The Xmas party was a ton of fun. We met up with good friends and were able to snag a table. (There's no assigned seating, so you pretty much have to gather your potential tablemates and just grab a table. It's kinda nutty.) One of the senior managers whom we both like (and his wife is so cool) got his award for 20 years of service, so we cheered for him pretty good.

Everyone liked my dress. Hee!

And by coincidence, Lisa -- the extra-cool lady who runs the medical office at my office -- was at an event down the hall from us, so she stopped by to say hi to me! I have confided in her re my weight travails, so I'm glad she got to see me looking hawt!

The food was pretty good, and the wine was decent. Hubby actually was in the mood to dance. We must have danced almost the whole last hour. My feet were killing me, but we had so much fun! It was the first party where Hubby and I stayed till the very end.

Then the smoke alarms wouldn't stop going off every couple of hours (no, nothing was burning), and the cats barfed on the rec room carpet and my warming blanket. Back to reality!

I was feeling porky after last night, so I decided to go back to counting points, for the structure. It was actually kind of fun to realize, "Hey, I can eat this!" Yes, yes, you can eat whatever you want on Core as long as you count points for non-Core list foods, but after last night, I have noooooo Weekly points left. I was going to go back to points when the kitchen went offline anyway, so what the hey? Might as well start now if I'm up for it. It's good to have two systems to switch back and forth whenever you get tired or bored. It makes you interested in what you're doing again. (For the record, at my weight, I'm on 23 points a day to lose weight.)

I feel kind of sad that the party is over. I had looked forward to it for weeks, especially when I realized I could wear my pretty dress after all. But I don't want to lose focus. I still have a few items of clothing I want to fit into again. I can make it happen!

Okay, off to bed. Then to get up in the morning and work out. Real life beckons, sadly!

So it seems like Saturday = lay around on the couch, and Sunday = more industrious for me. Okay, good to know! I'll schedule my workouts accordingly and not kick my own ass for chilling out on Saturdays. I'm certainly entitled to a day off now and then.

Last night, Hubby and I went out to Acacia in Lawrenceville for our anniversary dinner. The service was kinda mediocre, and there's no ambience to speak of, just one big dining room, very loud. A shame, because the food was quite good. Our wine choice, a California pinot noir, turned out to be very nice!

Today I did some high-powered treadmill time and burned 500 calories! And I ate strictly Core today.

I wasn't hungry until much later in the morning -- huge dinner will do that to you! -- but I didn't get to eat until after we hit Target and Whole Foods. I found myself wanting another bowl of cereal, but I was able to recognize how I was feeling, know that I might start sliding into unhealthy eating, so I made a nice protein-laden salad -- chicken, soy cheese, avocado, veggies and salsa. I think the Vitamin W might have helped me today! If it can help me reason my way into doing what I know is the healthy thing to do and help lessen my cravings, that would be enormous.

Oh, and I bought myself another new fitness gadget! I don't need it, but it will be fun to have. It's supposed to calculate how much exercise you need to do to improve your fitness or maintain. And it also suggests weight training exercises to do. I got it off of eBay for way cheaper than Amazon has it! Like I said, should be fun.

Hey, cool! Another 2.5 lbs down!

The WW.com site yelled at me for losing too much too fast. Why didn't it yell at me when I packed 10 lbs on in a week? That, I could have used.

Not only did I slice up a whole pineapple for the first time ever this evening -- and did a damn fine job of it as well -- I whipped up a lurvely yogurt dill sauce to go with tonight's dinner of grilled salmon! I love grilled salmon. I think I could eat it every other night quite happily. There's still some dill sauce left, and I think there's some canned salmon still in the pantry. That will make a lovely lunch for your resident Core Weight Watchin' goddess.

For those looking for more info on WeightWatcher's Core plan, here's my del.icio.us bookmarks relating to Core with lots of info and recipes. Also, here's an RSS feed so you can get updates if I add new items to my Core bookmarks.

Here are what I consider to the pros and cons of both plans, Flex and Core ( cut for the sake of those less interested ) Will write more later when I've actually accomplished something today.

What are we having for dinner this week? Glad you asked:

Sunday: Going out for a birthday dinner to my favorite seafood place, where I can get a wonderful Core meal!
Monday: Shrimp stuffed with crabmeat, with a soy-ginger glaze. A WeightWatchers.com recipe, and so good.
Tuesday: Turkey meatballs over spaghetti squash.
Wednesday: Creamy sweet potato soup, another recipe from the WW site. DH had a yam and squash soup while he was away in Illinois, and requested something similar. Never made it before, but I have high hopes.
Thursday: Turkey chili in the slow cooker.
Friday: Leftovers. I have decided to stop planning to cook on Friday nights. At the end of the week, I almost never feel like cooking. So we will have plenty of leftovers from other meals, and that will be fine.
Saturday: We're having our wine tasting party!

I'm still trying to decide what to make for the party. We usually do snack foods before wine is served, and one dessert. People tend to bring other things too. There's a recipe for crab-artichoke tarts on Cooking Light that sounds so excellent, and each one is only about 1 point apiece! Maybe I'll do that and find a Core veggie dip, so I can snack on veggies and dip with no problems. For dessert, I'm thinking of perhaps a fondue, so I can use my wonderful fondue pot that piglet_05 gave us as a wedding shower present!