So I survived my first full week of the Keto Diet and I must say, it isn’t so bad!!

It’s been slow at work, and usually that freed up a lot of time for mindless snacking, but I’ve been quietly snacking on my low-carb stuff and being good :).

I weighed in on Tuesday, which marked 1 week, and I’d lost 3 pounds. I’d started at 123 and was down to 120. I had told Jorge that if I lost 3-5 pounds the first week, I’d call it a success and continue with it. So now I had to hold myself accountable LOL.

The girls made their own pizzas for dinner on Tuesday night and I made myself and my love our carb-free dinner, which I can’t remember what I made at the moment, heh.

Wednesday was the day Gerry had set up for our Administrative Assistants night out at Artsy Pots, thanks to our boss. Everyone was taking their own wine and there’d be snacks, so I was nervous about it. I didn’t know if I’d be able to control myself. When Michelle and I went to Feldman’s and I found a Skinny Girl Peach Margarita, I was giddy, and bought it.

It was awful. Never buy that crappola!

This was the spread:

Missing was the Subway sandwiches. I got some cream cheese, a teaspoon of hummus, 2 crackers, a slice of apple and the insides of a sandwich. I concentrated more on painting my muffin mug :).

I LOVED that place! I’d like to set something up like that with the kids during summer. They had so much stuff to choose from! I can’t wait to get them back, all shiny and bright :).

Jorge and Freddy were outside talking and Mom had already made dinner for the girls when I got home. I love these people :). I read with the girls, we watched some TV, I bathed them and put them in bed. I sat with the guys outside and headed to bed myself. I didn’t stuff my face when I got home, nor did I feel the need to! That’s progress!

I woke up on Thursday and weighed myself, just for the heck of it. I was delighted when I saw this:

6 pounds down from when I started just a little over a week before. WITHOUT EXERCISE!! I can imagine how much better I’d be doing if we WERE still jogging =\.

That evening was the ribbon cutting for Artsy Pots. Oh no, more food!!

But I kept seeing that 117 in my head and didn’t want to screw it up. I almost had a Margarita, but I had water instead. I had a few bites of cheese (I am THRILLED that I can have cheese with this diet, heh), 2 chunks of pineapple (I later Googled it and found out they have tons of sugar =\) and a few other non-carb things I can’t remember. The owner asked us to all take a cupcake, so I did, but gave it to the kiddos :).

I picked up the boys that evening. Mario had bagged up all my 80’s cups I’d left at the house, woo! The boys and I laughed about random stuff like we usually do on the way home :).

The next morning we got ready, I dropped the boys off, and when I came home I found Ruffles in the garage, perched on top of the freezer near the door. -_- He’s always trying to get out and when he does, he wants to get back inside LOL.

I took my Aly to school and we bought her a spirit shirt and I went to work. It was a busy morning, which made it go fast, thank goodness. I met my love and Marco for lunch and we went to the mall. I was worried about what we’d eat, but we found an alternative:

Bourbon chicken and veggies. Oh yes!!

I picked up the boys after work, stopped at Game Stop, and my love ordered pizza for the kids. I can’t even remember what I ate now, but I stayed away from the pizza, which that in itself is a victory!!

The next day I woke up to the smell of pancakes. It was torture. But I made myself some deviled eggs and had a chunk of brie cheese and my coffee (with sugar free hazelnut). It was satisfying.

I made lunch for the kiddos then Emily and I did some grocery shopping for the week and we got some snacks for the drive-in. It was a challenge finding stuff for Jorge and myself, but I found a few things.

It had been years since I’d gone (15 years or more) and had never been to this location. It would be interesting with all 7 kiddos for sure!

We got home, I gathered lawn chairs, blankets and the snacks. I made dinner for the kids, my love got home and we loaded the car and the kids, and we were off!

We ran into Norma and we caught up as much as we could in 10 minutes LOL.

We watched Olympus Has Fallen which was AWESOME. The little ones fell asleep even before Iron Man 3 began.

I spent the first 30 minutes of Iron Man 3 in line for the bathroom. It was ridiculous. But I still watched from the line, heh.

We had fun, the kids had fun, thank goodness. Emily said she wanted to go back tonight as I was tucking her into bed :).

We got home, tucked the kids into bed and crashed out ourselves.

In the morning we got up and I made breakfast.

One of my favorite breakfasts by far!

I was feeling weird, so I thought it may be my diet, but I checked myself on a Ketostick and I’m still doing pretty darn good. Jorge is impressed :).

We finished cleaning, got lunch for the kiddos and just chilled out, as much as we could with the little ones, heh. We tried going to the Indoor Market today but we got there late; which sucks ’cause the next one isn’t till August :(.

