You are so hilarious!

Enjoy your pizza, I read a long time ago if you eat a piece of pizza with a lot of guilt, it will cause you so much more damage than if you mindfully enjoy and savor the same piece of pizza. The study said that negative guilty feelings about the foods we consume cause cortisol levels to sky rocket! The cortisol levels on the folks enjoying the food were minimal (I will try to search for study).

I'm sure the 5 pound gain is mainly because of the salt...I do see big fluctuation in my weight when I eat out! it usually goes back to normal after 3 or 4 days.

I track it, even if its not my best choice -- that is to say, the pizza goes on the tracker; I had a Starbucks cranberry scone on vacation; and I came home weighing 119, which is less than when I went.

I think our occasional wanderings are good for the soul; I think habitually it would lead me down that path to bad health again. Moderation (even i moderation)!

Personally, nothing tastes as good as being thin feels is my mantra right now. That doesn't mean I don't eat yummy things. I just tell myself that eating a lot of it isn't worth the risk of gaining more weight. Keep in mind I lost 118lbs and regained 60 so to me, it's really not worth gaining more when I'm trying to lose the regain. The point is that you can have it, but in moderation. Stuff tastes awesome, but nothing tastes as good as the way I felt when I was a size 4. I felt amazing. Now I feel like the fat girl in the room again. I want the vibrant, healthy feeling I had back. Now, people saying it who have never been thin before don't really know the feeling of getting there only to gain weight again. I say it more as an "I learned my lesson" type of thing. You can't really say nothing tastes as good as being thin feels if you've never been thin. Moderation. Drinking a bottle of wine does NOT taste so good to be worth how I'll feel about over doing it afterward, and isn't worth the setback I'll face that will interfere with me losing the 60lbs I gained BECAUSE of the things that tasted so good.

Having NEVER been thin, at almost 40 years old, I hope I can get to the place you are. Surgery is 8/29/18 and I'm so looking forward to the weight loss but am anxious about never being able to eat my favorites again (i.e. funnel cake, candy apple, pizza etc.) It literally feels like I'm slowly losing a terminal friend. That's how serious my food is to me! It's also a little concerning to know that I could overeat to the capacity you mentioned ever again. So I'm hoping the "NOTHING tastes as good as being thin" adage is true.

I ate some potato skins yesterday - they were awesome 3 and I was stuffed but oh they were good. Baked so not too bad