Weekend wobbles

It's been a wonderful weekend. Lovely hubby and I went away for a special event and had a great time which has given us lots of wonderful memories to treasure. The only little bit of a problem was... the food.

So what happened? Well, Friday night saw another unscheduled appearance by Mother Nature and the 'want food and want it now' horrors hit me with a vengance. I had foolishly thought that my hormone-triggered nasties would die back at some stage in life. Hmmm, looks like I was wrong.

Still, I managed to sidestep the siren call of chocolate despite having won a charity raffle prize at work which was (oh yes, you've guessed it!) a blasted box of chocolates! The box duly made it home unopened, then went straight into the 'Christmas hamper' we're making up, to be won in a raffle by somebody else. Feel proud of me. I do!

All went well until Saturday afternoon. It was cold, wet and the place we'd stopped to visit was really, really busy with soggy, bad-tempered Christmas shoppers. Mother Nature really had her knives into me at this point and I wasn't feeling too happy. We needed something hot to eat (because of our special event we didn't have time for a hot meal later in the day), but so many places were chock-full the choice was limited. We looked longingly at a busy carvery but ended up in a pub selling, and I quote, 'home cooked meals'. They had a beef stew cooked in ale on the menu, which sounded great. Good healthy stuff and nothing fried. We should have known it was too good to be true.

It takes real talent to cook something utterly devoid of even a modicum of flavour but somehow, despite the visual evidence of onions and carrots in the 'gravy', these guys managed it! The stew was appallingly bad. OK, there was plenty of meat (which could possibly have been beef), and it was hot, but it tasted of nothing, zero, zilch. The carrots were hard (er, when the meat was obviously cooked - how?) and there were two tiny chunks of carrot each, not even amounting to one complete carrot. As to the ale gravy? Well it didn't taste anything like ale... or much like anything at all for that matter. To cap it all, it was served (read slopped up here) in a shallow gratin dish, on a plate with a tablespoon-sized dollop of lumpy mashed potato alongside it, sqodged up against the outside of the gratin dish.

We should have got up and walked away. But, having paid for it already and trogged around town looking for somewhere with room for us, couldn't face another fruitless search so bit the bullet and ate the stuff... liberally dosed with pepper to give it flavour. Thankfully the portions were meagre, so I guess there is one silver lining. We were both truly dissatisfied.

Worse, I'd chosen an alcohol-free beer (thinking I was being 'good'). Oh Lord! Never, ever even think about trying Becks alcohol-free again - it is horrible, with a really bitter, unpleasant undertaste. Why, when Kaliber is actually malty and nice? I cannot abide Coke, fizzy pops and the like, but even one of those would have been preferable.

This catalogue of disasters is what tripped me up. We stopped somewhere else later in the afternoon for a cup of coffee and, being dissatisfied, I ate a cake. OK, you may be thinking that isn't too bad. No, it was naughty, but not dreadful. What was dreadful was that after our special event we stopped for a proper pint on our way home. I really should not have done this as tired, hormonal, hungry, and still dissatisfied with the days meals we then stopped off for take-away pizza.

I cannot remember the last time I ate pizza, but I still lovingly recall the pizzas I had in Italy. Delicate things they were, with thin crispy bases and vegetables and a significant lack of grease. This one wasn't like that at all. It was huge (although I'd picked their smallest size), with a thick 'thin-crust' base and was covered (no, smothered!) in a thick layer of pale yellow, greasy melted cheese. But, there it was in front of me and I was hungry (and had drunk beer!) so I started in on it. Didn't get too far, I'm glad to say, and the lion's share of it went in the bin... but too late as far as I'm concerned.

I feel really disgusted with myself for ignoring all the plans I'd sooo carefully drawn up. There are some excuses along the way in this ramble, but they don't hold much water, do they. I know what I need to do, but didn't act on logic - just let emotions and desires get the better of me. This simply will not do!

Thankfully, this has been a relatively temporary loss of all reason. If you plotted the 'good' versus 'bad' from the last few days it would look like a cross-section of the Alps! Sunday was a much better day (including just having fruit for lunch), and Monday was good too, with a healthy mixed bean salad for lunch and a large helping of gorgeous steamed kale with some minced beef stew for dinner (which tasted wonderful because my lovely hubby cooked it). Today is going pretty well to plan too and there's a crunchy salad lunch to look forward to and more wonderful kale tonight!

The scales had twitched upwards a bit yesterday but are back down again this morning. I do want to see more of a loss, and get below 10 stone (pretty please), but the exercise will help me with that. Rowing and walking each morning and salsacise last night. Out to walk at lunchtime too.

Lessons to learn:
- stay focused and positive (you can do it - remember, you resisted that chocolate)
- keep a note of your plan in your handbag and re-read it... often!
- don't choose what to eat when tired, annoyed or hungry
- don't wait until you've had alcohol before you pick your food
- keep moving (it may be your only saving grace!)