Tag Archives: holiday eating

A Pinch Of Common Sense

In the here & now, ,

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!!!  🙂 🙂 🙂

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Jury’s Out…

In the here & now, ,

So I think I mentioned didn’t I, that my friend and I are heading out on holiday in a couple of weeks – I’m on countdown, with just eighteen sleeps to go. My friend is the world’s best travelling companion…she is uber organised. My modus operandi is to skid into my holidays having worked up to the very last minute with no preparation whatsoever but you know what, I totally get away with it because my friend does enough organising for the both of us. It’s the only bit of my life where I happily sit back and trust someone else to crack on and just tell me what we’re doing.

We’re cruising again – you know how I love life on the ocean – and this time we’re picking up our ship in Abu Dhabi and sailing into Oman, Fujairah, Sir Bani Yas Island and Dubai. I’ve never been to that part of the world and I’m curious to see what it’s like. It’s also my first hot holiday in a while, so I’m looking forward to finding a shady spot and devouring three or four good books as we sail through the week.

Things are going so well with my food plan at the moment that I’m in an agony of indecision trying to decide what food strategy I’m going to adopt whilst I’m on holiday, you know? Even though I stayed active on our last holiday by scaling waterfalls and climbing the odd mountain, and didn’t feel like I went overboard on the eating, I put on a ton of weight over the course of our week in Norway. I know I lost it again within a couple of weeks of coming home – once my plumbing recovered from the trip – but even so, watching the needle go up by eight pounds or so when I got home didn’t exactly fill me with joy and loveliness.

I’m not sure I ever really got back to the real focus I’d had on losing weight before the trip. I mean I limped along between getting home from that holiday and setting off for Cuba, but the impetus definitely fell off a cliff somewhere towards the end of summer.

My dilemma now, is that it feels a bit too soon to step away from this much more disciplined New Year mindset that I’ve manage to kick-start. By the same token I want to be able to enjoy the kind of carefree holiday moments where my friend and I throw caution to the wind and work our way through the cocktail menu for example, which always seems like a great idea at the time. The trouble is, my inhibitions diminish with each sip of whatever I’m drinking.

It’s not as if I’m a big drinker…actually I’m a bit of a fanny but it’s different on holiday somehow. And let’s be honest, you only get a thimble-full of french martini in your glass so it’s too easy to order another, and another…I seem to remember doing exactly that last time, and waking up the next morning with the remains of a cheesecake in my bed and a spoon stuck to my cheek. Not my finest hour, right?

Today marks my 31st day of eating properly, in terms of no processed food, and barely any refined sugar. I’m feeling awesome to be honest, and I know I can definitely keep the momentum going for the next two and a half weeks. The question is can I keep it going whilst I’m on holiday. Should I..?

I’m trying to steer clear of the kind of fat-girl thinking which equates having a good time with how much I can fit in my mouth, but I can already feel the asshole voice gearing up to flood my head with suggestions like it’s okay to relax a bit, you’re on holiday, and come on, you’ve been so good you deserve a treat…life’s too short, live a little and eat the fucking cake!!

I know those kind of sentiments are built on a crooked belief that denying myself the indulgences I want in the moment is some kind of punishment which will spoil the holiday I’ve worked so hard for. Which is bollocks, and I know it.

Still…

 

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