Such a Gorgeous Wedding (Cake)

November 13... wow... I can't believe it's been six days since I last wrote a blog post.  Life was crazy busy this past week, and boy did it ever take a toll on my efforts to be consistent and diligent with my health goals.

First, a dear friend -- really, more of a little sister to me -- got married Friday night!  The wedding was beautiful and the reception was the best one I have ever been to in my life (including my own.)  I got to honor Kristen and Larry (bride and groom) by accompanying the various singers on the piano and somehow managed not to cry.  The reception was so much fun, and my cousins are all friends of the family, so it was like a cousins' date night with great food, beautiful views of downtown Milwaukee, and amazing cake.  Amazing cake.  (I know.)


Kristen and Larry saying "I do."


All of us cousins -- I'm the chubby one on the right.  Honestly, it's a good thing my girl cousins are all sweet, smart and lovely because otherwise these beauties would be insufferable.


Me being all "gangsta" with my friend and business partner, Jody.


Silliness with my handsome cousin, Andrew


Big smiles with the dynamic Jadrnicek brothers

So, from Thursday until today was a whirlwind -- dress rehearsal (wings and garlic bread), ceremony, (LOTS of coffee -- lattes, specifically)  reception (did I mention that the cake was to die for?), post-wedding lunch (ham sandwiches and pecan pie).  As Adam, Aislynn and I rushed from event to event, the very first thing to go was my tracking.  And when the tracking went, so did the thoughtfulness with choices.

At first, I staunchly made myself track and face the ridiculousness, as evidenced by this food log completely devoid of any significant nutritional value:



(Although, if salt, sugar, cream and chocolate are food groups, I showed tremendous variety here.)

And then quickly things digressed to the point that nothing got written down until I was back on program today.

Now, normally I might be giving up at this point, or continuing to have a terrible month, thinking that I would "start up" again at the beginning of next month.  BUT... I am sticking with this, because a year from now, I'll wish I had started and stuck with it.

Plus, it really isn't quite as bad as I make it sound.  Slight exaggeration above. There were definitely things I did wrong.  Among them:

• There's never really an excuse not to track, especially when the sheets are in my planner and my planner is always with me.
• I "gave myself permission" to be off-plan due to the special occasion.
• I did not at any time during the weekend "plan ahead", so I was making decisions moment to moment without any pre-thought.
• Three pieces of wedding cake, no matter how "small" is no bueno.

Things I did right:

• I chose to have a salad rather than the wings and garlic bread at the rehearsal dinner -- yep. Hence my point about the exaggeration. (I know!)
• I drank a LOT of water.
• I was very active -- lots of walking, moving, and even dancing(!!)
• I did my core exercises twice.

So all in all, for a "bender", it could have been worse -- I guess we'll see whether my choices were simply not ideal or truly horrendous at weigh in on Wednesday.  That will mark two weeks of using my planner for health improvement and weight loss.  See you then -- and I'll share some other inserts I have been using for this journey.

Thanks for stopping by the blog.  💗

-Jennifer