Getting (back) into the groove

So the one thing I despise more than packing is unpacking and that is what I finally did today after returning yesterday from our vacation.  I have been a really bad procrastinator pretty much my whole life - hello!  check out anything I've written regarding my weight loss and you can stop being shocked.  I'm not sure what it is.  I keep waiting for there to be an interview on the Today Show with Dr. Nancy Snyderman saying that procrasitnation is a disease that can be treated with large amounts of chocolate medication.  Until that day comes, I just need to learn how to manage myself.  Hell, writing this blog is procrastinating....but it is quite fun. :)

One of the things that depresses me about returning from vacations is getting back into the reality you left behind.  The day-to-day chores and responsibilities you were able to ignore now come screeching back to you and can be avoided no longer.  One of those things was reading my emails from my work account.  Now, I'm a teacher, but I'm also the cheer coach and you can just imagine what kinds of drama can occur in a 24hr period of time working with so many teenage girls and their parents.  Reading and responding to those emails took up a good chunk of my morning.

Another thing that gets me to reach for the tissues, sad that I'm back home, is stepping on the scale to see exactly how much vacation weight I accumulated.  I have yet to do that, but I can say that I stepped on the scale a few times at my mom's (who by the way is a WW junkie and lifetime member and is awesome about making low cal/low fat meals when I'm there) and saw that I lost about 3lbs in a week - YEA!  But I'm still slightly heavier than the last time I actually logged my weight on WW.com - BOO!

I did try a recipe from Skinny Italian last night: Pasta Cacio E Pepe.  It was very simple needing only 1lb of spaghetti, 2 cups of fresh ground pecorino romano cheese, salt, and pepper.  The key, however, is to make sure you save about 1 cup of pasta water to add back to the spaghetti to help the cheese make a sauce.  I remembered this step right as I watched the last drop of water leave the pot. FUUUUUUUCK!  I added some regular water and the dish still turned out ok*, but leave it to me to screw this up.  It was tasty though and I appreciated the "lightness" of the dish.  Tonight I think I'll try Chicken Breasts with Lemony Thyme Marinade.  We'll see how that experiment goes!

*FYI - the reason you want to add pasta water rather than more water from the tap is because the starches from the pasta, and the flavoring from salting the water, help out more so than regular plain water.