So, this weekend was lovely. My beloved and I went up to an amazing mountain retreat (this was no simple rustic cabin- it had a nice, new gym with a regulation half-sized basketball court and plenty of other amenities) with the rest of our Young Married's Bible study group. The time was incredible for growing more connected with amazing people and just really building relationships with people who love Jesus. So, it was overall pretty good.

Being that this blog pertains to my battles in overcoming food addiction, I'll deal with that aspect of things. I have to rate myself a 7.5. The bad news is that there was a LOT of junk food, and almost all of the meals were semi-healthy at best. I did eat more junk food this weekend than I probably have in the entire last 6 weeks combined. In addition, my meals were what was cooked- french toast and crepes one morning, a sandwich made from potato bread and with mayo, ranch dip, and Doritos with my lunch, a bagel with cream cheese and cheddar cheese and eggs and bacon for breakfast the next morning... not super healthy!

But, overall, I did a good job of not having seconds and controlling portion sizes. Trust me- I would eat a TON of Doritos left to my own desires, but I had about a serving and a half and never went back to the bag though it was out for the devouring. In addition, I had like 5 sour cream & onion chips-- something that I would normally load up a plate full of! During a movie after lunch I knew that I would eventually go eat tons of snacks, but I chose to go take a nap instead so the cravings couldn't control me :)

With the snacks, there was a serious mecca of snackdom- Costco quantities of peanut m & m's, twizzlers (ok, they aren't a temptation), TONS of Chex Muddy Buddies, literally like 10 dozen AMAZING chocolate chip cookies cookies, a few batches of yummy gooey brownies, two pans of DELICIOUS fudge... you get the idea. I'm not even remembering it all. But I can say that I had four cookies the entire weekend, 8 m&m's (trust me- I love them, so I counted), 1 brownie (there was a huge one and a small one when I chose... I chose the small! And it didn't even have the yummy crispy edges that I love!), about 15 muddy buddies, and the equivalent of 2 pieces of fudge (I would cut off tiny slivers to get the lovely flavor). Seriously, that's pretty darn good. In fact, that's literally probably less than anyone else there, and all of the other ladies are small!

I was watching last week's episode of The Biggest Loser last night (our week was just too hectic to ever get to it) and I was struck by how nuts Jillian went that Brittany ate 1 chocolate chip cookie in an entire week. I mean, by those standards I was a total glutton this weekend. I think, though, that those are unrealistic standards for real life (when the chance to win $250k isn't at stake).

The truth is that I do want to be healthy. But I want to still be a good cook who can enjoy food and make bring others joy through food. That means I may make cookies from time to time, or a dinner that's not Biggest Loser friendly :) But that doesn't mean I'll make alfredo from heavy cream and butter! I'll make my slowly-becoming-famous take on a Rachael Ray recipe for tacosagna, which is based on ground turkey and zucchini and is actually really healthy. Or I'll grill salmon and amazing veggies for dinner so that the gelato doesn't make you feel guilty :)

To sum it up- yes, healthy! But if I never allow myself 1 chocolate chip cookie, or 8 m&m's on a retreat, or if I eat a bowl of oatmeal while everyone else is having scrambled eggs and bacon then I'll either be completely miserable and get skinny but be a grouchy jerk, or I'll deny deny deny and then binge binge binge- and likely then purge purge purge. Eventually I'll blog about my past with that, it just hasn't seemed like the right timing yet. The point is, I have to be real. The fact that I enjoyed treats that normally aren't allowed in our apartment without porking out, or even overeating, is pretty major for me. So this, I believe, is progress. Particularly because there were plenty of times I could feel the cookies staring at me and I really wanted to indulge but I focused instead on the fellowship and said no.

Lastly, I did still lose1/5 of a pound since Friday, so that's pretty sweet, too :)

That's my story. Feel free to share comments.

Oh, and so you know, there was fruit there and such, but I still find it to be a punishment to eat it so that didn't matter. And I actually did get a LOT of fresh veggies (mostly broccoli, but there were others). That's mostly for you, Darla :)