Day 13 - Challenges

I find that my biggest challenge is coping with having a social life and eating healthy. For me, the two don't happily co-exist. Yesterday, I had two events. First, I attended a baby shower, and then I had my in-laws over for dinner.

The baby shower was challenging because there was a big buffet style spread of food. Although all the food looked very healthy, it can still difficult when you are counting calories simply because you have no choice but to guess how many you are eating. Here is what I took from the buffet table: about 1/2 cup of couscous salad, about a cup of salad made with chopped apples, grapes, walnuts and sour cream, 2 little sections (about 2" long) of some wraps, one was chicken curry and the other was veggie and cream cheese, 4 strawberries, and 10 grapes. I ended up going back for 2 more sections of the wraps (It looked to me like each wrap was cut into 4-5 portions, so I probably had close to a full wrap myself).

I thought that I did pretty well, but when I got home and tried to add it all up, it came to over 600 calories! I might have over estimated the calories, but it's hard to know exactly how much oil was in the couscous salad, or if the waldorf type salad was made with fat free or regular sour cream. There was just no way to know.... in the past, this would have stressed me out. This time, I didn't let it get to me, I figured I can only worry about what I can control, and I can control my portion sizes! So that is what I did. I also skipped the dessert tray.

For dinner, I had my in-laws over. I was able, at least to have a little more control over the meal, but when I have guests, I feel bad about putting THEM on diets too. So I used a little more oil that I normally would have, and I served the meal with grilled pita wedges and hummus (which I skipped).

Here's what it all looked like: