Dinner party dilemma

Hey everybody! TGIF, right? Does anyone have fun plans for this weekend? I’m getting hella-excited that the holidays are upon us! Tonight is the kickoff for my holiday season – my first Thanksgiving celebration!

My bestest friend Catherine (the one who’s engaged) and her fiancée are throwing a Thanksgiving dinner party tonight for their wedding party as a way of saying “thanks for being our posse.” I’ve been really excited about having a full Thanksgiving dinner and hanging out with my BFF over some spiked hot apple cider – one of my contributions.

Well, I was excited…until Wednesday.

I won’t be eating a Thanksgiving dinner tonight, and I’m pretty bummed. I think it’s good that I’m not too upset about missing out on the food, because there will be other opportunities to eat this kind of meal (more on that in a sec…), but I’m bummed that I’ll be drawing attention to myself by not eating what everyone else is, and potentially distracting from the party. I don’t really want to explain to people why I’m not loading up on all the food, and I’m not ready to talk about it to any but the select few whom I’ve already told. This first week of my new program, I decided to go balls-to-the-wall and start out strict, so there’s no room in that plan for what Catherine is serving tonight. Now, I could show up with my own prepared meal and be weird, having something completely different than everyone else; I could take teensy bites of a few things just to have a taste; or I could not eat anything at the party and sit there miserable while everyone else eats and I’m just depressed and drooling on myself…

I think my plan of attack is to take my own eats along and try to be sly about it, but I’m still struggling with what excuse to give people. “I’m not feeling well” could work, but why wouldn’t I have just stayed home? I could be honest and say “I’m on a diet”…that might be the best policy (My apologies; this post isn’t pre-outlined and well thought out but more of a stream-of-consciousness), but that also might invite people to ask questions. I’ll probably stay honest and just say I’m on a diet. I’m also not going to beat myself up if I have a taste of a couple of things. I’m talking about a fraction of a serving. Or should I avoid altogether? Argh!! I’ll just go with the flow, stand firm on what I KNOW I need to do, and not get too caught up in anything but the camaraderie.

Now, on to “opportunities.” I’ve been chatting a lot with a new blog friend (Hi, Jenny!!) about this sort of thing – how I can eat so much in one sitting like I’m never going to see food again? She wrote a wonderful post yesterday on at her blog Colorhungry, partially about “the food will always be there.” Among SOOOO many other things, this is something I always struggle with. If there’s a batch of cookies in the house, they’ll be gone in two days. If I buy a bag of chocolate with the thought of having teeny treats without busting my gut, I’ll end up eating them by the handful. I take advantage of a window of opportunity and have no concept of RATIONING. This time of year, I/we make excuses to overindulge, blaming it on the holidays. Like Jenny said, some things are seasonal (so get your fix of icky Pumpkin-flavored eggnog while you can, if you’re into that sort of thing ), but most other things I OD on around this time of year are available year-round. I don't need to abuse the opportunity by blaming my overeating on the event or time of year. Enforcing a steadfast limit on myself regarding the certain foods that aren’t on my current eating plan is helping me get used to telling myself “it’ll still be there later.”

“This, too, shall pass” is one of my favorite mantras, because oftentimes I’ll get anxious about situations and want to hurry up and get past them, so I’m trying to interject my new mantra of “it’ll still be there later.”

Have you all encountered problems with “rationing” food? How about eating in social situations when you’re on a special diet? Any tips for me?

And because I get sad when a blog has no pictures…

I’ve attempted to make this white cucumber tea in a sweetened iced version. I’m usually hit-or-miss with tea, so I’ll let y’all know how it turned out.

Also this morning I made some chocolate salty balls because that’s what Catherine requested of me tonight – booze ‘n’ balls (also I’m making a centerpiece – will share when I’m done!). So here’s some food pr0n. I haven’t tried them, and might only have a tiny bite tonight.