Don't keep inklings to yourself.

"Strength is the capacity to break a Hershey bar into four pieces with your bare hands - and then eat just one of the pieces." - Judith Viorst (The author of Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day was born on this day in 1931)

I am a reader. On a bright sunny day you will most likely find me sitting inside on the couch with my Kindle next to an Aussie Shepherd who is staring me down and telepathically begging for a walk. Most of the time, the telepathic Aussie wins and I postpone my reading to take him on a walk or play out in the backyard. I'm only mentioning this because everyday I get a quote emailed to me from Goodreads and that's the only reason I even heard of the above quote. But how appropriate is that? I mean, I ate three M&Ms the other day. THREE! And the whole bag was staring me in the face (and telepathically) willed me to eat the rest. And I resisted. So thank you, Goodreads. For putting into words the strength I felt for resisting the damn bag of M&M's.

I weighed myself this morning to find that I've lost an additional three pounds since last week's weigh in. When I weighed in at class, I the scale told me I only lost a pound and a half. After the workout, the scale was much nicer and it told me I weighed four pounds less than last week. No matter how you swing it, I lost weight this week so I need to stay positive. No doubt I was the heaviest person who weighed in at class today. There was someone who weighed in at 117 pounds and she was stressing over it. That is really hard for me to deal with and it makes me a little peeved. It actually made me uncomfortable to stand on the scale. I have confidence issues as it is and I don't want other people to witness the number on the scale. Usually when I have these moments, I am naked in the bathroom with the door closed.

Other than the weigh in, the workout was fabulous. Thursdays are the lower body workouts and of course, we had our classic cardio workout. I felt more coordinated and balanced today during the high speed portion of the workout. Something I learned years ago is that working out the glutes burns the most calories because it's the large muscle. When you do lunges or squats, you need to make sure you engage your glutes and the easiest way to do that is to put weight on your heels, not your toes. I've been having a lot of trouble with this at workouts but tonight I didn't have to focus so much on it and my body naturally just did it. Engaging my abs (belly button to spine) was also much better. One thing that is nice is I can feel a difference in my posture. Thank you, Tuesday core circuits!

This weekend is going to be a huge challenge and a never ending test. My parents and in-laws will be in town and we are going to a dinner hosted at my husband's school. If I can accomplish one goal it will be to NOT eat the rice pilaf. I will not eat the pilaf. I will have my husband's portion of salad and I will not eat the rice pilaf. The rice pilaf will not get into my head. I will not eat the rice pilaf....