Emily went with a goal. As she clutched her dollar she said, “I’m gonna find a poodle.” Jorge and I looked at each other and smiled. “Ok, Baby,” I said.

Lo and behold, as we scanned over the last table selling toys, she proudly brings over a Share Bear poseable…and a purple poodle lol.

I didn’t find much. But I did find this:

And I’ve saved my spending money the past couple of weeks and have added these to my collection:

And I also got a mini OJ Sprite from Rainbow Brite, which was FREE!

I am expecting 2 other things, which Mom and Jorge got me for Mother’s Day, heh :). I can’t WAIT to receive them!!

Time for bed and time to get ready for another crazy Monday morning!

I’m alive; I know it’s been a while. Life’s gotten crazy (in a good way) and I never have time to update. Or when I do have time I pass out on the sofa…it’s awful. My body just *craves* rest these days.

But anyway. Two posts I have drafted will be up, hopefully this weekend. I never even finished with the girls’ birthday posts either. Blah!

So. About the title: yes. I’m going carb-free. And sugar-free, to boot. This is going to be a challenge for me. I love food. And I love sweets and baking sweets.

Jorge started the Keto Diet (very low carbs, no sugar) a week before my birthday when he saw that it worked for his friend Marcos. Marcos has lost about 35-40 lbs. in 2-3 months. Without exercising. WHAT.

I thought it was crazy; some of the things the diet encourages you to eat–such as eggs cooked in butter and coffee with butter–sounded INSANE to me!! That goes against everything I was ever taught! Jorge doesn’t actually eat that way; he eats lots of lean proteins and salads. He’s doing impressively well sticking to it. I was eating the same as I usually do: mostly-healthy food in small portions, but whenever someone (usually at work) waves a donut or cookies in front of my face, I’d eat it!!

I even felt like I was sabotaging Jorge’s diet. Twice in one week I ate carb-y stuff in front of him; one night I sat in BED (I vowed to myself I’d never eat in bed) while we watched American Dad and I polished off half a box of Philly cheese with Flamin’ Hot Cheetos. And he stole some, which is a no-no on this diet. And the next time we were watching a movie and I ate half a bag of Cool Ranch Doritos with Lay’s Ranch Dip on my own…and he stole some when he’d been doing so well. (Actually, the Ranch Dip is a good snack since it’s got 2g of carbs, but with pork skins, no joke. It’s the chips that are bad.)

So, when Jorge lost 15 lbs. in 1 1/2 weeks (20 so far, in about 3 1/2) and you could SEE it, I jumped on the wagon. I haven’t been doing very well doing the low-cal, sweets-in-moderation version I was trying, so I figured, why not? Sure, my cholesterol might jump up a few notches, but it’s only for a little while, until I can train myself not to NEED bread, or sugar. Especially donuts :(.

And it’s not like I haven’t done this before; I’ve already given up bread and sugar in 2008 because I had diabetes and I HAD to, whether I wanted to or not. It went away, 3 months later, and I did pretty good until a few months later when I started having sweets again. I’ve been fine since, but with the initial scare and both my parents having diabetes, and being 31 (Jesus!), I need to start taking care of myself.

It’s been a hard week; it was Administrative Professionals Day on Wednesday and our boss took us out to eat at Tony’s Romas. I’m proud to say I behaved myself, even though I really wanted to dig into the onion blossom, the BREAD AND BUTTER, the spinach artichoke dip, and chips and salsa :(. But I stuck with it. I keep hearing Jorge tell me, “If you try this diet and eat all those high fats, and you sneak in carbs when you’re not supposed to be “carbing up”, then you’re going to gain A LOT OF WEIGHT.” I CAN’T STOP THINKING ABOUT THAT. So instead I got my broccoli and cheese, grilled salmon and grilled veggies.

I had a lunch meeting on Thursday, and of course we ordered box lunches from Jason’s Deli. I LOVE those darn cookies; they’re probably some of my favorite cookies, ever. BUT I soldiered on and behaved myself.

The girls left to Mario’s for the weekend on Thursday night, so we spent an hour playing Hide Hello Kitty <3. I miss them!! When they left I headed to my love's job site. I'm super impressed with his work; this place is going to be THE PLACE to be. I can't wait to upload pics! We ate at Taco Ole. It was a rainy, cold night and menudo was perfect. That's probably the best part of this diet, heh. We unfortunately couldn't have the tea and chips, but we lived. We got home and this adorable thing was in the mail:

The last Slumber Popple I needed!! My love told me to offer a price and the seller went for it! I was thrilled. And I blame Pinterest for making me become obsessed again!!! I wish Pinterest had been around back then, when I was really into collecting. Creating wishlists and keeping track of what I had would have been so much easier!

