Chocolate and skinny jeans?

There's no picture today. I meant to take a picture. Honestly. But when you put a chocolate cupcake on the table, the camera drops to the floor as the mouth starts to drool.

But I'm ahead of myself.

Today is Tuesday, which is supposed to be Tune-Up Day. Just for the record, I'm doing really well on the diet. It's been 11 weeks, and I've lost a 31 pounds. Which is more than 10% of my starting body weight. I've still got quite a bit to lose, but I'm ridiculously pleased with myself. I'm not ready to put on a bathing suit yet, but I find myself walking around with my tummy pulled in and my chest puffed out to emphasize my new figure. Weight Watchers is totally the best thing I've done for myself in a long time.

I'm finding that staying on plan is not always easy, but it's do-able. There have been a couple of occasions that I start to feel sorry for myself because I can't have this food or that food. (And actually, I can have anything I want as long as I count the points for it.) But finding ways to "treat" myself that don't cost a lot of points (calories, fat grams) helps to keep those times to a minimum.

Diet soda cupcakes are definitely a treat that I have to keep around. When I first heard about this recipe on the Ravelry Weight Watcher forum, I had my doubts. It was too easy, and couldn't possibly work. But just for fun I tried it with my client. I used to bake with him almost weekly, but haven't had him in the kitchen since starting the diet. So it was way past time to let him bake something. If the cupcakes didn't turn out, it wouldn't be the first time I've had to throw out something he tried.

Much to my surprise, the diet soda cupcakes turned out to be delicious. We shared them with staff and students, and there were several people coming back for seconds and thirds.

The recipe is very easy. Take a box of cake mix, and add a can of diet soda. And that's it. Just put the batter into lined cupcake tins, and bake as directed on the box. We used a chocolate cake mix with diet cherry Coke. I've been told that a white cake mix with diet root beer is also very good, and that will probably be the next combination we try. The calorie/fat/fiber count is just whatever the box mix lists. (You do have to do a little math to figure out the per portion numbers, but if you're that interested and need help just let me know.)

I'm going to tackle pumpkin pie next, since Thanksgiving is just around the corner. So stay tuned, there may be another recipe to share.