Despite my best intentions and many promises I made myself in the days leading up to Thanksgiving, I abused myself by overeating many foods I do not eat on a day to day basis. Instead of holding steady on my course to a body composition test on my 55th birthday, I gained about 7 pounds in 3 days. I’m sure it was all fat. I’m definitely not proud of myself or my lack of willpower.
Of course I have all kinds of excuses:
- I had not had my mom’s cooking for a year
- Everyone else was eating like crap
- I ‘deserved’ a break from eating clean
- It was only one meal (that turned into a meal and a snack, two meals and a snack, two meals and two snacks and quickly into 3 straight days of eating a SAD diet)
On the way to Granny’s house I did well – eating only cold grilled chicken I had prepared special for the trip and drinking only water. I even passed on the world famous Date Shakes from Dateland – but bought them for Stacia and Makaya (more on that later). But once we arrived at Granny’s, my nutrition went downhill quickly. I had allowed myself to get super hungry – but Thanksgiving dinner would not be ready for another two hours. That led to some not so healthy snacking … Then dinner. I did pass on the mashed potatoes and dinner rolls, but ate stuffing and gravy – in addition to the traditional roasted turkey and baked ham. And of course I had to have pumpkin pie – although I did hold myself to half a slice of what virtually everyone else ate. The thing that really did me in was that I finish up with my mom’s homemade fudge – lots of it. I probably ate at least 1/2 pound of it. I hate thinking about how much sugar was in that …
Ava Kalea is just over 14 months and isn’t used to sleeping in strange places (or at home for that matter) – and she woke up around 2am. Trying to keep her quiet and entertained, Stacia and I both got up – and guess what? NO – we didn’t go searching for leftovers …. We didn’t have to look that far. My mom had left 2 1/2 loaves of homemade banana bread on the counter and we (mostly me) had to kill off one of them – with lots and lots of butter. Does it count as a good thing that both the fudge and the banana bread had walnuts in them?
Feeling guilty the next morning, I did get up and run a couple of miles – but then I came back and pigged out on a huge breakfast with lots of bacon, eggs – and biscuits (with butter and jam). Then more banana bread and fudge.
After a short swim in the pool with the baby and more unhealthy snacking, we feasted on Mom’s homemade Mac N Cheese. Super delicious and too hard to turn down – but I know I shouldn’t have eaten even half as much as I did – or eat the half dozen Hawaiian dinner rolls that we also really tasty … After the macaroni and cheese, I was totally full and had to wait a short while …. before pigging out on another huge portion of Granny’s fudge.
That night we actually slept through the night and did not raid the kitchen, which was a good thing. I still felt even more guilty about all the ‘feasting’ I had been doing and got up and ran a longer distance than the day before. Even so, I still had another huge breakfast, although I did manage to skip the biscuits this time (small victory). We went for another short swim and I went to the gym for a short workout with Grandpa – it was a really short workout and I really didn’t even get up a sweat (although it did feel good to be back in a gym – as it has been almost a full year since I’ve been in a real one).
After saying our goodbyes and thanking Granny and Grandpa for the hospitality (as well as all the unnecessary calories that I wasn’t thanking them for), we hit the road and headed out of town. Within less than a couple of hours, we reached Dateland and the land of the famous (infamous?) date shakes. I gave Stacia some money to get us all shakes – but I ordered a Chocolate Malt – extra thick. I had seemingly just given up on my desire to transform back into Joe Abs.
To make matters even worse, soon after the malts I started planting in Stacia’s brain that I wanted pizza and more milkshakes for dinner once we got home. So that’s what happened. Once we got home, I turned on the football game (my UW Huskies killed the Wazzu Cougs in the annual Apple Cup) – and Stacia went out to round up the pizza and milkshake ingredients. Needless to say – I went to bed fat – and happy (really?).
The next morning I weighed myself and I had gained 7 pounds in less than 3 days. What a pig! I was / am disgusted with myself … But there were some positives that came from this:
- I didn’t eat mashed potatoes with my turkey
- I prepared, took and drank a couple of large green drinks for the trip
- No alcohol consumed. ZERO. Well, almost zero. I did drink my first beer in a very long time – I had one in the fridge for almost a year and decided to drink it with my pizza on Saturday night when we got home.
- Even though I wanted another pizza and more milkshakes on Saturday night, I did not go for Round 2.
- I now have even more progress to make to get to my goal of 8% bodyfat by my 55th birthday (December 27th).
Update December 1st: Although I still have some extra flab from my 3 day nutrition detour, I have ‘lost’ the 7 pounds I gained and am back to full activity. I have also joined Dai Manuel‘s December #NetZeroGain phase of the Whole Life Fitness Manifesto – it’s a great group and I’m happy to be a part of it even though my goals are a bit different from most everyone else.