Well, this certainly was an interesting week. Autumn arrived and it’s still the middle of summer here in the Philly ‘burbs. Glad I didn’t pack my summer clothing away!
It wa so stinking hot that I ended up wearing this on Sunday!
This lightweight maxi is perfect for those days when I don’t shave my legs. And the sleevelessness of it is summer-in-fall perfect!
Today’s high reached 93. 93 on October 2nd –think about that!
Yesterday was Tuesday. My weigh-in day and the usual evening that I attend the meeting workshop at the local Weight Watchers place WW studio.
It was a rough week for me. Ain’t gonna lie. I was fine until Saturday.
Friday evening, I dined on Monkfish and asparagus.
That isn’t dirt on the plate, it’s a ton of pepper that I sprinkled instead of my usual salt. And atop the asparagus is greek yoghurt and sriracha sauce! This monkfish and asparagus was a healthy start to the weekend. But things changed!
And whilst Bonaparte snacks on Gougères with his aperitif, I take nine of my Trader Joe’s Mini Savory Crackers and divide one Laughing Cow Cheese wedge atop the nine. It’s a two-pointer that satisfies.
These are life-savers. Honestly they are!
What happened was this. Since it was the first weekend of the Fall season, I thought it would be a good idea to make a nice French Dinner. The kind that Bonaparte loves during the cooler months into winter.
Oui. I do my best to make my husband feel as though he is back in Paris enjoying a great meal!
It was decided I would make Cornish Game Hen. Not a bad choice. But I made it with my Cherry Cognac Crème Sauce. There are also tons of dried cherries both in the sauce and atop the hens.
Oven-ready with lots of Rosemary, dried cherries, red onion and butter UNDER the skin!
Now, ordinarily it would not be too bad. I nixed on the sauce during dinner, but while the sauce was cooking, I must have sampled about a cup. So that would be heavy cream, cognac, dried cherries and a bit of cherry preserves to give a tad of sweetness. Oh yeah. And butter is in the sauce too.
My sauce would also be a great soup. I practically wolfed it down as though it WAS soup. Hey! I had to taste it!
My vegetable of choice was baby asparagus.
Not to mention the two Kir Royals consumed but they were added into my daily points.
And, I also only like the dark meat of the hen—or basically any poultry that I eat. I’m a leg and thigh girl!
Yeah. That would be me!
On Sunday, I basically sabotaged myself.
Sunday ended up to be busier than I expected. In the kitchen.
But first, I decided to do something with the sofas in our living room. Because we have our little rascal, Chippy, who we love and adore, we have allowed him to use our white sofas as his thrones. The solution is to cover them with ugly blankets and when family and guests come over, we take the ugly blankets off.
How disgusting is this? Welcome to the life of being dog parents!
It’s HIS furniture. Not ours!
Oona saw an Instagram photo where a home décor Instagrammer solved the challenge of keeping the white sofas looking neat and tidy and thusly, my loving daughter sent the photo to me. I’m thinking this was a serious hint. And so, I went to Joann Fabrics, purchased muslin and for less than ten bucks was able to drape the fabric over the sofas. It’s been five days now and this is working like a charm.
See how nicely the muslin is draped over the sofas?
This, along with ironing, was my big WW activity for the week to keep me fit.
We also went to Costco to get me some low-point foods. And by walking the aisles of Costco I was able to squeeze even more activity in!
My girlfriend Marybeth got me hooked on these. One point for four of them. These are epic!
I found these zero-point Egg Thins which are akin to small crepes!
And smoked salmon at zero-points per serving. This satisfies my craving for salty goodness!
So back to my sabotage.
Bonaparte was running low on gougères and let me know with a typical French hint.
“Cassie.” “Eeez time fohr ou to mek more gougères.” “Zahr eez nut enuff so pliz mek some”
The French don’t mince words. They eat instead!
And eat. And eat. And eat and they stay thin!
