Lesson learned

(Warning: picture-heavy post!)

Hey guys!  I hope everyone (US-wise) had a great Thanksgiving yesterday!  We had our big dinner yesterday evening, and though I thought I didn’t eat too much, I was soooo miserable last night a few hours afterward.  I’m making a note of how much food I ate and how it was too much, even though I thought initially it was ok.  I’ll get to that in a sec.

Wednesday morning I went for my checkup, and by her records, I’m down 9.5lbs.  According to the body fat analysis thingy, that’s about half water, so it’s not as great as it sounds.  But 5 pounds of fat off in a week?  I’ll take it!  She said I can expect to lose about 2.5lbs a week from now on, which frustrates me a tad – isn’t that a “normal” rate?  Though yes, I wasn’t achieving that rate on my own, so it’s nothing to sneeze at.  I’m also cleared for light exercise, so I’m going to start walking and doing some light strength exercises.  This will be the hardest part for me…making dietary changes is relatively easy because I was already used to eating.    Starting a new habit – especially an exercise habit – on the other hand, is really difficult.  Hence my inability to ever do it.

Wednesday afternoon, I went dress-shopping with Catherine and another bridesmaid, Justine.  First we looked for bridesmaid dresses, and while I was surprised to see sample sizes in “FAT,” I couldn’t bear to look at myself in the mirror in them.  I know that by the time the wedding rolls around, I’ll look better, but I couldn’t form an opinion about the dresses because they all looked terrible on me.  Not fishing for sympathy or reassurance, it’s just a fact.  We picked out a dress that will probably be *the one* for us, but I was doing it based on how it looked on Justine (it looked good!).  Here’s the dress swiped from the website:



I was pretty sure I wasn’t going to cry at the store, partially because I was sick and felt like crap, but also because I thought it was a little silly.  However, when Catherine came out in her first dress (which was her favorite overall) and the attendant put a veil on her, I cried.  I’m such a pussy.  We’ve been best friends since we were 9 – I should’ve known better. 

Funny sidenote – the attendant who was helping us brought Catherine a dress (not one that any of us liked) that, when she put it on, I screamed out “THAT’S PAM’S DRESS!!”  The attendant said, “oh, did one of your friends get married in this one?” and I said “no, Pam on The Office,” appalled she even had to ASK!



Mrs. Halpert shopped at David’s Bridal 

Thursday

Yesterday was my first day on my new plan.  Instead of 5 shakes a day, Now I do 2 shakes and 2 meals.  It’s high-protein, low-carb, low calorie.  Boring, but at least I get to eat real food now!  Yesterday for lunch, I made some garlic rosemary chicken, and while it was baking, I had a salad…



It was the most boring salad in all of salad-dom (lettuce + celery + that creepy No Calorie dressing which doesn’t taste too bad actually), so I added some cherry tomatoes for color, and I HATE tomatoes.  Every so often I think, “oh, I’ll give them another try,” and every single time, I end up spitting them out and scraping the rest onto someone else’s plate.  My family always makes fun of me and says that I was probably adopted, that I’m not a true Southerner, etc. because I hate tomatoes.  What-evs.  They’re gross.

We had our lunch on these awesome autumn paper plates I got at Hobby Lobby a month or so ago:



So my lunch was baked garlic + rosemary chicken with steamed broccoli.



And because I’m a big girl, I cut it up all by myself and dotted it with ketchup :



…and I shared some with Mr. Brookser while we watched Barefoot Contessa:



We broke out the good china for dinner, and Mom and I had some tea while stuff was cooking:




My good friend Kaycee sells Southern Living at Home, and we’ve bought some stuff from her over the past year but haven’t really gotten to use it (with our real kitchen still being torn up and all…plus, we don’t entertain   I do, though!  Can’t wait to move out!!).  We decided that last night was a good time to bust some of it out!  I tried out a new recipe, mashed cauliflower, which turned out really really good.  Served in my Gallery Pacific Lidded Serving Bowl




I de-flowered (hehehe) a head of cauliflower and steamed it in the microwave.  Then a big spoonful-ish at a time I blended it in the blender (just to mash it a bit, not puree it! And make sure the little hole at the top is cracked to let hot air escape, lest ye wind up with cauliflowered walls) with  a pat of ICBINB and ~1-2Tbls skim milk.  Then I spooned it out into a dish and added a handful-ish of shredded mozzarella, mixed it all up, and topped it with parmesan.  It wasn’t 100% on-plan, but it was closer than mashed potatoes.



I took oodles of pics of our spread, because 1) we actually ate in the dining room (Dad didn’t, but poo on him), and 2) all of our Southern Living stuff really made a pretty presentation!



My stuff is the light blue – I love it!!

Here’s my boring-ass salad, spritzed with spray ranch dressing:



I love my mom’s china!  And she found these accent salad plates for it a couple years ago…I luuuurve it!
A shot of our Southern Living stuff from my vantage point (sorry, I just love this stuff!)



Finally, my plate:



We had a smoked turkey breast from Heavenly Ham? Honeybaked Ham?  Can’t remember.  Mom gets them through her hospital each year.  I had hoped she’d be into buying a local-ish, farm-raised turkey, but she didn’t pass up the good deal.    I made oven-roasted squash, onions, and mushrooms; we had sautéed green beans (my favorite way to prep them!); a pea-and-asparagus casserole (Dad’s only request, and the only thing that was really off-plan for me!), and my mashed cauliflower (which surprisingly, Dad raved about and had seconds of).  I had another bite of the casserole and split another piece of turkey with Mom.  At the time I felt ok, not too full, but my stomach is obviously not used to food, let alone this much, because over the next couple hours I got the worst tummy ache.  This is my lesson learned.  I need to think back to last week when I only got a small spoonful of each thing and was happy and satisfied and not miserable.  It’s trial and error, and my trial last night totally errored.

We kept having uninvited guests pop in from time to time. (The iPod playing Josh Groban’s Noel was there to drown out the Godfather marathon going on in the other room – ugh)




My children don’t know how to behave themselves.

I really missed the casseroles we usually have at Thanksgiving, especially since most of the stuff we had last night, we eat all the time.  I know I ate “right” and was better off than if we’d made the stuff I’m not supposed to have yet, but I still missed it.  And Mom’s pumpkin cheesecake – that’s one of those things I have once a year and look forward to for months, and I missed it so much!  I think she’s making one at Christmas, though, so I’ll have a taste then. 

Oh and wine.  I really missed wine.

I got over this hurdle relatively successfully, but Christmas is another story entirely.  We’ll be with our big family at our lakehouse, and I always use that as an excuse to overeat.  I know I’ll have to have tastes of several things (because of that once-a-year mentality), but I’m hoping I can remember what I’ve learned the past couple weeks and only have teensy bits.

How did you do this Thanksgiving?  How do you tackle larger family get-togethers where food is the best tradition?