First weekend on a food plan...

I even surprised myself today! Luckily, I have a little Saturday morning routine that involves bringing my schoolwork and heading to Panera for a breakfast sandwich, coffee, fruit and a pastry. I normally run into a friend or two when I'm there (I'm not the only weirdo who lives at Panera!). This morning, I had breakfast with Robert, who was also trying to avoid a pastry. We were able to help each other out with our no-sugar endeavor, successfully I might add.

Normally, weekends for me are a bit of a free for all. I don't always have food in my fridge or want to cook what I do have. I'm usually overtired from not enough sleep all week and still have to get up early on Saturday and Sunday for school work or study group or group project meetings. It's hard to find time to do the shopping and I usually end up grabbing something out. When I'm lucky and have enough free time for a social activity, I usually have lunch out with a friend. Eating out can be such a challenge. I never know exactly what is in whatever I'm eating and restaurant food is usually carb and fat heavy. Fat (and salt) makes everything taste better, and chefs know this. I want to make responsible food choices when I eat out. Often, I don't. Believe me, I'll take the mac and cheese with potato chip crust over the salad any day!

Today ended up being not one of my greatest successes, but good in the end anyway. I avoided the brownies and cinnamon rolls and sugary coffees and ice cream and dessert and pizza.

 I forgot to take a picture of my breakfast, but it was an egg, ham and cheese on whole grain bread with a fruit cup. This is a picture of my second fruit cup. My routine is to get a pastry, and because I'm so used to it, I was craving sweet. I've trained my body to expect a sugar and fat injection on Saturday morning. Instead of a pastry, I reached for more fruit.

Knowing that lunch was going to be pretty late, I stopped at the grocery store and grabbed a snack to ward off the cranky...more fruit!! Doesn't this fruit salad just scream, 'SUMMER!'?

 I didn't eat lunch until a little after 3pm today. Hillary and I started with chicken lettuce wraps and crispy vegetarian spring rolls.

First, only the roll in the foreground is mine...but Hillary's looked so pretty that I had to get both in the shot! OK, so my roll was scallop, crabstick and tuna with some sort of black roe. Yummers! But I was still burping tuna at 9pm!

In case you were wondering, we went to The Ginger Exchange in Inman Square. Delicious and affordable!

Lastly, for dinner I went to the pizza place next door. As you can see, I did not order a pizza. I ordered a garden salad with grilled chicken. The salad is a mix of iceburg lettuce and mixed greens, carrots, cukes, tomatoes, and onions. Had I left the salad in it's container, this may have been obvious. Salads there come with pita bread as well...I added a little Ken's Italian Dressing.

SO, overall, not a bad day. Not knowing what exactly was in my lunch makes it difficult to completely judge. I don't know what kind of fat (saturated, unsaturated) or the amount of sugar that was in my lunch. I'm guessing that there was sugar though...I'm craving chocolate right now. However, I'm counting today as a success. At many points I could have reached for a soda, chips, pizza, pastry and didn't!

Tomorrow's another big school day...