The Best Laid Plans...

A pretty strict diet comes with its rewards.  Rewards like....three pounds of water weight gone in less than a week putting you three pounds from your goal weight and a renewed love for cooking at home combined with a self confidence I haven't experienced in a long time.

But it also comes with it's own set of challenges.  Changing your eating habits isn't A) for the faint of heart nor B) designed for business travel if you aren't staying in one of those hotels with a kitchenette.  Earlier this week let me experience this conundrum first hand.  I found myself traveling for an overnight stay this past Wednesday and Thursday.  Lunch from McAlister's was brought in Wednesday and I opted for chicken tortilla soup and a side salad.  It wasn't the worst choice I could have made but I had wanted something healthier.  Unfortunately, I don't recall them serving chicken breast and steamed vegetables.

However, that wasn't the worst of it.  I was working with vendors to build schematics for our convenience stores and they all had some sort of new snack they wanted me to try.  I resisted most of them and brought them home for a treat later but who could, in their right mind, resist bacon jerky.  Bacon jerky, Y'all!  And maybe a M&M Chocolate Bar.  And possibly a Butterfinger Bite along with some BBQ Pork Jerky.  

Dinner turned out to be even worse.  I used my trusty Yelp and Urban Spoon apps but couldn't find anything that offered healthy options. (Turns out if I had driven a mile down the road there were all kinds of national chain restaurants that could have catered to my needs but my trusty apps failed me.)  I settled for Smashburger and decided I would get a grilled chicken sandwich....if I could have found the place!!  I was in the right shopping center with the huge Pier 1 eyeing me from afar begging me to run in for a quick peak and the Wing Stop whispering, "We have crack fries and ranch dressing.  You love our original flavored wings.  Remember?"  By the time I slowly made my way across the front of the H.E.B parking lot where I glowered at customers taking their sweet time crossing the walk way not realizing their lives were in danger because it was 8:00pm, I was hungry and on a mission, I rounded the corner, saw a Subway across from the Taco Bell sign backlit like The Holy Grail in Monty Python and immediately darted into the Taco Bell parking lot.

That Mexican Pizza was divine.  Almost as divine as the Chuychanga  I had last Saturday for my cheat meal.    But Wednesday night wasn't supposed to be my cheat meal.  I hadn't wanted this at all but the voice in the back of my mind kept whispering to me, "You already blew it today.  Just eat the good stuff."  I mean, he (yes the voice in the back of my mind is a he) was right.  Right?  Not really but yeah.

I even exercised before eating.  Not because I knew I wouldn't be eating right but because I wanted to.  And I wasn't hungry when I got back to the hotel.  I've stopped eating back my exercise calories so it wouldn't have made a difference on my food log anyway.

Thursday?  *insert defeated sigh here*  Even worse.  Breakfast was ok.  I ate scrambled eggs and some pineapple and grapes along with my coffee for breakfast.  It wasn't too far off from what I normally consume but I'm always leery about eggs at a hotel breakfast buffet.  Are they real?  Are they powdered substitutes?  I did pay for this buffet so maybe they were real.  I logged them that way on Lose It.  But lunch?  Oh poor little lunch.  We had less than 45 minutes to be back at the office so a place like Chili's was out of the question.  Meaning?  McDonald's....

Try to imagine my best "you have GOT to be kidding me" face.  Granted, it was free...again.  But whhhhyyyy!  That means the little back of the head voice from Wednesday night ran his ugly little mouth again Thursday night when I knew the day was blown and it was late and cheese enchiladas and chips and salsa were just down the road.  And it was like the Devil was his brother last night when we went to cook our turkey jalapeno & cheese sausages we bought last week.  They smelled funny so the dog ate well and we wound up stuffing our faces at Johnny Carino's.  *sigh*

The worst part about all of this?  The Lighten Up East Texas weigh out is today.  Am I lighter than I was when this started?  Absolutely!  Am I wearing the same size at 146 (I'm adding back in that water weight for obvious reasons) that I was at 140?  Yes!  But I wanted to be at my lightest on this day.  I wanted to have dropped another pound or two in water weight in hopes of reaching 10% lost.  It's not the end of the world and today is a new day for getting back on track but it doesn't stop you from wishing you had tried a little harder.

But I am not deterred.  A couple of bad days does not shape who I am and does not change what I have accomplished thus far.  Nor does it determine the final outcome unless I let it.  Health and fitness is a huge mental game.  It's like playing Risk and dodgeball...at the same time.  It requires strategy to plan your meals ahead of time in order to ensure you don't go off the deep end.  The bad foods we are addicted to are our enemy at the gates.  A healthy lifestyle requires you to have the drive to be the last one standing in the game.  The last one standing can place their foot on the chest of the body of Bad Choices and valiantly proclaim victory in their name.

I, alone, determine the path I take in this journey.  I determine the outcome.  I will win.