Small town, big food.

My partner's family lives in central Kansas, and they celebrated their belated Christmas this past weekend. I was looking forward to going and seeing everyone. To be honest, I was looking forward to being seen as well. A few of them hadn't seen me since before the weight loss, and I got some great reactions.

Man oh man, though, my diet got so screwed up. We stayed at a hotel with a decent continental breakfast, so that was good. They had hard boiled eggs, Cheerios, yogurt, and fruit. Lunch was a little trickier. Our choices were pretty much Subway, Quizno's, and Applebee's. And dinner... well, that was pretty much totally nutso.

Angie's dad made dinner the first night, and he really did make an effort for it to be mostly healthy. He baked some chicken breasts, and had a fruit and veggie platter. There was, however, a hamburger, potato and cheese casserole. Of course, if I had been thinking properly I would have had a chicken breast, then filled the rest of the plate with fruit and veggies. But no, the casserole stuff looked way too good, so I had two big helpings of it.

We opted for Quizno's for lunch the next day. Their flatbread sammies are decent, but I made the mistake of getting two of them, AND chips. Bad move.

Then over to grandma's for dinner. There was so much food it was insane. I just kept eating, too. It was like I didn't even care anymore since the weekend was already so screwed up.

The first morning I was able to work out in the hotel gym, but the second day there were a couple of teeny-boppers in there and the treadmill wasn't available. It was annoying, because they weren't even seriously working out.

I got home and I'm up two pounds on the scale. I expected as much, but it's still definitely an annoyance. I enjoy going to see Angie's family, and in the past my mentality was "the more food, the better." Now that my habits have changed, going there is obviously more difficult. No one forced all the food into my mouth, but I still felt like it was out of my control somehow. I need to work on my decision making strategies for times like these. It's like my brain turns off and there's some primal instinct urging me to consume.

It was good to get home and get back on the wagon. I made Moroccan Chickpea Stew last night, and I felt nourished. I also sat down and made my exercise plan for the week. This morning I did 45 minutes on the treadmill, and hopefully I'll get in another 45-60 minutes tonight.

To sum up- this was really the first time in over 7 months that I was out of my routine for more than one meal, and it was more difficult than I expected it to be. Also, I never thought I would say that I would look forward to getting back on my plan, but I did. I couldn't wait to eat a meal filled with good things that I knew were working with me and not against me.