Hey All. (Short for the Southern: All a y'all or all of you all or everybody.) Hope you have had a good week. Mine has been busy. As usual. In fact, it would be really weird to say that my week has not been busy. You would think by now I wouldn't be surprised that I had a busy week. But here I am, still looking back in wonder, Wow, that was a busy week! Like it's a surprise or something. 

This week of diet and exercise has been up and down. I've stayed consistent with the exercise, and most days I've done more than my trainer assigned me. Food, on the other hand, has been a bit more difficult. There have been days when I have breezed through the day eating salads and berries and lean meat and I haven't had a single urge to eat anything else. And then there have been days when I've been stuffing the Chocolate Brioche into my mouth which my mom bought for the kids. And days like yesterday where I have stayed healthy all day, and then my teenage daughter asked if she could make pancakes for supper and I said sure, and I went off and ate a salad on my own. But then my four year old needed help serving his pancakes, and I got called, and so I ended up preparing these beautiful homemade pancakes with butter and syrup, cutting them up for him so he could eat and then running from the room because all I wanted to do was grab his plate from him and stuff my face with pancakes. And then I sat in my room trying to not think about pancakes, and I was about to sneak out and just grab one when I remembered something I've said to myself a lot. "If you're going to cheat, cheat smart." So I went and got the last of my skinny pop kettle corn popcorn. And ate one serving which was only 140 calories and which satisfied my sweet tooth. And then I stuck a piece of gum in my mouth so I'd stop eating. 

In other words, it's been a pretty normal week. Small victories and lots of challenges. 

To tell you the truth, I'm getting nervous about this weight loss journey. About four years ago I tried to lose weight and I got right around the weight I am now before lots of stuff came up that derailed me and I ended up gaining all the weight back plus some more. I have a tendency to do well for about six months and then start petering out. 

I really don't want that to happen again. And I don't trust myself to not mess it up. So I'm feeling a bit on edge. I just want to get past this weight zone and into a lower level so I can assure myself that I'm not going to repeat old history. 

I don't know what to do about it except make myself self-aware so that my "falling off the wagon" doesn't happen so slowly and gradually that I don't really notice. So, right now I am on High Alert as I try to keep this weight coming off. I really don't want to mess this up.