Blizzards and Lattes

These are my two major cravings right now.

First, a bit of background. I have been seriously dieting since Labor Day. As my 40th birthday looms ever closer, I have finally, I believe, found the resolve to lose all this extra weight that keeps finding me. I lost 60 pounds about 6 years ago, and despite swearing I would never, ever, gain it back, I regained 50 of the pounds before getting pregnant, and hit a weight during my pregnancy that I thought I would never see (but pregnancy pounds don't count, right? So I never "actually" weighed that much...)

After Monkey was born, I quickly dropped a little over half of the pregnancy weight. But a few months later, I was still 15 pounds above my pre-pregnancy weight. Over the next year, I yo-yo'd a bit, and managed to lose those pounds, as well as five more, but then I just sort of got stuck. Until Labor Day, when my husband and I resolved to eat healthier and drop the extra weight. (My husband, sweetheart that he is, had graciously gained some "sympathy weight" with me during my pregnancy, which, he learned to his dismay, does not drop quite as quickly and with as little effort due to the fact that he did not produce a child from his body at the end of nine months).

And it's working. My husband has lost close to 30 pounds, and I cam coming up on a 20-pound milestone, hopefully very soon. I hope to lose another 10 before year-end, and ideally another 30 (although I'll settle for 15) in the first few months of next year, before the big birthday.

But I can't say I'm entirely happy... I LOVE that my clothes are big on me, that I actually FEEL thinner, and all that good stuff. But MAN do I miss food! And that brings me to the subject of this post. Not a day goes by where I don't drive by Dairy Queen and/or Starbucks, and I can just hear those Blizzards and Lattes calling out to me, inviting me to just pull my car into the handy drive-thru lane and have a little taste. With Blizzards, it's the Oreo, Heath bar, and Reese's varieties that are calling to me. As for lattes, I'm partial to the white chocolate mocha, although it's getting to be that time of year when peppermint and peppermint white chocolate will be on the menu "for a limited time only" to make me drool.

Now, I'm doing the Weight Watchers plan, so these foods aren't totally forbidden to me. But if you know anything about WW, you know they use the "points" system, where you can only consume so many points per day (based on age, height, weight, and activity level), and once they're gone, you're out of luck (with exceptions, but I've found that the best way to lose weight is not to use those exceptions too often). In my case, I get 23 points a day. Well, my friends, a DQ Oreo Blizzard is 13 points - yep - well over half of my daily allotment. A tall white chocolate mocha isn't nearly as bad - I think 5 or 6 points? But did I mention how good it tastes with a cinnamon scone? Yeah, I think you get the picture...

And so, I now consider it a personal victory to drive past these establishments almost every day - on my way to Stroller Strides class, taking Monkey to and from preschool, traveling to and from the grocery store, Target, you name it. I'll give their real estate folks credit - they sure know how to place their stores!