New challenge and Free stuff!

With my nutrition not exactly, um, on track shall we say (translation: pigged out all weekend) Laura's post about Jenn's 21 Day Habit Challenge came just in time. I had a horrible weekend eating. I will repeat it here only to shock myself again and hope that the horror of seeing everything I ate in print will scare me out doing it again. (The scale this morning probably would have accomplished that if I had dared to get on it!):

Friday: wake up 6:30 am
Quaker Lower Sugar oatmeal for breakfast...banana snack....chicken noodle soup for lunch...granola bar snack...not a bad start, eh? Brings us to 2pm:

***something inside me snaps*****

2pm: I eat 8 snack size candy bars at my Day Job. Feeling the day is shot, and knowing I have no time to exercise, I go all out and stop on my way to my Night Job..

3:30pm: ....for a whopper Jr and side of fries! I eat this, feel sick for about 6 hours, and then as the night winds down at the restaurant where I work at night, I find 'dead' food in the window. This is what we call food that was accidentally made, or cancelled by a table, that never is served.

9:30pm: So I found an appetizer order of Blue Crab Claws (served in a lemon vinaigrette made with about a pound of butter)...I proceed to dip a biscuit in the sauce after eating the claws, and our biscuits are made of like 3/4 lard and have around 400 calories each (seriously- it's online!)..when the biscuit is done I start in on a chicken Alfredo (fried chicken, pasta in a sauce of pure cream and Parmesan cheese...oh yeah, and butter of course). Then I switch back to the sauce from the crab claws this time dipping Cheese Toast (this is brioche bread brushed with oil and toasted, spread with Alfredo sauce then covered in mixed shredded cheeses and toasted again like pizza)....finally I feel sick again and stop.

11pm: about lo leave work when a coworker shows up in the kitchen (as I'm eating Corn and Crab Bisque out of the empty pot on my way to send the pot through the dishwasher) and asks if anyone wants the rest of her carrot cake. "I do!" I yell before I even comprehend what she has said...I just know it's about food so of course I want it :) So yeah, then I eat a half a slice of carrot cake, which is my favorite, and which everyone knows is the Most Caloric, Most Fattening Cake. I know- deceiving, huh? Considering it has vegetables in it... no fair! :(

11:30pm: Arrive home, and sensibly realize I don't need dinner after all that, so instead I just eat a bowl of frozen peas and drink 3 beers. GREAT NIGHT.

Saturday, am: I do great on Saturday during the day, a granola bar for breakfast, work through lunch...looking good...then I get hungry at work. Always bad..

3pm: don't want to spend any money, so I pilfer fries and eat them with the Restaurant Ranch. I emphasize Restaurant Ranch because everyone knows it is way more delicious than any store bought kind...this is because (most) restaurants don't have to publish nutritional information for their menus...and they add a ton of buttermilk and other fattening deliciousness that makes their dressings soooo good, but if you knew how many calories these had you'd never eat them, so store bought brands can't make theirs as good (at least that' s my explanation).

I make it through the rest of the afternoon on nothing (I know- bad) and even get a run in because I'm saving my calories for the Red Sox game.

7pm: friends come over to watch the game. We decide to try to imitate stadium fare, and have chips with guacamole (about a pound of it), corn dogs (I had two), southwest egg rolls (the Friday's version sold in the frozen food section), jalapeno poppers (also Friday's), toll house ultimates chocolate and peanut butter cup chunk cookies (or something like that) and of course like a case of beer. Oh yeah, and queso dip.

Sunday: slept horribly due to all the junk. Too tired to run.

am: granola bar for breakfast. Work is really busy, nothing during work.

3pm: eat a banana after grocery shopping. Not doing too bad! Get home and realize my husband doesn't want to do anything even though it's gorgeous out so I read a magazine and eat the rest of the jar of queso dip and half a bag of tostitos scoops.

6pm: Feel guilty so go for a 3 mile walk, inadvertently stopping on the way at the store for a king size bag of m&ms..oops!

7pm: watch the Red Sox game, eat dinner (steak, potatoes and corn).

10pm: read before bed while eating about 1/2 the m&ms....

And that brings us to today. So far so good....and I'm starting this challenge with my goal being to cut out junk food (anything that isn't borderline nutritious) and lose 5lb in the 21 days. I will have my first weigh-in tonight, and will let you all know what it is to keep me honest! Any advice on how to curb junk food cravings (or how to cut yourself off if you've fallen off the wagon and are thinking about a real food bender..) is greatly welcome.

Good news from this morning is that I won something! I participated in last week's Free Stuff Giveaway over at Runners' Lounge, and won a t-shirt from One More Mile! Can't wait to see it...I'll have to link a picture. But yay! I never win things! The Giveaway question was about what you listen to while running. If anyone cares what my answer was, it's here.

Bad news from this weekend the Red Sox lost last night in game 7 of the ALCS. But the Rays won, so I'm happy for another team making history!

**edit: due to my dietary downfalls, I am very excited about this week's TiaRT topic...hope you all have some great tips ready!