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So, vacation was fairly low-key.

Saturday: raked leaves

Sunday: moved leaves

Monday: defeated by hard mountain soil - hired cute young man to till the area where I'll plant my daffodil's next time.   Finally ate lunch at Yonah Burger.  Yum and thank goodness it's too far away to become a weekly or even monthly habit.

Tuesday: drove on the Blue Ridge Parkway - beautiful.  No pics, though.

Wednesday: down day - I did some knitting, some reading and some thinking.  And some posting on this blog.  Committed to moving the line closer to my happy health

Thursday: still pretty much a down day - went to the local yarn  store that is "going out of business" (it's really just changing owners) and scored on some great yarn

Friday:  still pretty much a down day.  Lots of knitting

Saturday:  time to come home

Today - slowly getting back into the grove of things.   We went to Whole Foods for lunch.    Expensive but good.  And then some shopping: kale, wild rice, trail mix, cashews, lettuce, an apple for me, peanut butter (I LOVE their 365 brand - it has two ingredients: peanuts and salt).  Some ground beef and a chicken breast, and some butternut squash soup.

In a little while, I plan to do some cooking for the week:

Roast some peanuts for D
Make some healthier muffins for D (they aren't low fat or high fiber, but they are better than a pop-tart)
Make some salad for me (steamed broccoli, hard boiled egg, frozen english peas, and chopped lettuce, lightly tossed with an herbed vinaigrette that I made this morning)
Make some chicken and rice soup for me.

Lots of cooking - but I'm in the mood for it.  Fall does that for me.

About that line - so far, I'm keeping true to my commitment to log every day.  I LOVE the iPhone App I bought over the week.  It's free form on the food so that takes a while, but amounts are not necessary.  Instead what the app has helped me to do so far, is to start stopping when the food no longer has an appeal to me.  It reminds me to stay focused on eating. To eat slowly and taste the food.

As I've mentioned before, I have a tough time with the stopping part when it comes to mindful eating.  I almost always wait until I'm hungry to eat.  But in the past, I have almost always cleaned my plate regardless of my satiation levels.   This app changed how I look satiation.  It suggested looking at the pleasure I derive from the food.  And I have noticed that food starts to lose it's appeal when I'm becoming satiated.  And thinking of it as I'm no longer enjoying this so I'm going to stop is working for me.

The app - very simply called MindfulEating  by ViaLean

The result: I came home from vacation weighing 2 lbs less than I did the Tuesday before we left.   And I enjoyed some great food - chocolate cheese cake, carrot cake, a yummy hamburger (with mayo, but no cheese), home made potato chips, fried shrimp, shrimp bisque, roast pork, chili, etc.  The key this week, is that I didn't eat too much of anything and I stopped eating when the food no longer held any appeal.