It takes a trip to Mexico...

Hola! The past two weeks have been very interesting. Last Tuesday, I returned from Cancun, Mexico. We had a fabulous trip full of exciting adventures. I ate lots and lots of fruit and vegetables. We had a wonderful time. My husband enjoyed any smoothie or virgin pina colada, or ice cream he could get his hands on. I drank a lot of bottled water and then had a lot of diet coke at lunch time. I can't drink it after 3:00 or I will be up at 3:00am. I am not a big fan of diet anything, but when you have nothing else, it started to taste good. So good that one day after I got home, I had to make a conscience decision that I absolutely do not want to trade a really bad habit (sugar) for another really bad habit (caffeinated pop). So I enjoyed one more (They had a diet Dr. Pepper at the Dairy Queen far away from my house), and have made the decision every day to NOT have one. That stuff is addicting and I am an addictive person, so I have to say no. BUT, what I did find was a new way to drink herbal tea and I absolutely love it. A lot of Mexican food is prepared with limes. I love it on every thing. One night they brought us some herbal tea. It was orange spice with a wedge of lime and some honey. Oooooh. The combination of the cinnamon, lime and honey was heaven. I had it every night after that as my little treat. I came home and bought a big bag of limes at Costco and I make my lime herbal tea every night. Delightful. Also, I make freshly squeezed orange juice for breakfast every day. One day I did my regular 2-3 oranges and then I sliced a lime and juiced half of it with my orange juice. Wowza! That is an awesome drink. The lime adds a little kick to it and it is fantastic. -I also ate a lot of papaya. I love this fruit and haven't had any that good since I was a missionary in Brazil 19 years ago. I ate it and other fruits for breakfast, lunch and dinner. I also ate a lot of vegetables. Everything there was fresh and I relished in the fact that I didn't have to prepare or clean it up. It was heaven. It was so nice to have a change of pace, a variety of foods, and an adventure of new activities. We got lots of sleep, rest and relaxation. Just what I needed.

Coming home, my weigh in date was one day late. I weighed in on Tuesday instead of Monday. I was down .3 . Somewhat depressing as I had such a wonderful vacation and had better expectations. I do think I was retaining water because of the flight however.
Today, Monday, is my next weigh in and to my joy and surprise, I am down 3.5 from last week. My total is now 17.1. I have been on a plateau since December, so I have felt good about the loss and feel renewed to get my exercise going again in hopes of continuing the loss.

The sugar/corn syrup is not even a temptation any more. It is so weird because I have many other things to worry about, I am glad this is not included in that anymore. This is a blessing and exactly what I was hoping for when I started this whole thing.

This week was my daughter's birthday. I made cupcakes for her school class, and cake and ice cream for our family. I also went to a bridal shower where they served the most beautiful looking cupcakes -chocolate, angel food cake, and strawberry. I didn't try one, but was tempted because they were so pretty. My friend had half of one and couldn't finish the rest. She said they looked prettier than they tasted. I believed her and was disappointed even though I wasn't eating it. Isn't that funny? In my former life of eating treats, I would have eaten the whole thing, taking home extras, trying every flavor, even admitting that it wasn't that good. What is up with that? See why I am trying to change? It doesn't make sense sometimes. For me it is a mental game that I'm not playing anymore. However, I really do like to smell the things I am not eating. Does that make me a weirdo? When we were in Mexico, Scott got so used to me asking to smell that he would shove it into my nose before taking a bite. We always got a good laugh at that.
Well, to summarize, I think it is always good to try different things, to shake up our normal routine a bit. I think that is what has helped me get through that plateau. Variety is good for the body and mind. It took me a trip to Mexico, but I feel ready to face everything again, to try a little harder, exercise a little more, try a little more variety in my diet.
My vacation did it's job!