Chocolate Cake and Vanilla Ice Cream

Yesterday was a long day. I woke up feeling fantastic. I was full of engery, I felt light on my feet and ready to face the world. Which was good because we had a full and busy day planned. I started my day with a  bowl of hot grain cereal (wheatberries, oats and bulgur) topped with a fresh virginia peach and some almond butter. I also had a glass of milk on the side. I was nervous that the almond butter and the peach would not “go” but it was actually mighty tasty.

peachy

After breakfast, dear husband and I headed out for a long walk around the neighborhood. We did a loop around ours and the one across the street plus a couple extra times in some cul-de-sacs to make a 5 mile walk. My legs were really tired after that! After a shower and a banana, we headed out for the day.

perfectly ripe

We had a couple of errands to run before lunch and by the time we made it to lunch we were both pretty hungry. First we stopped at one of our favorite local places and it was closed. We aren’t sure why but they are no longer open on Saturdays or Sundays and they are only open during the week at lunch! I guess it will have to stop being one of our favorite places 😦 . We ended up at The Villiage Grill, which is another one of our favorites around town. It is a little tiny diner that has really great fresh made food. We both ordered a vegetarian sub and an order of sweet potato fries to share. The veg sub has american, provolone and jack cheese, marinated sweet peppers (totally what makes the sub), onions, lettuce, tomato and italian dressing all served on a toasted wheat sub roll. The sweet potato fries have something secret sprinkled on them. It is something sweet and savory at the same time. I know for sure cinnamon is involved but that isn’t all. I’ll keep ordering then until I figure it out so I can make them at home 🙂 . The lunch was so good and we remembered why we normally share one sub between the two of us, those things are huge! I ate a little more than half the sub and probably 10 or 12 sweet potato fries.

doesn't that look good?

 

what is that sprinkled on there?

After lunch we went to the shopping mecca of our own little world, Target. We got our lattes, of course, I got a tall soy latte and he got a grande caramel frappuchino. I bought three new workout outfits suited for hot hoga and that met my $100 quota so I was good. After Target we headed to the bookstore for a book for dear husband and then off to our nieces 13th birthday party we went.

an afternoon pick me up

The birthday party was at a gaming center with lots of odd looking teenage girls and dear husband’s family. Before a round of putt putt we had some birthday cake and ice cream. It was chocolate cake with chocolate frosting and a little cup of vanilla ice cream. Dear husband and I shared much to the disliking of dear husband’s mom. For a 13 year old’s birthday party, I thought the cake was actually pretty tasty. I apologize for the lack of photos (for the rest of my day) but the camera was in the car along with some awkard feelings about taking photos of my food in front of dear husband’s family.  I will have to build up to that one. We played one round of putt putt and the sun was beating down on us like no other. We both ended up with sunburn and I ran out of water half way through so I thought I might thirst to death.

After putt putt, we went to dinner with the family and I was exhausted, my legs were killing me and I was starving. This would be one of those times when my decision making skills regarding food aren’t the best. An area I really need to work on. We ended up at Ruby Tuesday, which for a chain, it has a nice salad bar. I ordered the mini trio and the salad bar. It is three mini burgers, one beef, one turkey and one crabcake. They were about the size of a silver dollar pancake and in all honesty, they weren’t that great. I have had the crabcake sandwich in the past and it is always so tasty, I was surprised that it’s mini counterpart was not that great.  I had a couple bites of each, a few fries and my salad. I really enjoyed the salad, it had spring mix, blue cheese, edamame, dried cranberries, pumpernickle croutons and a little french dressing. After dinner, we ordered dessert. We ordered a chocolate tall cake with vanilla ice cream. I know, I know, cake and ice cream twice in one day. Something I really try to avoid and I didn’t even remember that I had eaten the cake and ice cream the first time until we had already started eating it.

This is when it gets hard and it gets really real. I had just been telling dear husband on our walk how proud of myself I was. Since I started the blog, I had dropped almost 2lbs without any sense of being on a diet. I was feeling great, making good choices and not letting my emotions rule what goes into my mouth. I hadn’t felt any guilt about my food choices and I had not let myself be over run with the words good and bad when it comes to food. The sense of accountability with the blog was helping me tremendously but I knew in the back of my mind that there was still lots of work to be done.

You see, the funny thing about the choices I made at dinner last night is that when we were playing putt putt, I was really craving a salad with shrimp on it. So much so, that I even said out loud that I wanted a salad for dinner. But in the heat of the moment, feeling so many things, I bailed on that idea and went for the burgers. Isn’t it ironic that the only part of my dinner that I really enjoyed was my salad? As I write this, I feel riddled with guilt wondering if I should eat just salads and excersie all day to “make up for” my choices last night.  Don’t get me wrong, I’m not upset that I ate a burger and dessert because I feel that those things can fit in with a healthy lifestyle. I am upset because I let my emotions make my decision and I didn’t listen to my body.

It is times like these that the diet mentaility really kicks into overdrive and I have to remember that these things will happen. I am human, not some sort of robot that always does the right thing. Heck, I’m sure even robots break down sometimes. So, just like my yoga teacher says about meditating, there are unlimited do overs and I just need to keep moving forward and not beating myself up for straying.