Sunday

What a day! Yesterday was ridiculously hot. We were outside briefly, while we ran errands and it was amazing how that wall of heat just hit you.

We went out to dinner with some new friends. My husband went to college with a woman that is moving to the area because of her husband's new job. They arrived in town yesterday to start exploring and house hunting, but he starts work on Monday. We met at the Melting Pot. It was a great evening of visiting, eating and a bit of wine drinking. As we walked back to the car, in a much cooled down temperature, my husband commented that he didn't think you ate as much food there as you normally would. I think that the fact that you eat over a 2 hour plus timeframe allows your body to feel full sooner. I did my best to be conscientious about what I chose. With the cheese fondue course, I stuck with broccoli, cauliflower and apples for dipping in the cheese. I know that the cheese may not have been healthy, but by choosing fruits and veggies over bread, I reduced total calories in that course. For the salad course, I did the dressing on the side and used very little of it. They have these Parmesan encrusted pine nuts that they put on their Ceasar salad and they were wonderful! For the main course, we used vegetable broth for cooking - again a healthier option than oil or wine. I focused on the shrimp and only had a couple pieces of the filet and chicken. I had mostly broccoli and just one potato. Dessert - well, it was dessert and I allowed myself to indulge. I sent them an e-mail asking for nutritional data, but based on a chart that I found online - the cheese fondue was around 300 calories, the salad around 154 (plus a bit of dressing), the protein prepared in the broth was around 335, and the dessert about 400 calories. I certainly went over...but it could have been worse!

This morning I struggled for motivation, but I knew that I had splurged last night and the scale didn't show it, so if I moved, I could recover and be on the road to losing again. I got going and surprisingly, I was able to push myself to do 5 consecutive laps - 1 1/4 miles. Then, I was only going to do one more lap, but pushed myself to do 3 consecutive laps. So, I wound up running over 8 laps of the 10 lap workout at the track. I was very proud of myself. When I walked in the door, my daughter reminded me that I had promised we could mop again soon. So, I got the opportunity to fit in a quick vacuum and mop. Then, I did Day 7 of the 30 Day Ab Challenge that I had skipped the night before. All of this before 9 am!

Today should be an easier day for eating. There are no social plans or crazy schedules. It will be good to get my body back to normal intake. There have been enough things - 4 picnics, 1 night out and friends visiting this last week to leave my body unsure of what 'normal' should be. I am sure that I will find my belly growling at strange times, since I haven't had a normal schedule of eating in a few days. I will be strong and ignore it if I know that I have eaten well.