These Are My Confessions*

I'm not going to mince words here. I had to grow a pair of giant lady balls in order to write this particular post. And to put that ticker at the top of my page. But there it is for the world to see. Accountability is a scary thing. Thanks to Lapband Mom  for giving me directions on how to do it. I NEVER would have figured that out on my own.

I've always been very private about my "number". I think a lot of women have a number that they don't like to say out loud...be it their age, their dress size...whatever. But for me it has always been my weight. There are so many emotions attached to that number. You're either "bad" because you've gained or "good" because you've lost. It's a never ending cycle of self-hate and I'll be damned if I'm going to live the rest of my life that way. Plus…I really don't know who I thought I was hiding it from in the first place. It's kind of on display every day. But there is just something about saying the actual number out loud. It's just...difficult. And in order to do this I had to reach deep, deep down and think about why I'm writing this blog. I want this to be a true documentation of my journey and the simple fact is that there is no way around that without revealing my number. I also started to think about all of the amazing women who have inspired me since I began this journey. They certainly aren't hiding their numbers. They are shouting them from the rooftops and celebrating every pound lost along the way. The O.G. has had her weight posted for all to see since October 2009. I also have to say that over the past few days I have gotten so much support from you guys. I appreciate it more than you will ever know. The WLS blogging community is incredible. I know this is a safe place, so I'm just jumping right in.

So now that that's out of the way, let's talk about what I've been eating! :) Yesterday was a really fun day. I met my friend Rachel for an early lunch at Chipotle, so when I got up I drank the rest of my Orange Spice iced coffee from Starbucks. I added a half scoop of Vanilla Unjury powder and a little bit of fat-free half-and-half. I'm working on the Pioneer Woman iced coffee recipe, but it won't be ready until Sunday. It's a lot of steps, y'all.

This was my first visit to Chipotle since surgery and it was a huge success. I love Chipotle. I love their socially responsible policies, the cool design of their restaurants, and the fact that their Super Bowl commercial featured Willie Nelson covering Coldplay. I also love their website's nutrition builder. They have one of the best I've ever seen. They make it super easy to figure out anything you want to eat. I decided to go with the kids' menu two taco kit. I chose the steak because it had a good amount of protein. For my two sides I chose fajita vegetables, and roasted corn salsa. It also came with a tiny kid's size chips. All of this for around 350 calories. It even came on the cutest little mini cardboard cafeteria tray. I was so thrilled with it all that I promptly forgot to take a picture of it. I'm sorry. It seems like whenever I go to restaurants, I'm so focused on making the right choices that I completely zone out. But it was delightful, and I will be returning quite often. It was the perfect amount of food, plus it was $3.95. Dinner was the exact same as the night before. I love that Tilapia. Here are my totals for Friday:

This morning I got up and had my Chocolate Splendor coffee and for some reason I wasn't hungry for quite a while. I can't even call my first meal "brunch". It was more like lunch. I have been excited to try this since I found it at Kroger the other day.

One of the main reasons I got it was that it has 26 g of protein. Check out these stats.

Here is what it looked like after it came out of the microwave.

It was tasty, and super filling, but I have kind of mixed feelings about it. I think this is fine for me because I don't have a fill yet. No matter how much I chewed this and tried to take tiny bites, there was no way I could chomp the spinach and mushrooms to the consistency of applesauce. I think this would be pretty problematic for a lot of people with restriction. I have another one in the freezer and I will definitely try to eat it before I go for my first fill on the 24th. They are kind of pricey too. I got them on sale, but I wouldn't repurchase due to the chewing issue.

Dinner tonight was a treat. I love Sloppy Joes...I always have. I made tonight's version in a pita pocket. It's a little less messy, plus I feel like the pita offers more fiber than your standard hamburger bun. This is another recipe that I recalculate every time I make it. The stats can change with the different brands of bun/pita and the type of ground beef. I really like Laura's 96% Lean Beef.

And my plate:

 My after dinner snack was another Yasso coconut bar. I seriously can't quit these.

Today's totals:

 Thanks for reading!

*Apologies to Usher :)