Impromptu traveling

Yesterday morning laying in bed, Trav turns to me and says… “Wanna go to Philly today??”

4 hr. 30 min. later, we’re walking the streets of Philadelphia, a first for me and K.  He lived in Philly for a couple years and has been itching to show us the city since we met.

Getting ready to leave was such a whirlwind… I pulled out a cooler and packed string cheese, protein bars, apples, peanuts, raisins, etc… basically anything I could find.  While I was in the shower, K got a cooler and packed essentially the same things, not knowing that I had already put a bag together.  I’m not sure what pleased me more – the fact she was trying to be helpful or the fact that she put so many healthy items together.  Not that there was junk around the house to choose from.

Once we got there the first stop was naturally for an authentic Philly cheesesteak.  Before we even got there, I had made a very conscious decision – regardless of how big/small they were, K and I would split one.  I would enjoy having something that is a well loved American treat in the place most famous for them.  Based on what I’ve seen on TV and heard, I expected a greasy pile of meat and cheese with grease soaked bread.  I was surprised by how wrong I was – the meat was lean and I did not taste grease at all.  The cheese was of course unhealthy, but there wasn’t much on it.  K and I were both completely satisfied with half and I didn’t feel sick at all.

There were no treats between that and what we had for dinner – Indian food, buffet style.  I made a small sampler plate of protein items (meats/chickpeas) and veggies and had a few triangles of naan bread to help with the spice.  After I had a sampler plate to learn what I liked/didn’t… I sat.  I gave myself time.  And I realized I needed no more food – I had had enough.  There’s a very fine line between a fullness that feels good and a fullness that makes me feel incredibly sick to my stomach.  It’s often hard to pay attention to this line, but I was very proud that I did.

It was a great day.  I had some carbs, but didn’t over do it.  My decisions were very deliberate – no guilt whatsoever.  The places we ate wouldn’t have changed if I HADN’T been deliberate with my choices… but the quantity and the speed of which I ate would have been very different.  Yesterday was an example of traveling and enjoying local treats without feeling overfull and feeling as though I was wrecking havoc on my goals of weight loss.  It’s particularly easy to do that on vacation and justify it by saying, “I’m on vacation – I’ll do better when I get back.”  Unfortunately when we “get back” it’s not as easy to eat well as we thought and vacations turn into months of poor eating.

There will always be sudden things that pop up in life that can derail us.  I believe it’s in those moments that we can find the greatest success – going along with the ebb and flow of life and not allowing ourselves to be unraveled.

Hope everyone had a great weekend.  My apologies for a boring entry, but my intent is to keep myself accountable right now – it’s what I need most!  :)