It’s wedding day!  We are celebrating my friend Jenn and her now-husband Dan’s wedding today.  It’s the first time since I started my 30-Day program that I’ve had a challenge in the shape of a celebration.  For years, I have associated food with celebrations.  Whether it’s holidays, family gatherings, birthdays, or just general good news, celebrations usually involve eating and drinking!  Weddings, of course, are no different.  While I’ve got no idea what’s on the menu for tonight’s celebration, I do know it’s buffet-style so at least I will be able to make some of my own choices.  That being said, to make this “diet” liveable I know I have to have “cheat meals” (or even “cheat days”) now and then and still be able to get right back on track.  Here’s how today is looking.

Breakfast:  After a night of not sleeping well (damn mosquitos keep getting in our house and buzzing right in my ear!), I woke up with a headache this morning.  I was extremely slow moving and just wanted to laze around.  This being said, I did not feel like cooking up my regular turkey bacon and eggs.  I decided to “treat” myself and chose to have 1 cup of Honey Nut Cheerios and 1 cup low-fat milk.  Definitely not the healthy breakfast I should be having, but I did carefully measure out the correct portions (did you know that most cereal bowls nowadays are about two portions of most cereals?!  For this reason, I used the smallest bowl in our cupboard to trick my mind into believing that there was more cereal than their actually was – on that note, I have also started eating off a smaller plate as opposed to the dinner plates which, in our set, are huge!) I also had a coffee and again, carefully measured out my 2 tbsp of cream.  Then I lazed around watching HGTV and enjoying a slow morning.

Lunch: So this is going to sound incredibly boring but I ate the same thing for lunch that I’ve eaten the last three days!  Haha.  I am definitely a creature of habit!  But my turkey burger with feta cheese and grilled veggies is just so delicious and so low in points that I couldn’t help it!  Plus, I knew I might be eating a not-so-healthy dinner so I decided to keep lunch as low in points as possible.

This afternoon, my husband and I attended my friend Jenn’s wedding. It had been raining off and on most of the day, but the rain stopped just enough for a beautiful, short ceremony in a very picturesque setting.  Naturally, the bride looked stunning and the wedding was romantic and beautiful.

Snack: As soon as the wedding was over, my husband and I came home for a refresher and to pass the time between the ceremony and cocktail hour.  I knew I’d need to eat something to tide myself over between my 2 p.m lunch and 7 p.m dinner.  I should have looked in the fridge because I had forgotten I had thawed out some shrimp which would have made a healthy snack full of protein.  Instead, my teenaged daughter was cooking chicken nuggets  and pizza in the oven.  The smell was amazing  and I was already feeling hungry, so I indulged.  I did, however, check the Weight Watchers points and carefully count out the proper number of nuggets and managed to stick to it (even though I could have easily devoured the whole pan!) It was still an extremely high-points snack (8 points for 10 tiny little nuggets) and I am feeling a little disappointed in myself that I didn’t plan that snack a little more carefully.  Alas, I have to remember that changing eating habits isn’t about being “perfect” 100% of the time.  It’s about making the healthier choice more often, and the unhealthy choice less often – which is exactly what I did.

Dinner:  As mentioned above, tonight’s dinner was served buffet style. I was definitely nervous that there would be too many temptations, especially when I realized our seats were right next to the dessert table! But a trick I learned in the past was to try to take a look at the entire buffet table before you choose what you are going to have.  That way, you don’t end up putting a little of everything on your plate as you move down the line.  You can take a mental snapshot of the options and make a conscious choice about what to have and what to pass on.  For me tonight, I passed on the bread basket (the most difficult thing to pass on because I love bread), a tray of cubed cheese (way too easy to pop these tiny things in your mouth which are loaded with fats and calories!), the pasta option (even though it looked cheesy and delicious), and the Caesar salad (most likely high-fat dressing).  Instead I stuck with a veggie side dish, a small portion of roasted potatoes, two small slices of beef tenderloin, and a small chicken breast (with some kind of sauce on it… since I wasn’t sure what kind of sauce it was, I chose the breast with the least amount of sauce).  For dessert, I selected two small brownie squares and a tiny slice of vanilla cake.  The great thing about this meal (besides how delicious it all was!) was that I didn’t have to feel guilty about any of it because I had carefully thought about it, and made choices about what I was going to have as opposed to just grabbing everything I saw and overeating mindlessly.

Party:  I had decided previous to tonight’s event that I wasn’t going to drink any alcohol.  I’ve never been a big drinker and I’m just the type of person that would rather save my calorie intake for other things- like cake and ice cream!  Instead, I stuck to water which I sipped on throughout the evening.

Workouts:  Unfortunately today I did not work out.  This being said, I do believe in having 1-2 rest days a week so I will go ahead and count today as one of them!  Realistically, I could have worked out this morning but with how slowly I was moving this morning, it just wasn’t going to happen (that, and I’ve never been much of a workout-in-the-morning kind of person).  I also could have gotten some dancing in at the wedding but seeing as my husband and I didn’t really know anyone else in attendance, we decided to call it a night early and were home by about 10 pm.  I’ll be sure to work extra hard during tomorrow’s workout instead!

So, all in all, I think I faced today’s challenges pretty well.  I am not going to lie – I was nervous about not having total control over what I would eat today.  I always feel like if I “cheat” it’s going to be the end of my good efforts and I will totally fall off track again.  This time, however, I don’t feel that way.  I took the time to consider my options today, and although I indulged, I did so consciously knowing full well that I can jump right back on track tomorrow.  And that’s exactly what I plan to do!

4 days down, 26 to go!