it's that time of year!

This is my apartment style attempt at grilling out. At home I just turn on the grill and it's good to go. This mini grill is a little more tricky and now I have no hairs on my hand!  I grilled a thick slice of vidalia onion, some farmers' market zucchini and yellow squash, and a spinach and feta chicken sausage. It was so good (dipped in low fat ranch)!

This past weekend really proved to me that I have changed since I've started this journey.  I was home alone which used to mean --> eat everything in sight since no one was around to judge me. Since my family was on vacation (back now) and just my brother was staying at home, he had it stocked with tons of snacks, deserts, and generally unhealthy food...thank you 19 year old stick-thin brother.  It was all open and totally available to me, and I didn't have a single bite! ...and it wasn't even hard for me. I knew that it wasn't worth the points. Luckily I brought some food from my apartment home so I would have food to make and not have to find something at home to cook.  You see...my dad has this thing about coupons, if he has one, he will purchase whatever it is. He's even bought dog food. We don't have a dog.  Since I'm going to be moving home at the end of August for a year, I am going to try and have some menus prepared and a grocery list for my dad so there will possibly be some stuff I can feel comfortable eating.

The other part of the weekend included a couple of workout victories.  The first was on Saturday when I decided to do some running at the gym. I was trying out some different speeds and really wanted to feel what a 10-minute mile felt like.  Midway through I tried it and I made for 5 minutes. Physically I think I definitely could have done it, but mentally I don't think I was ready.  The cool thing is, I remember when I could barely run for 30 second intervals a few years ago!  The second victory was when I tried the Stairmaster for the first time. I had been reading some new weight loss blogs and was really inspired to try it.  I set it for 99 minutes...haha ya right. Well somehow I made it to 60 minutes on the machine (dripping insane sweat). 

Bottom line, I better see a sweet loss tomorrow at my weigh in!