Happy spring! Here is the photo from outside yesterday. As you can see, we have had our third snowstorm of March! It doesn’t feel very springlike.

This weekend, I took my ladies to Washington Ballet’s performance of Cinderella. Afterward, we took a brief stroll by the Jefferson Memorial where we checked in on the cherry blossoms (nowhere near blooming) and the spring break tourists hanging out on the steps near the Tidal Basin.

The past week was a little rough for my diet and exercise routine. I was exhausted from all the work caring for everyone’s illnesses and slacked off a bit on my exercise. I started level 2 of the DDPYoga DVDs. The workouts get quite a bit tougher and longer too! There are two new routines, one at about 30 minutes and the other, a killer at 50 minutes. As a mom, it is really hard to get in a 50-minute workout. Small children can only behave for so long. I liked the routines in level 1 because they were only 20 minutes, which was perfect for me.

I did stick with my diet, however, even though that got really tough.

On Wednesday, I was so sick of eating salad greens. I didn’t want to see any more lettuce! So, I had to be creative with some of the vegetables in the fridge and came up with some more new salads.

My favorite salad was this one, though. Instead of lettuce, I grated a raw zucchini for my salad base. The asparagus was so perfect looking. I steamed it lightly and added some grilled salmon. Delicious!

During the week, however, I decided that I had hit my goal weight. I liked the way I looked and my clothes fit exactly the way I wanted them too. I told my husband that whatever weight I happened to be on Sunday was the weight I “should” be. I don’t need to lose any more than this.

I looked forward to weighing in on Sunday to find out what this weight was. So, how did the weigh-in go?

If these kind of results had happened the first week, it would have been very depressing. But by week three, it was OK for me. In total, I have lost 12 ½ pounds and 7 ½ inches!

This week, the challenge is to adjust my diet again so that I can maintain my new weight. The good news is that this means more calories! But that’s also the scary part too. Once you are used to eating so little, you worry that if you start to eat more you will go right back to where you started. My fear is that I will end up having to do this diet again, which I desperately do not want to repeat unless I have to!

My plan is to use the calorie counter for my desired weight at MayoClinic.com as my guide. MayoClinic has not steered me wrong yet with their calorie guidance. I am still sticking with salads and oatmeal this week but will gradually ramp up the calories by adding some more snacks and weigh in each day to make sure I am not going over where I should be. I really don’t want to end the week weighing more so I will cut back where I need to.

One more week left of only healthy stuff! Looking forward to Sunday to celebrate my progress!