He also hinted around that he missed his favorite Grand Marnier Pound cake that I bake.
Sunday was spent in the kitchen.
One of the ingredients in the Gougères is cheese. Alain Ducasse’s recipe calls for Gruyere. I use Jarlsberg. And I’ve made quite a few gougères and I’ve got quite a bit of Jarlesberg cheese at home.
The cheese does not stand alone in this recipe. It almost didn’t stand at all because I almost ate it all!
In the bowels of the cheese drawer in the fridge, I came across a good chunk of this deliciously mild cheese that I forgot about. In the meantime, I also had a brand new and nice sized wedge of the same.
No. It’s more like 100 Gougeres. Not Patates!
The old chunk of Jarlsberg spoke to me. He told me to take a little piece. But I did worse, I put the good-sized chunk in the microwave to melt it. And then I slathered it atop a piece of Rye bread.
Points be damned. I was in another zone.
I was floating on a cloud of melted cheese!
And then I felt really bad for eating the melted cheese and the bread.
I moved on to the pound cake. It’s a wonderful recipe: Barefoot Contessa Perfect Pound cake. I alter the recipe by using a half cup of heavy cream rather than a cupful and in place, I add a half cup of Grand Marnier.
You may be getting the picture on why I had a “bad” weekend!
The recipe will yield two cakes.
One is in the freezer!
Baked and cooled, I pondered if they turned out alright (which I already knew the answer) but wanting validation under the guise of seeing if the crumb and texture were good, I cut a tiny slice off. The Frenchman was upstairs watching a soccer match and so, I ate the piece. And it was good.
Behold the beautiful texture and crumb. And my excuse for eating this!
I tried to redeem myself of the slab of cheese, beautifully melted over a thick slice of rye and not one, but two pieces of the cake by sticking to vegetables and smoked salmon for dinner. And I knew I was on the road to failure.
In fact, later on, some time after dinner, my biological clock remembered there were oatmeal raisin cookies I baked and froze. I ate two.
Yes. I was on the road to failure. But it tasted so delicious!
And when Monday rolled around, I felt awful. I felt awful because while baking and cooking for my husband and loved ones always makes me happy. So why couldn’t I just be content to bake. Why did I have to gorge?
I’m having a “foodover”! I feel awful!
Monday turned into Tuesday. When I woke up Tuesday morning, I thought of every excuse in the book as to why I could stay home from the WW Workshop. I thought about the barometric pressure causing my sinuses to be too painful to weigh in. I was hoping for a good bout of lady-cramps until I realized I hadn’t had them in almost 12 years. I could be too tired and stressed from work. Any excuse would do.
But then I had an “Aha” moment. I needed to be responsible for my actions. I’ve failed and not followed through too many times and I wasn’t going to do it again. My plan was to go to the workshop and not weigh in.
Then I had another “Aha” moment. It was time to face the music. If I gained a pound, it was my own fault. My actions were regrettable. I sabotaged the success I had the week before.
And so, I headed to the WW studio to get a reality check. I need those workshops. I need a leader. I need to be around people who are in the same boat as me. And as I stepped on the scale, I prayed to God and The Blessed Mother that at the least, to not have gained weight.
The result? I lost 1.2 pounds.
I couldn’t stop but think if I hadn’t been “bad”, I could have made it to 149 pounds. But that’s for another weigh-in!
And I learned a valuable lesson. Don’t sabotage yourself. Find a distraction. Dust some furniture. Leave the kitchen. Walk away. Get a glass of water. Read a book.
Failure is something I’m all too familiar with. I’ve failed to be the perfect mother. I’ve failed at a successful career. I’ve failed in so many ways but this time I just won’t allow myself to fail. I gotta do this!
If you’ve failed during your weight loss journey or in any other way, please know that you are not alone!
Truer words have never been spoken. It’s true and I did!
So, how was your week? I’ got a lot of new makeup to share with you in my next blog post that I’ll have up this weekend! XOXOXOXO