Today is the last day of the 10 day “shred”, and I ended today with 5 calories to spare — wooo! Tomorrow, you can bet your butt I’m tossing a shot of espresso into that morning smoothie!

The “shred” was much easier this second time around, still craved all those things I couldn’t have but the craving were much more manageable.  The next 20 days are going to be tough, though.  Going an additional 20 days with no dairy or gluten is going to test what little will power I have.  That is a long, long, looooong time to go without cheese, and coffee creamer, and baguettes. 😩 But I am going to push through, I need to see where this will take me, I owe it to myself to see just how much the gluten may be affecting my ability to loose weight. I have no predictions about how this is going to turn out, not a clue.

So, today I made cupcakes for birthday treats for one of my daycare toddlers (don’t think I’ve mentioned yet that I run a daycare in my home). I usually have a few cake mixes tucked away for such occasions, but today I did not.  No big deal, I love to bake — especially desserts — so, I found a chocolate cake recipe and threw them together.  Not licking the paddle on my KitchenAid — pure torture. Not swiping my finger through the batter or licking the spatula — not fair. Smelling them bake — horrible. Not even tasting a single crumb of one of those cupcakes — nearing insanity. And lastly, not eating any of the cupcakes after I slathered them with cream cheese frosting — I think I found my own special hell on earth.

The holidays are coming up, and I do a lot of baking and candy making. This is going to get even tougher than resisting chocolate cupcakes!

But as for tomorrow, I will regain my caffeine, alcohol and minimal sugars. I don’t plan on truly indulging in any of those, I’ll still make sure most of my energy is coming from lots of protein and lots of fresh fruits and vegetables. Oh it’s gonna be nice to have coffee again, though…☕️