I love Girl Scout cookies — and not just because I was a proud Girl Scout for more than five years.

But I always struggle with eating too many of these ridiculously yummy (and “limited time only”) cookies. Last year, I went through an entire sleeve  of Thin Mints in one day without blinking (thanks, Main Bloat).

But how bad was that @fatroll fail?

Luckily, our pals at the Girl Scout Council of Central Texas provided me with some helpful (and not so helpful) links via Twitter (@GSCTXcouncil) for the low-down on where to get cookies and how much damage they’ll pack onto the @fatroll.

Let’s start with the most helpful — the Cookie Booth Locator! In the Austin-area alone, there are more than 880 booth locations of troops who have set up shop at local stores. So there is no way to avoid the cute little girls trying to sell you the @fatroll fails. Avoiding their door-to-door antics is futile, my friends. (That’s why I bought two boxes without getting out of my PJs on Sunday… why fight it?)

The other helpful (or horrible) link provided was the Nutritional Facts. So that sleeve of thin mints? It had about 16 cookies in it, or four servings of the yummy, chocolately, minty desserts. That’s 640 calories and 32 grams of fat!!! For me, that’s about an hour-long run — on top of my regular workout. Ick. Or worth it?! I DON’T KNOW!! They’re so good…

This week, I tried out the most @fatroll friendly of the Girl Scout Cookies, the Daisy Go Rounds. They are 100-calorie packs of goodness. Think of them like a smaller, thinner version of the shortbread cookies (but a little sweeter). Both Justin and I gave them a whirl and liked them. But the problem with them is I still want to OD on Thin Mints after eating them. They just didn’t satisfy my craving.

So my rating:

(That would be 3 out of 5 *stars*)

Next week, I’ll taste test the peanut butter sandwich cookies.

If you still want to support your area Girl Scouts, but don’t want the horrible guilt that comes from eating an entire box, check out Operation Cookie — a way to donate Girl Scout cookies to our troops!

I guess let’s start with the good. I’m back down to the weight I was at prior to a three-day fat fest – a.k.a. new business pitch in Los Angeles. Being stressed, main bloated and having hordes of food in front of you at any given moment so you can remain focused on working (and with little to no time to workout), must be the ultimate @fatroll scenario for gaining weight. That doesn’t sound so good now that I read that back.

The “really” bad news then? After doing the math, for the past month I’ve been hovering around the same weight (give or take a pound). That is beyond frustrating. I suppose the only silver lining is friends and family saying they’re noticing a difference. They either read the blog or being nice, or they’re telling the truth.

But after recommitting to working out extra hard and eating right during the past two months, why is it becoming so difficult to lose the remaining 17-18 pounds to reach my goal weight? Yes I’ve lost nine pounds since I’ve started this – which is awesome and I’m proud of my hard work – but when am I going to see the results of this work in dresses falling off of me, jeans easily being pulled off without unbuttoning (cough cough… Ashley…), etc.? Is this that dreaded plateau people speak of? Should I label my self an “at-risk” @fatroll flunkout?

Or are more sinister plans at work? A quick Google of “gaining weight while working out” took me to a plethora of sites explaining what may be the cause of my woes. I ended up reading a great article on MSN written by Martica Heaner, who is a physiologist, nutritionist and fitness instructor (sheesh… over-achiever). Unfortunately, none of her great tips work for me. I am counting my calories and making sure I’m adding extra when I work out more. I’ve been tracking my weight for the past several weeks and weighing at the same time – so this isn’t necessarily a fluctuation issue. I wear a heart rate monitor so I know exactly how much I’m working out.

Grrr. So I ventured over to my favorite fitness magazine, Fitness Magazine J The search results for the term “weight gain” – a myriad of excuses, including thyroid disease, giving birth, your friends (!!), your guy (HAHA), job, and so on. Then I finally found something that made sense (on the fourth or fifth page of search options). Here’s what Barry Levin, a doctor and professor at the New Jersey Medical School in Newark:

When you first begin to shed pounds, your metabolic rate slows, your energy use becomes more efficient, and your brain starts sending SOS messages that you’re hungry. By the time you’re down to the last 10 pounds? Your body is fighting to recover and will hang on to every ounce tighter and tighter.

Another good pointer:

Another good way to gauge whether you’ve lost enough weight is to consider your body fat, says Dr. Levin. The simplest test is to see where it’s deposited. “If it’s in your stomach, you probably ought to keep trying, since abdominal fat poses a real health risk for everything from diabetes to breast cancer.” See “The Best Way to Beat Belly Flab.” But if the fat is in your hips and butt and your body-mass index is within the healthy range (18.5 to 24.9), Dr. Levin suggests rethinking your desire to lose those last 10 pounds. “They’re probably not medically harmful, and in trying to get rid of them, you’ll be triggering all of those protective mechanisms that in turn make it even harder to mobilize the fat,” he explains.

I hold most of my weight is in my stomach – and has been my whole life. So it sounds like I still need to keep going, and this is just the result of my brain over-thinking my actions. Hopefully in the next few weeks, that will change. But how? Here are some recommendations from the same article:

• Scrutinize the diet: For me, I’ve started imputing what I plan to eat for that day in the morning – usually keeping me from craving that cupcake down the street.
• Continue cutting additional calories: Luckily, my trusty LoseIt app does this automatically for me, but as you lose weight, your body doesn’t need as much – so be sure to reduce your intake every couple of weeks.
• Increase the number of calories you burn: I’ve started doing interval training at the gym on the elliptical, and I’m about to try some walk/sprint routines on my runs. My workouts will probably be the same length, but just different – and more intense, leading to greater calories burned (hopefully).
• Switch the workout to a different part of the day: I suppose the trick is to keep your body guessing. I’ll admit the last few weeks I’ve been doing the same routines the last few weeks. NO MORE! I’m switching it up, and trying some morning, noon and evening workouts to stay motivated.

Hopefully I’ll start seeing some results of this renewed diligence in the coming weeks – I’ve got a contest to win! (Only 70 more days to go!!)

Came up with this term ourselves. By happenstance, while discussing last week’s weigh-in results, the email chain produced such a glorious term.

“Main Bloat” refers to the time period in which you retain the most water and feel extremely fat. This tends to occur during a woman’s menstrual cycle.

There’s really no differentiation between a normal human sentence and a @fatroll sentence:

“I wish that’s where the three pounds came from; unfortunately, the main bloat was last week. I’m just three pounds heavier”