Holidays Ahead!

I got past my 45 pound goal and am within 10 pounds of my "level one" goal: "I want to lose AT LEAST this much!"  As I close in on it, I can see that I will want to keep going a bit more, even though there are a lot of holidays to get through.
This week I sampled the "new" cinnamon pretzels and I have to say they are a BIG disappointment. I loved the original ones and now they messed with both the flavor and the texture. This was a go-to pre-made food for me and it is not good that they have changed it so dramatically. They don't even taste like cinnamon anymore-- or like pretzels.

I have been struggling to stay on track. I was getting lazy about making sure I was prepared every day and being sure I stuck to the program limits. Today, I was looking for something else and looked in my plan booklet and noticed, for the first time, that they state a carb limit of 80-85 grams for optimal weight loss. I looked at my last two weeks and noticed my carbs were a between a third more and double that. So, I now have a little more incentive to stay on track. (They were really high because I had been eating some "off plan" foods like walnuts and had been eating out too!)

I made a "practice" Thanksgiving meal today and it worked out pretty good. I made stuffing from the Medifast crackers, used roasted chicken I had on hand, made cauliflower "mashed potatoes" and mashed butternut squash.  I also made some gravy from a mix that is Fat free and very low carb.  Later, I made a Medifast pudding but added sugar free caramel flavoring and some pumpkin pie spice to the vanilla. This was pretty satisfying. I was surprised how flavorful the stuffing turned out and it made half a cup, which was a good size.  For the real T-day with family, I can add a small salad too. I could make it less carbs by having a different vegetable other than the squash.  I still have one more Medifast meal to get in today and I will be under my limits, even with this big meal.

This week I am busy with a lot of meetings  during and "after" work hours, so that will be a  challenge.
So will Wednesday when I have to go right from work to the gym, come back and pick up subs from our sub sale, drive them back to work, and be ready for a meeting at 6:30, all the while smelling those subs. I can't eat these yet, but I did order one for myself, thinking I would discard the bread and have something to eat while doing all this running around. If I get my act together, I can maybe make some sort of bun to put the insides in... we'll see.

I decided not to attend the Pasta Auction this year ( it is this Friday) since I can't eat pasta! I could eat the meat sauce (although it would be high in calories and carbs) and the salad, if I brought my own dressing, but I just didn't feel like dealing with it. I want to concentrate and get these 10 pounds off.
Hopefully, I will be back on track for real this week!