Monday was a really fun day. My work colleagues and I escaped from the office and spent the day hanging out together doing non work-related team building stuff, and as luck would have it, our day out fell on one of the hottest days of the year. I couldn’t help thinking, as we sat in under the shade of a big tree next to York Minster, just how lucky I was.
We landed in one of the local restaurants for lunch, and as I looked at the menu I could feel myself starting to get a bit anxious. I mean don’t get me wrong, it was a fabulous menu but there was no calorie details to be found anywhere. I even googled the name of the restaurant but despite scrolling through website after website promising nutritional details of every menu in the western hemisphere, I turned up a complete blank.
You know what I’m like…stuff has to be perfect. I’m either all in or all out and there’s no middle ground, so the thought of not being able to play by the rules of My Fitness Pal by logging the exact number of calories in my lunch freaked me out more than a little bit. I had to get over myself and navigate my food choices with a pinch of common sense, you know?
Garlic mushrooms for an appetiser, and don’t eat the bread or the sauce. Chicken for main, hold the fancy potatoes cooked in cheese and cream, and just give me green beans instead. I still had to estimate calories because I couldn’t weigh anything, but it was an educated guess based on the best food choices I could make out of what was on offer. And that’s just life, right? It can’t always be perfect.
I’m going to have to get used to it in any event, because I’m going on holiday tomorrow and I’ll be nowhere near a set of kitchen scales for the next week. My friend and I are going to Umbria in Italy, otherwise known as the land of pizza, pasta and ice-cream…I mean really, shoot me now.
As I explained to a very dubious looking God of Pain before my boxing session this morning, I am going to stick to some broad principles. There’s a gym, and my exercise gear will be coming with me so I can fit an hour in every day. We’re staying on a half board basis, and I don’t know whether it’s a buffet (in which case that’s fine I can make grown-up choices) or whether we get served whatever they’ve cooked (which might be a bit more of a challenge) but either way I am planning to remain refined-sugar free and go easy on the carbs.
I’m assuming there will be Wi-Fi…if not, since the hotel is an old restored castle perched on top of a hill there should be a decent phone signal, so I can continue to log my exercise and my food in MFP based on my best guess. It won’t be perfect, but I’ll work with what I’ve got.
I can’t wait. I’m going with my oldest friend, whose company is effortless. I’ve lined up a hundred books on my kindle, and I can’t wait for the views from our terrace, or the shady spot we’ll tuck ourselves into as we people watch and drink unbelievably good Italian coffee.
I’ll be back at the end of next week but as usual when I’m away, keep your eye on the Facebook page…I may get chance to share a few pictures. Have a great week everyone and see you on the other side…
Wahoooooooooooo….holidaaaaaayyyyyy!!! 🙂 🙂 🙂
So glad you had a chance to get away and relax! Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful!
Isn’t it! ?
I hope you have a great time Dee, but I one question. How in the world did you manage to give up sugar? That one is still a major problem for me. It sounds like a beautiful place to vacation, so have fun and take pictures for us!
Hi Joyce, giving up sugar is really hard for the first couple of days but you know what, once you get over that initial hump it stops bothering you. Honestly! X
Bon Voyage! Remember you don’t have to be eating to have fun! (That’s one it took me a long time to figure out.)
Yep, loud and clear Mimi ?
Hey, a quick note about logging: well, 2: we log like religion, but never use it as an excuse to fling away our plan & embrace failure – the power of C.I.C.O. logging is this. &, like any proper religion it has a built-in duality & contradiction. Log everything, be thorough, exacting, borderline obsessive, and also have a listing you can use for Random Party Crap, Italian Family Command Appearance Dinner, Local Cooks Pot-luck. A couple-hundred-calories’ worth entry.
I plug this in, after having eaten sparingly (?) or as sanely as i could manage of stuff that isn’t exactly exact. 1-1/2 units?
WWASGD? What-Would-A-Skinny-Girl-Do?
Love it! WWASGD…I’ve adopted that as my holiday mantra Fleury!
Have a great fun time xx
Thanks Julia! x
If you do not have wifi, write it down on paper and enter it when you do. You can go backwards and enter past days if you need to.
Sometimes when this happens to me, I take a picture of the food, to help me remember. And you just do the best you can estimating. Remember to stick to the listings with green check marks when looking up things.
You are smart to stay clear of sugar added things. And starch things. That will help a lot. Avoiding fried helps a lot too.
And, in my experience, the sugar-fat-salt loop is a real thing. I am not talking about healthy fats. I am talking about deep fried or greasy fats. Eating some of those, leads to wanting the other two. And round and round the loop it goes. It doesn’t matter what the order, salty leads to sugar and the fat. Or sugar leads to salt and then fat. It is a thing.
I thought of something that might help you with water consumption. Did you know that water is what removes the fat from your body? You pee it out. (And as I have said, you do not want to trigger insulin production all day every day. So plain water so your body can lose weight.) I do bottled water.
I did a cruise last year and at dinner, I ate the entree protein, making the best decision possible, and there was always a good one. Then I asked for double vegetable. (I skipped appetizers and desserts and starches.) It was still a lot of food and really wonderful. And honestly as I looked at the volume of food others ate, I did not feel deprived. Instead I knew I was not going to feel over stuffed or sick, and they did. They also gained a lot of weight, in a week.
I have a severe allergy to alcohol type things. So I don’t drink anything like that. But if you do, you might want to look them up before you go, so you know what you need to do. I am sure there are some things that are loaded with sugar/calories. It is easy to drink a huge volume of calories in a very tiny glass. It would be smart to plan ahead.
And we (my family) have learned to make everything about the activities. And not about the food. Holidays. Vacations. Get togethers.
I have a house full coming for the 4th of July, most of them here for many days, and I have been planning major activities, and have not given one thought to food.
I will feed them all of course. But the food is something we do and get out of the way so we can get to the real fun.
That serves me well on vacation too. Focus on the activities, do not make it center around the food.
Thanks Vickie, I appreciate all the sound advice! 🙂
I hope you have a great time! I love to read about your travel adventures.
Yep, we will see you on the other side and oh I see you over at mfp.com too!:)
Thanks Susan, I’m sure we will!