Favorite Things

Bud Light that's limey and rich chocolate cake.....

Fried calamari and fruit pies that you bake....

Minty mojitos that wash down hot wings...

These are a few of my favorite things.....

When it's summer!

What that heat brings!

Making drinks by the vat...

I simply remember my favorite things...

But then I recaaaaalllll....how I got soooooo faaaaaaat........

Aaaaahhhh, yes summer......

It's officially upon us, and as the mercury climbs with each passing day, I feel my powers of will and ability to resist all things I consider "summer-related" weakening. Every season this happens. I tend to associate certain foods and activities with winter, spring, summer & fall and look forward to each one with the same enthusiasm as if I were welcoming an old friend back into my life after a 9 month hiatus from hanging out. While I love all of of my "seasonal friends" in their own special way, I have a particularly soft spot for summer. And really? Who doesn't?

Summer offers you the beach, warm air, the ability to hang outside while sporting minimal clothing, light in the sky until almost 9 PM, and the opportunity to have a multitude of picnics, parties and al fresco dining meals 'til your heart's content.

Summer is good. It's very, very good.

But aside from the afore mentioned wonderful aspects of summer, it has some rather diet sabotaging aspects to it as well.

To me, summer means cocktails - endless varieties and frequent consumption......and before you say anything, I realize technically I could make this claim about EVERY season (and probably already have) - but perhaps I should elaborate on one specific cocktail that I find embodies summer to the core. At this very moment I have more mint than I know what to do with growing in my backyard. It's a beast and is taking over, pushing the rock wall apart that Josh so carefully and loving put together with his bare hands when he moved into the house. When we planted it, I had no idea it was essentially a weed and would take off with such vengeance. But it did, and here we are, with a mountain of mint (and coincidentally, several varieties of rum residing in my liquor cabinet). So, I ask you -  is it really just freak happenstance that mojitos are an extremely refreshing summertime  beverage and mint just so happens to be one of the main ingredients? 

You don't have to be a rocket scientist to get that this is pure kismet.

Cocktails aside, summer also provides us with delicious juicy strawberries, blueberries, peaches and raspberries that, agreed, are wonderful on their own when eaten from a bowl, with a spoon, but are ten times better when surrounded by a light flaky pie crust and a side of vanilla bean ice cream.

Oh, Ice Cream....

Don't get me started.

BUT, in February I made a promise to myself and I intend on keeping it.

Just because summer has represented all of these wonderful things in the past doesn't mean that modifications can't be made for this upcoming season of sol to make sure I don't lose sight of my goals. This past weekend showed me exactly how quickly one can become derailed when the food and drink blinders come off and you start eating like the person you were 25 pounds ago. Yikes! 

I'm not making excuses (sort of) but it was Josh's birthday and as part of the birthday celebration AND to celebrate the meeting of Josh's weight loss goals (a whopping 82 pounds!), he requested a decadent chocolate cake and I was not going to disappoint him. I don't need to tell anyone that having an entire chocolate cake in a house with two people who equate it's addictive powers to that of crack cocaine is a bad idea......

Thankfully neither of us required an intervention or a stay at the Betty Crocker Clinic but it may have been touch and go there for a while. The cake is now gone, thank God, and life is back to normal. Or as normal as it can be with the two of us, and our three crazy hounds.

But it wasn't only the chocolate cake that interfered - at least not for me.  We went out with friends on Friday and since we haven't done that in a while, (and Bud Light Lime was on tap at the bar), I imbibed.....probably the most I have since February. If I do drink these days, it's been primarily wine or a cocktail but I have been trying to avoid beer due to its magical bloating ability....but hot summer night and Bud Light Lime on tap was too good to resist - however the scale the following day let me know in no uncertain terms that I should have at least tried.

Top the weekend off with a decadent dinner with Josh's parents at the Peach and Frog in New Brunswick, where I proceeded to have tuna sashimi, hanger steak, half a bottle of wine and yet MORE chocolate cake and the scale was REALLY screaming bloody murder.

May had been a slow month in general for my weight loss so I knew that going into June, I was going to have to bust a move if I want to drop 30 more pounds before the wedding.....

Let's just say the birthday weekend did not help me in that particular endeavor. I was hovering at 200 lbs last week, just about to bust through to the 190's....Pre-chocolate cake, pre-booze, pre-food induced coma.

Today, I finally am back down to 200.5......but my weight had crept up to 202.5, which not only depressed me but made me realize that taking my eye off the prize for even a short time can wreak havoc on my system and mess with my progress big time. It just isn't worth it.

So it's back to the health kick this week, and I feel good about it. I've made a promise to get on my bike more, do more exercises with my hand weights and make better friends with my elliptical machine.  Yes, it's summer - and while it may be a great season to be hazy and lazy it's an even better season to be active. So, despite knowing I will have to change my attitude a bit about the way I look at summer, I'm ok with it. I'm pretty sure I won't abandon all of my favorite things about the season, but instead, I hope to add a few new ones to the list.