The Food Weekend

I could have done worse. That’s what I keep telling myself. The weekend of eating out went well for the most part. I ate out three times and once at the wedding. I had a salad at one restaurant, a veggie wrap with a side of fruit at another, and a grilled chicken sandwich (no cheese, bbq on the side) with a side salad at the third. I noticed that even though these meals were the better, if not the best, choices on the menu, they were still high in points and I could have made them at home for half the points. It’s hard not being able to control how much chicken breast you use or the type of bread. These things add up as do the bites of appetizers (which I had a few on Saturday and Sunday), which I will talk about in a bit.

The wedding was a different beast. I’m not a wedding-food type of girl. I’ve never found wedding meals to be particularly tasty, so I was a little worried about filling my body with mediocre food. If I’m going to put greasy food into my body, I would prefer to choose that food and make it worth the points, you know? But this wedding food on Saturday? It was pretty good. And I went from the mindset of “I will ask for extra veggies, even though they’re probably in butter and take the skin off my chicken” to “Mmmm! I never new twice-baked potatoes could be so good!” Yikes! I ate the whole plate save some breading on the chicken. And don’t even get me started on the cookies. I swear they were made by Jesus himself. I had one each time I walked by the cookie table (which is apparently just a western PA thing). Overall, I believe I had 8-10 cookies. Luckily I got a nasty headache so I couldn’t stomach too much wine (I wasn’t lucky with the headache, mind you, only lucky that the headache ruined my taste for wine, which is 3 points per 3 oz.). I estimated the whole evening to be worth 50 points, leaving me with 14 WP left. I used two of them last night on some frozen yogurt.

I haven’t been losing too much in the past few weeks. One pound, .2 pounds, .8 pounds. They’re all losses, and I’ll take them with a smile, but I have been reevaluating my habits as of late and realized that I’m getting pretty relaxed with my “bites” of food directly preceding my meals. Three or four bites of an appetizer don’t sound like much, but when it’s full of oil and cheese, that’s easily 5 points. I add it all into my meal, but if I would just abstain from those few bites then I wouldn’t have to dip into my weekly points later on when I get hungry. I’ve also been breaking out my small measuring spoons (seriously small – like ¼ tsp. small) to have a little peanut butter every day. The worst part about that? I DON’T TRACK IT!!! I just pretend that ¼ teaspoon of anything isn’t trackable, even if I have three helpings of it. This is what got me here in the first place. I am a snacker, big time. I pick and pull and nibble and then still eat my full meals. I seem to have a handle on my meals as far as healthy guidelines goes, so now I have to get this snacking under control. I cut it out completely when I started WW, and look how much weight I lost! Now that it’s creeping back into my life, my weight loss is slowing down. So no snacking this week. Let’s see how that reflects on the scale.

Speaking of which, I won’t have an official weigh-in for another two weeks. I decided against going to the WW center near my apartment. The new, healthy lifestyle isn’t going to stop just because I don’t have an official weigh-in for two weeks. Also, I’m kind of excited to do it on my own if just for a little while. I need to know it’s sustainable on my own. Of course, I will welcome my weekly meetings back with open arms in two weeks.

On a side note, I was sitting in my bathing suit on Clay’s couch yesterday morning about to go to the Y for some much needed wedding-calorie burn off. Then Clay said “today’s the 21^st. The pool is closed this week.” Bummer. I needed exercise badly, so I suggested a quick bike ride. We did 9 miles in an hour on the local trail in Greensburg and I felt much better about my day. Between the awesome running I did on Saturday and the bike ride yesterday, my legs are feeling pretty worked out today. Clay’s on a 112-mile bike ride as I type this. I don’t know what’s wrong with that kid. My ass hurts just thinking about it.