Try and Try Again.

It gets pretty annoying to write about starting over so many times. *sigh* But hello again, I'm counting calories again. I've had several days of celebrations and vacation, which had my calories in the toilet. I was doing horribly, and seeing some pictures from my vacation, definitely slapped me in the face with the reality that I've gained weight again. Yesterday was Phoenix's year anniversary so I pigged out at Olive Garden. But now those days are done, I'm hoping that I can get back to being dedicated to losing weight.

I find that's the single most important thing to losing weight for me - that light bulb moment of I cannot and I will not over eat. Finding snacks and meals to eat isn't the problem. There's tons of things I can enjoy that fit into the 1500 calories a day I eat (including cake, more on that later.) A year ago, I was so so serious about saying no. If I didn't have calories left, I simply didn't eat it. It was truly that simple. I had this drive, this incredible determination that KNEW it was more important to get skinny than eat another piece of chocolate. Then something happened. I'm not sure what it is, but I can't quite flip that switch. I'm trying. Honestly, writing about it here, and acknowledging this process is very helpful.

I haven't weighed myself in a while. I don't really want to know. I plan on doing it next Tuesday. My friend Heather has lost 37 pounds and counting. She is doing great, and that has helped hold me accountable. Philip is now back at the gym, which pushes me to not make excuses and spend some time there also. In fact, I'm feeling like going there today.

So here goes nothing (again.)

A few days ago I found a low-cal recipe for a cake in a mug. I've never tried these recipes, so I thought I'd give it a whirl today. The recipe can be found here http://thehiddenpantry.blogspot.com/2011/11/aunt-bettys-1-2-3-cake.html

And picture via of the above site -

A few notes. The angel food cake mix I used actually ended up being 60 calories more (per container) than the chocolate mix I used. When you divide out the calories, this really doesn't make a huge difference, but for future reference I'll be using just chocolate mix. I imagine you could do this with any flavor though - lemon, strawberry, etc. It might be a quick way to make an individual portion of strawberry shortcake. I like the bloggers tip of 3-2-1. Makes this recipe super easy to remember. 3 tablespoons of mix, 2 tablespoons of water, 1 minute in the microwave. Trust the 1 minute. I let it go longer and it was super hot and a little over cooked. This makes a perfect cupcake size cake. I put the info in myfitnesspal.com and using angel food cake and chocolate it's 156 a cup. I imagine you could get this even lower if you used Pillsbury sugar free cake mix.

It was tasty! : ) Thanks for joining the journey again.