Happy Birthday To Me!

Last week was my birthday week and I was very excited. I was turning 50! I always thought 50 was old. When did I get old? AARP here I come! To help me celebrate, several friends and family were planning on taking me out to eat. One friend even threw me a party! Why do celebrations always have to involve food? Normally, I am up for putting on the feed bag and stuffing my face. I guess that explains how I got to Weight Watchers, huh? This should be interesting.

Pizza, Chinese/sushi buffet, party, Mexican. How was I going to eat, I mean get through this week and stay on track with Weight Watchers? I decided I was not going to worry about my weight this week, but how? How could not worry about it, eat what I wanted, but not totally sabotage my weight loss efforts? I was going to have to dig deep for this one! Real deep. Time to pull everything I had learned from Weight Watchers. I could do this. It was just going to take some strategizing and major willpower. I was going to enjoy myself, but use what I learned about portion control and good choices.

Counting points really wasn’t an option during my birthday week because of the variety of foods, so I was going to have to use other techniques.

·        Eat something lower in calories before I went out. That way I wouldn’t scarf down everything in sight.  I’ve done that before. It was not a pretty sight.

·         Drink some water. This would fill my stomach to keep me from pigging out.

·         Making smarter food choices.  Healthier choices, healthier me. J

·        Use portion control This would be a good idea too.

The question is, could I actually stick to all of this?

And so it began. The first birthday meal came - Pizza. The friend I was going out with is also on Weight Watchers, so we decided together to go with their seafood pizza. We justified the seafood pizza by saying it was healthier than a greasy meat pizza. So what if it had Alfredo sauce on it. That didn’t count. Right? We also ordered a seafood salad with a light dressing. We both love seafood, so this worked well for both of us. It was delicious. One day down.

Second, Chinese/sushi buffet. This was not as easy as the pizza because it was all very good and so many choices. I decided to have what I wanted, and limit the portions. To celebrate my birthday, they brought out three little pieces of cake with a candle and sang happy birthday to me. I couldn’t leave the bite sized pieces of cake there. That would have been rude! J

 Then we decided we wanted ice cream. Again, I went for it. Vanilla, honey, ginger flavored.  I only got one dip and took my time eating it.  It was well worth it. Second day down.

The third outing was Chili’s. I looked at the menu online ahead of time and decide to have their fish and shrimp tacos. They were very good. I had some chips and salsa too. Water to drink. Oh, the sacrifices I make for Weight Watchers. Sigh…

And finally, The Dinner Party! I went over early to help with food prep and set up. While we were out getting last minute things for the party, we got small tuna subs for lunch to tide us over til dinner time. We didn’t even get chips!

Since I knew about the party ahead of time, my friend and I planned the menu together, and it ended up being mostly gluten free, which was going to help keep the carbs down, too. A few of the items were single servings, so that helped with portion control.

The Menu
Appetizers: glazed bacon, grilled asparagus, cheeses & crackers
1st course: baked shrimp
2nd course: Caprese salad
Main course: peach & Riesling glazed ham, sesame ginger chicken & pineapple kabobs, fresh green beans, potato salad, and cornbread

Dessert: Irish Cream Chocolate Mousse. They called it Jim’s Grave Dirt, (gummy) worms and a song included! Thanks, guys! LOL

Drinks: Pam’s Sangria, Malbec wine, sweet tea and water.

Dessert: Irish Creme Chocolate Mousse
Drinks: Pam's Sangria, Malbec, sweet tea, aYeah, my friend likes to really bring it! Everything was amazing. I can still taste the mousse!

The next week came. The day of reckoning had was upon me.

Weigh in Day!

I stepped on the scale. Moments later…. 3.8 pounds down!

What?

 I had to ask again to be sure. It was true. I was down 3.8 pounds after my birthday week! How did that happen?  Apparently the smarter choices when possible, portion control, and going to the gym in between all worked. Yes!

So, there it was. My birthday week was over. I was able to eat what I wanted, with a little sacrificing. I was able to navigate my way through some weight loss obstacles and I lost more than I thought I would. Happy birthday to me!  

I hope that this will be encouraging to others on their weight loss journeys. There will be challenges along the way, but with some planning, you can get through it.

 
Dessert: Irish Creme Chocolate Mousse
Drinks: Pam's Sangria, Malbec, sweet tea, and water

 

 

 

 

Dessert: Irish Creme Chocolate Mousse
Drinks: Pam's Sangria, Malbec, sweet tea, and water

Dessert: Irish Creme Chocolate Mousse
Drinks: Pam's Sangria, Malbec, sweet tea, and water
Dessert: Irish Creme Chocolate Mousse
Drinks: Pam's Sangria, Malbec, sweet tea, and water