Yes I said not thinking about the diet. I intended on tracking what I was eating, taking daily walks with my oldest daughter and not giving into the holiday temptations (pumpkin pie, chocolate pie, stuffing and loads of mashed potatoes). What I intended and what actually occurred, well let's just say they didn't necessarily meet in the middle! The first thing that I failed at was tracking the food that I ate. We left Wednesday evening and that was the last time I entered anything into my Lose It! app. Now I don't want you to think that I was shrugging off my responsibility to my diet... it's just that I thought that I could do this eating thing without tracking for a few days. Besides that, I wasn't the one cooking so I didn't know how many calories the food would be! I know mashed potatoes are just mashed potatoes, but I needed to know butter amounts, what type of milk used, etc. in order to correctly calculate out the calories. And trust me, I wasn't asking all those questions while a family member was cooking dinner and playing hostess to close to 30 people. So I winged it... ate what I thought would be smaller portions; ate those things that I thought would be less in calories; and I didn't go back for seconds, instead I was happy with what I ate the first go round.
So my second fail was believing that I would actually exercise while I was in Michigan. I told my oldest daughter that I wanted to walk at least 2 days of the 4 that we were there. Ummmm... yeah that didn't materialize. I did have feelings of guilt because all it would have taken was a 2 mile walk to achieve the feeling that I was going for. But honestly, I kept thinking that the reason why we were in Michigan was for family. I know a 2 mile walk wouldn't have been hours upon hours away from them, but it was still time away from them that I didn't want to give up. We don't see these family members daily or even monthly, so our time with them is precious. Not giving up time with them meant that I had to be OK with not exercising. Definitely something that I could live with!
The third fail for me was the holiday temptations. I LOVE PUMPKIN PIE! I LOVE STUFFING! I LOVE CHOCOLATE PIE! And then to top it off, there was cheesecake! Oh My Goodness... all the temptations and I didn't want to give in to eating them and I didn't want to give in to not eating them. So I compromised. I had a small serving of stuffing and skipped the bigger portion of mashed potatoes that I would have loved to have had. I did eat a dessert, but skipped the pumpkin pie. Instead I opted for a fruit based pie and only ate a small slice. Now we had another family dinner on Saturday and again the temptations of pie were there, and I had a little slice of the chocolate pie and a sliver of cheesecake (trust me before I would have eaten 2 large pieces of each and probably went back for seconds). It felt good to eat those things. I think if I would have skipped them on Thanksgiving, it would have made it worse at the family dinner on Saturday. Yes I ate pie and I am proud of it!
So how did i fail... I gained 1 pound for the week. Yes it is a gain, and yes that is not the objective. But I think of it as a win and not a fail. You see, people gain on average of 5 pounds over the Thanksgiving holiday. Also, I know that in the past that I have stuffed myself to the point of being sick just because things "tasted good". I never felt stuffed and never felt that I deprived myself. I felt satisfies with how things went and what I ate. Yes I gained a pound... but that's a win for me and at this point in the game, I will take it!
Oh by the way... I do feel a little bit more prepared for the Christmas holiday. Hoping for another win for me then :)
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