First of all, I have to say I did a terrible job planning ahead for this weekend and the food challenges it would present. I guess I'd score myself a B- overall.
I was at an event for my favorite charity from 9am to 10pm on Saturday and brought nothing with me, as I foolishly thought (nearly) paleo options would be available. I was almost right, but ended up being VERY hungry throughout the day. Before I left the house, I had an ok breakfast of eggs, fruit and a handful of almonds. Of course, upon arrival at the conference they had the usual spectrum of danish, bagels, juice, coffee and fruit. I resisted and stuck with a bottle of water that I kept refilling until lunchtime. Yeah! Good start. (But boy do I wish I had some beef jerky or something to snack on during the break!)
Lunch was a sampling of sandwiches on the biggest densest rolls I ever saw. No veggies in sight. Just plain roast beef or turkey on bread. On the side was that creamy yellowy potato salad that I imagine as a 50/50 mix of potatoes and mayo. No thanks. Big sweet table for dessert. For me, it was a few slices of roast beef, and that's it. I wish I would have grabbed some of that fruit in the am! Oh well. I resorted to chewing lots of gum in the afternoon just to trick my stomach into thinking it was getting fed. Not paleo, I know, but at least it kept my breath fresh for the networking session.
Now the tricky part -- cocktail hour! After a long day listening to lots of different presentations, I caved and got a glass of red wine at the bar. Then, in the midst of a passionate conversation with someone I was trying to meet all day, my eyes darted around the room for any sort of food they could find. Is that stuffed mushrooms on the other side of the room??! Suddenly, my brain went blank and I swear I grew "Stretch Armstrong" arms and stretched over to grab about 5 of them to shove into my mouth before taking a breath. Thank God they were filled with meat! Ahhhh. That's better. Besides a smattering of nuts around the room, nothing else seemed very paleo at all, and no sign of dinner. Mushrooms gone. Next best option was the cheese plate. My big weakness. Again, I caved. No crackers, but plenty of what I now call "the forbidden fruit." Ugh.
Dinner had plenty of salad and meat options on the buffet, so I went back for seconds and also one more glass of wine. No bread, potatoes or dessert. Done.
Strangely, I had no appetite on Sunday and just picked at bits of food all day, except for a decent-sized paleo dinner. Oh, and no exercise since Wednesday. In my view, it was a solid B-.
No salad veggies?
ReplyDeleteWe could look at this and say you starved yourself, and cheated, or that facing the situation, you took the high road out and didn't go overboard. I know how hard it is at those events to go after the sweet and buttery breads and everything else. This is still a learning process, we can't expect to do a 180 on the heel, so good job.
ReplyDeleteAgree with Dole! Things could have gone horribly wrong and in the scheme of things you held up well! Day long business meetings could send anyone into an out of control bread binge. Same thing happened to me on Friday. I didn't get enough food in and by the time we hit dinner I was starving. Service was SLOW and finally, it was either eat the bread or have a blood sugar emergency (which when with potential clients is never a good thing). I went for the bread. And a tub of butter. Not great - but I was back to paleo for my next meal.
ReplyDeleteBTW - love the image of you growing rubber arms...been there done that! Seriously made me laugh out loud!