions.

ETL: 6 Days In

Monday-Friday was AWESOME. I ate spinach salads, Greek salads, vegetarian black bean soup, bananas + peanut butter, apples - it has been really great. And up until Friday, I didn't cheat ONCE.

Bad pic...I don't think we realized the TVs were right behind us

Friday night we went to dinner with some friends from church and our group of international students. We were supposed to eat at a different restaurant and I had scoured the menu online and chosen wisely. And then, because the ONLY thing to do in our town on a Friday night is go out to dinner, we ended up changing plans at the last second because the wait was over an hour. Which meant no good for me. I ordered what I thought was tomato soup (it had pasta in it) and a turkey wrap with no cheese or mayo (though I would have dearly loved both), I ate half the wrap and 3/4 of the soup and called it good. I also indulged in a few sweet potato fires (which I've never been a fan of...but they were either really good at this place or I was really desperate for fries).

Saturday was pretty good...until we went to my cousin's volleyball game in Missouri with my dad, my uncle, my cousin, and my son. The game got over later than we were hoping (which was a HUGE bummer - they won two, we won two, and it was SO close on game five, but apparently game five only goes to FIFTEEN instead of TWENTY-FIVE. It was a huge disappointment because it was 12 to 15 and I thought we still had 10 points to go :( and all of a sudden they are slapping hands and I was like "What?" They were GOOD-GAMING IT). Anyway, my uncle was eager to get back home to see the rest of the KState game and everyone was starving, so we stopped at Sonic. I had, like, two minutes to scour the menu before I ordered for myself and my son, and - let's be real, folks - there is nothing good at Sonic. I should have just waited, but it was 6:15 and we were still two hours from home. I also didn't want to look like a snob in front of my uncle and cousin. So I shut up and had a burger.

FAIL.

The good news is that I have still lost 4 pounds and am back on track for Sunday. The other good news is that, even though they lost the game, Charlie got on the jumbotron!