Yesterday was our Golf Tournament at work. I knew I was going to have trouble. First, all us girls at work took a fruit and we had fruit for breakfast before our crazy day.

I had some, about a cup and a half. No waffle cone and no bananas. Jorge said as long as I ate my sugar in the morning, I’d burn them off, especially because it was in the morning. I didn’t even have my coffee; and that’s probably why I ended up with a splitting headache. My morning started with the girls at registration.

I hate that angle, but we’ll blame the boobs for making me look chunks, yes? 😛

After lunch (fajita tacos, no tortilla), Wally and I headed to the Margarita Tent, which we manned for the next 3 hours. It was torture.

I caved in to the peer pressure and had one. JUST ONE. I’m disappointed that I had one, but I’m proud that I didn’t allow myself to have more!

When my shift changed to hole-in-one spotter (I loathe the fact that I’m the only girl who has to do that!!!!) I snacked on sunflower seeds and water. And tried staying awake, which was insane since my head was pounding.

We ate dinner (grilled chicken and salsa for me; no beans, rice or tortillas) and the door prizes/auction were over and we cleaned and finally got to head back to work to unload, had a celebratory toast of wine and then I went to my love’s current project again. I CAN’T WAIT to see this place completely finished!

We came home, ate dinner, and we watched a few eps of the Voice and I felt great and passed out.

Woke up in the morning and felt incredibly disgusting. My cold was back with a vengeance. And PMS–dear Lord, why!? I slothed in bed for about an hour after waking up.

I weighed myself. So far, according to my crappy scale, since starting the diet Monday night, I’ve lost 3 lbs. Which is good, I guess, considering I had so much sugar yesterday (right now I can only have a max of 20 carbs, eek!).

I made myself some breakfast and then Mom and I went to Home Depot to get fire ant killer (they killed my red Bougainvillea!!) & plant food, Kohl’s to return a blouse, Dollar Tree to get a few things, to visit Gramma, to Walmart, and to Dollar Tree again. And got home and made these:

Super easy recipe: a full leaf of lettuce, sun-dried tomato basil turkey, smoked Gouda and sliced avocados, lightly salted. Layer all in that order and roll :). So yummy!

Briana came over and we chilled out for a while. And now I’m sitting outside with the guys. I owe my staying up this late to cutting out the carbs and sugar, I really do. But we’ll see how it goes. I can do it. I have a dress to fit into in June!!

Of course I’m typing this up a month later than it actually happened! But it was such a AMAZING birthday I just have to document it! It was especially amazing because we didn’t have anything planned since Jorge and I both worked Saturday and neither of us had gotten Monday off. And my kiddos were at Mario’s for the weekend =\.

This post will be photo-heavy, as our adventures could be told with pics alone.

I’ll start from April 9th, 5 days before my birthday, when Jorge gave me the charms he went and picked at Kay Jeweler’s and Pandora, all by himself during his lunch hour :*). He even paid in cash so I wouldn’t see it on our bank account! He was seriously like an excited kid: jumping up and down and texting me randomly that he couldn’t WAIT to show me my gifts. And then he brought them out that night LOL.

Love them! My bracelet is now halfway full!

On Friday, April 12th, the entire staff had lunch at Tony Roma’s, courtesy of our boss and the owner of Tony Roma’s himself. That was pretty darn awesome. We closed down the office and everything.

We got ready to celebrate Sally’s birthday that evening (which is the 13th, the day before mine :)). Carlos had organized a surprise birthday party for her at Kobe Sushi. Jess met us there, too, and we waited for the guest of honor :).

She was simply stunning in all her 9-month pregnant glory!

Speaking of, you would have never guessed Jessica has a baby (much less 3!)!!

Jorge had begun the Keto Diet about a week before this, so he was watching what he ate and drank. He ordered sashimi, absolutely nothing carby (well, except a Michelob Ultra, heh). I was being mindful, but I still had sushi and a drink hehe.

Jorge, Jess and I chit-chatted; Sally and Carlos were on the other side of the grills so it was difficult to chat. We got to get up and chat once everyone was getting ready to go. The night was still young, so we made plans with Jess to go to Buffalo Wild Wings. We joked that we were starting my birthday celebration early :). We talked, ranted and just had a good time :). I still wasn’t much in the mood for drinking, so I only had one Margarita.

The next day was our BBQ Cook-Off at work. The day went by fast since I switched stations several times and the weather was AMAZING!!

