Weigh In #15

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!

We had a great Christmas at our house this year. Family was in town for an extended stay. There was shopping, singing, worship services at church, presents abounding, and holiday treats. And there was Christmas dinner. Oh wow, was there Christmas dinner.

My wife makes some of the best traditional holiday meals so I especially love it when she gets to cook for everyone. This year was actually a little bit smaller meal. She is used to cooking for about 15 people (she has a big family) but there were 8 at the house this year (and one of them is 1 year old). But it was still an incredible meal...

We had roast turkey that I didn't so much as carve as I did just shake it off the turkey. It was literally fall off the bone tender. Inside the bird was her incredible homemade stuffing. I could eat that until I popped. Especially with the gravy she made in the bottom of the roasting pan after I took the bird out. And that gravy goes so good on top of whipped potatoes (with some Happy Cow butter and maybe a hint of cream...). And then, right there on the side of the plate where it looks like it might get pushed off the side by the mounds of other food is that golden brown wonder of sweet potato, butter, and brown sugar - candied yams!

And what's Christmas dinner without pie? Nothing, I tell you! So we had some pumpkin pie, an apple pie, and one of my Dad's favorites: egg custard. I ended up with 2 slices that night.

One thing did hamper my enjoyment of all. Since I have been eating less at each meal for the past 15 weeks, I guess my stomach has gotten smaller. I just could not eat as much as I thought I wanted to. It was actually frustrating. I was expecting to gobble up a mountain of food but had to stop somewhere in the foothills. I guess that was a good thing overall.

One thing that I think helped offset the indulgence on Christmas (and Christmas Eve... whoops!) was the fact that I moved about 3 rooms of furniture (2 of them up and down stairs) on Wednesday and Saturday. I know I burned some calories then.

Which leads me up to stepping on the scale, finally, on Sunday morning. And the results....

280.5

Kinda shocked me. I expected to stay even or go up a little. I guess moving furniture, eating right the rest of the week, and throttling back on the mountain of food paid off.

So that's more dollars added to the pledge total for Love146.org over on the right sidebar. Each quarter I donate the pledged funds built up so far. I also let my friendly sponsors know their tally so they can donate as well.

If you are interested in sponsoring me as I (and others) support Love146.org in their efforts to end human trafficking and restore those people freed from it, drop me a comment below, email me, send me a message on twitter, or friend me on facebook and I'll add you to the sponsor list.

You can also donate directly to Love146.org any time you like by clicking the donate button over on the right sidebar.

Thanks for your support and I'll see you in 2010!

Background image photo credit to flaivoloka.