Days 42 thru 47 Too Much Eating Out

AAAAACK!!!!! I have fallen on my face and can get up! Notice I said "can". And I am up. I've been busy for the last few days. Ok, for the last week. But I haven't totally fallen off the wagon.

First, let me run through the quick food-recap for the last week. At least the parts I can remember.

Saturday: took my Mom out for her birthday. She picked Logan's steakhouse. (yay) I had grilled chicken, salad, onion petals, iced tea. ( I actually only ate about half of it)
Sunday: Hubby and I went away for two days (one of our semi-annual escapes from the kids/house/work) to a little boutique hotel with a jacuzzi/pool suite. We went out for seafood and split one dinner: shrimp, salad, broccoli, biscuits (shame, shame). Not too bad.
Monday: a danish for breakfast (boo!) and fruit for the rest of the day, plus half of a plain roast beef sandwich on sourdough.
Tuesday: fruit and ......I can't remember what else.
Wednesday: grilled chicken, couscous and corn. 3/4 of a cup of chicken fried rice.
Thursday: an apple, some leftover chicken from Wednesday, a handful of peanuts.

Coffee every day, lots of water to drink, and a couple glasses of juice thrown in there too.

Not everything I've eaten this week has been good. Too many empty carbs, not enough veggies, too much fat. Unfortunately too much of it has been restaurant food, and therein lies the problem.

Eating out is one of my weaknesses. I work full time, and until this past May, I also went to school at night. Making dinner for the family had become such a chore that I would often opt for eating out. And with the cost of eating out, I had a really hard time controlling my portions. I hated leaving half a plate of food on the table. And I am notoriously bad a eating leftovers brought home from a restaurant. So, I'd find myself ordering some big plate of pasta (or whatever) and feeling compelled to finish my plate. I'm quite sure that this is one of my biggest reasons for gaining weight.

So this last week, with the inordinate amount of eating out, has given me a chance to try and exercise some control and better judgment in what I choose and how much of it I eat.  I think the choices were pretty good, except for the breads they bring to the table.

Breads are a weakness for me! And hot, buttery breads are the devil! So, I had a hard time with passing on those when we ate out. One the flip side, I chose entrees that were relatively healthy (grilled chicken, grilled shrimp) and veggies instead of potatoes. (I guess I can't really count those onion petals as a veggie!)

Overall, I think I came out ahead this week, if for no other reason than I ate about half as much as I used to when we ate out. And the times I didn't eat out, I had lots of fruit.

One of my big challenges going forward is finding ways to eat more veggies and less of the sweet fruits. I love salads, but iceberg lettuce doesn't really count as a healthy veggie!

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So, here I am, getting back up and getting back on the bandwagon. I'm heading out for a lunchtime walk/run in about an hour. I'm still working toward the C25K in November.

I'm still avoiding the pop and buckets of sweet tea! And quite honestly, drinking less sugary stuff has made me feel more alert in the afternoons, after lunch. I used to hit a wall about 1:30pm. That seems to have diminished significantly. And that means that my blood sugar is not fluctuating so much! Yay!!