My love and Marco stopped by to have lunch, which was great :).

5:30pm rolled around and our boss appointed me as “trophy girl” LOL. I wasn’t too into it, seeing as how one of the band’s band members had been staring at me the entire event and eventually told EZ that he wanted my number. To which EZ replied, “No way dude, she’s got kids and is married.” Not even that deterred him -_-.

Luckily, Wally took over most of the handing out of trophies (with the occasional one our boss wanted me to stand in on). Then it was 6pm, clean-up time, time for our 2nd annual group photo and then we got to leave home.

Jorge was on his way home, as it was “Night at the Brew-seum” and his company was one of the sponsors. He’d been working on this for the last few days and he said I was going to be amazed.

After we got ready (surprisingly fast for me!), we left in his car, and when we arrived one of his guys told him they’d forgotten a remote they needed. So back home we go, with Jorge muttering profanities, heh. We got the key to the van that the remote was in and when we opened the van…it wasn’t there! Then Jorge’s VIP tickets hadn’t arrived because his bosses hadn’t arrived. So he spoke to their marketing guy and all was well. Jorge got everything running manually, just in time! And man, was I amazed with he and his guys’ work!! Everyone was!

The rest of the night was the complete opposite of our hectic, high-energy start. It was a nice night out, the food was amazing, there was a Vineyard for people who don’t drink beer like me :).

I tried so much great food, but seriously, this ice cream sandwich from House.Wine was THE BEST DAMN THING EVER!!

Jorge enjoyed trying all these different types of beers, and we had some good laughs with the guys. I got to chit-chat with Jorge’s bosses for a while, too, so that was nice. Selene congratulated Jorge on such a great job and told him he deserved the day off on Monday!! Woohoo!!!

I also ran into tons of people I’ve met through work, Audrey’s parents, and Jeramie, but by then my darn phone was low and my flash wasn’t working so we didn’t get a photo together :(.

Jorge and I stayed late, since he and his guys had to pack up their equipment, but we didn’t stay for the VIP after party. We were beat! And we had a lunch date with my kiddos for my birthday the next day so we needed to be nice and rested :).

We decided on Dairy Queen. I had my favorite, a Reese’s ice cream cake. The kids loved it, too :).

We ate and laughed and just had a nice time :). We dropped them off and went home, and I made some coffee while we caught up on The Voice episodes.

Jorge said, “Let’s go to the beach. Right now. Let’s get a room.” I had a 20% off coupon for La Copa Inn at the beach from work, so it was perfect! We set up a reservation, packed, and were on our way :). I was already having such a great birthday; I didn’t think it could get any better! I texted my boss that I wouldn’t be in on Monday and he ok’d it :).

We sang out hearts out as we drove. It was great :). It was dark by the time we reached the island and we were starving since we didn’t really have lunch. We wanted to try Dirty Al’s, but they were closed so we went to Daddy’s. The atmosphere changed a lot since they moved locations, but the food was AWESOME:

We had tons of food leftover. It was safe to say Jorge was “carbing up” that weekend hehe.

We went to our hotel and checked in. The room was so nice!

We watched Game of Thrones for a bit and then a movie. Then we decided to take a midnight stroll on the beach :).

We got back and took full advantage of all the amenities of the room, heh. And it was truly one of the best nights of sleep at a hotel that I’ve had.

We had breakfast at the hotel the next morning and took our time checking out. We drove around a while, visited a few shops like Tuesday Morning, and called to do the horseback riding but were too late for the morning one and a few hours early for the next one. We decided to just take another stroll on the beach to get some exercise.

We walked at least 3 miles. We decided that was plenty and were ready to go home. We wanted to catch a movie before we had to get home to the girls.

We hadn’t had lunch, and we’d never been to Padreritaville, so we stopped by to have some appetizers and a drink. Our waitress was so sweet and had such a great time chit-chatting we actually stayed for quite a long while!

I made a quick trip to the ladies room and by the time I got back, there was a huge slice of chocolate cake and a crown waiting for me :). How awesome!!

We finished up, talked about how awful the Boston Marathon Bombings were. We’d been sitting right there when the news started announcing the tragedy.

As we drove home we saw a house with tons of bougainvilleas for sale. There were even some red ones!!

Jorge stopped by and got me my final birthday presents, one red and one medium pink bougainvillea!

We got home to the girls and just enjoyed the rest of the evening :). It was truly one of the best birthdays I’ve ever had, ever!

And it didn’t stop that day. Michelle treated me to lunch the next day and the guys joined us :).

Again: Best. Birthday. EVER!! So blessed with all the wonderful people in my life!!