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I absolutely must begin this post by thanking all of you for your tremendous and overwhelming support! You all left me so many heartfelt and sincere comments on last week’s Skinny Saturday post, and I appreciate each and every one of them. I feel blessed to have a community of so many people who are willing to give me a boost, share a bit of wisdom, and even commiserate with me when I shared something that could have so easily felt embarrassing. But instead of feeling embarrassed, I felt buoyed up and empowered, and most of all– I didn’t feel like I was all alone! THANK YOU.
That being said, this week was still a really hard week for me. Just all around. My inbox has been filling up non-stop all week, I was behind on designs, behind on my posts, missing posts deadlines for other people, and didn’t get around to doing much by way of supporting my other blogging friends. All of this, of course, meant that my apartment was a disaster, my daughter’s hair was never combed, the bills haven’t been paid, and bless my poor husband’s sweet heart– I never proof-read his senior paper (even though he gave it to me two weeks before he needed to turn it in, which was on Friday).
So I have felt completely, totally, 100% out of control.
I’ve always found, as I’m sure you have, that feeling out of control in other aspects of my life is just one great, big invitation for emotional over-eating. And I don’t really know why, I haven’t dug that far into the psycho-analysis of the whole thing. I just know that when I’m unorganized and out of control in my housekeeping, daily planning, blogging, etc– over-eating and over-spending are sure to follow.
While I (thankfully) kept my pocketbook under control this week, the eating was a different story. I was over my weekly allotment of bonus points (WW+) by the second day. I kept thinking I’d be able to reign it back in, but it never happened. And, regrettably, I have to report a 1 lb gain this week which puts me at 184.6.
However, there is some good news that came from my gain! So read on!
When I stepped on the scale and saw the gain, my first thought was to lie about it in this post.
I just thought there was NO WAY I could tell you that I gained weight! Not on my first week! And certainly not after everyone had left me so many encouraging comments! Last week, I just KNEW I was going to lose weight. How could I not lose after writing that post? And telling you all how much I weigh? And committing to come back and do it again every week? How could I NOT find the motivation to lose the weight??
So I decided to fudge the numbers a little. Not by much, of course. It was only a pound. I’d just tell you that I hadn’t lost or gained– that was harmless right? I wouldn’t be saying I had lost anything, but I wouldn’t have to admit to actually GAINING. And that’s when I had my light bulb moment:
If I lied, and told you that I didn’t lose any weight, it still wouldn’t be true. I would still be carrying around an extra pound. You all would be none the wiser, and go on with your lives. It really wouldn’t affect you. Because this is about ME. And what good am I doing myself by giving me a one week free pass? It wouldn’t make the weight go away, would it? I wouldn’t actually feel any better, would I? And if I lied about it once, why wouldn’t I lie about it again? And then, soon enough, online Ashton would be 20 lbs lighter, while real life Ashton would be hiding from the Instagram camera because she’s still overweight and dishonest to boot!
And since I’m real life Ashton, I have real life weight to deal with. And it’s all mine, that I have to take care of all by myself. No one else is going to lose this weight for me.
It’s an obvious statement, I know. And, truth be told, I’ve actually had this epiphany before– it’s certainly not my first weight loss light bulb moment. But I guess I had to have it again. And I’m glad, because I think things are finally clicking mentally for me. It’s like I’m remembering how to lose weigh all of a sudden. And I’m remembering, “oh yeah, I used to eat salad everyday for lunch, and I enjoyed that.” And now I’m thinking about my heart rate at the gym, and working to keep it where it should be for the whole work out.
And you know what? Candy Bars make me sick. I somehow push that aside when I’m binge-eating. But when I’m really trying to listen to my body, I remember that I simply can’t eat a straight-up candy bar without getting sick.
Anyway. It’s discouraging to gain a pound, but I’m actually coming off the weigh in feeling really good. I haven’t felt motivated in a while, and now that I’m starting to remember why I want to watch what I eat and how good it feels when I do, I’m feeling really optimistic about this week 🙂
One more thing before I get to this recipe… any great suggestions for Plantar Fasciitis? My heel is KILLING me and making workouts really difficult (even on the elliptical). Ideas are more than welcome!!!! I really want to be able to run in a few more weeks (fingers crossed) when it’s warmer out, and I’m afraid I just couldn’t do it on my heel if it doesn’t start improving…
You’ll notice over the weeks that my favorite “skinny” indulgences are sugar-free cake mix and diet soda. So this is yet another one of those recipes. The caramel on top is really just for the photo, and not necessary. But I’d definitely suggest pairing the cake with a small scoop of light ice cream if you have the cals/points for it!
Skinny Saturday: Single Serve Salted Caramel Lava Cake
Ingredients
- 3 tbsp. sugar free chocolate cake mix (I can only find this in Pillsbury)
- 3 tbsp. diet cola (I actually used Diet Dr. Pepper, but Diet co*ke or club soda would work too)
- 1 tbsp. sugar free canned chocolate frosting (also, only in Pillsbury)
- 1 tbsp. fat free caramel sundae sauce
- a pinch of sea salt
Instructions
- In a small bowl, gently whisk the cola and the cake mix (try to not deflate the bubbles from the carbonation).
- Scrape the batter into a very well greased ramekin, small bowl, or small bundt cake pan.
- Mix the caramel sauce, the frosting, and the sea salt together. Drop the mixture into the center of the batter.
- Either bake at 350 for 20 minutes or microwave for 2 minutes. Stick a toothpick in the edge of the cake to see if it's done. I'd recommend eating it out of whatever you baked it in (as inverting is a tricky business with this one).
This recipe is 6 WW+ by my calculation.
