T - 74 - Surviving the Buffet

After a week of going on and off the routine, Saturday was probably the first day where I actually stayed on routine.  Like every other Saturday since I started this diet, Saturday's have been a day of getting things done.  Be it celebrating a birthday, doing house chores, planning my cheat meal or even playing video games, its always been a productive day and this one was no different.

Since I was so busy with work last weekend, I had completely forgotten about my cheat meal.  So I've been looking forward to it this time around.  The plan was to go to The Cheesecake Factory or a buffet at an India restaurant.  That's right.  When I say cheat meal, I mean it.  I really wanted to go to both places.  Get a dessert from the factory and the spicy chicken from the Indian place, but in the end decided to just choose one.


I woke up late on Saturday, so I didn't eat breakfast.  I was pretty hungry by lunch time, and I wasn't in he mood to wait for a table at the factory and then wait some more to order my food and wait even longer to get the food.  Hence the buffet won that battle.  So off we went to the restaurant, and I was ready to grab a fork, pull my chair right up to the buffet line and start going at it.  However, to my surprise, that is not what happened.

I scanned through the buffet first, and made a mental note of the items I wanted to eat.  Then from that list, I sorted the items from the healthiest to the unhealthiest.  To prevent myself from gorging on the unhealthy stuff too much, I decided to start with the healthier items first.  If I still wanted to stuff my face with unhealthy stuff afterwards, then I'll have at it.  Imagine my surprise when this actually worked.  After the first plate of the relatively healthier options, I was almost full.  So for the second plate and I just took small sample of all the unhealthy but yummy foods I wanted to try.  By the end of that, I was completely full.  I didn't even want to try their desserts. 

I felt pretty happy about it actually.  I ate healthier than I had expected, and I got to taste some of the unhealthy stuff without overloading on it.  Win win!  I think I've found my favorite strategy on how to survive the buffet.  After that big lunch though, I was in no condition to even think about dinner.  So I just had some nuts for snacks and skipped dinner all together.  As a result, lunch was the only meal I ate all day on Saturday.  I also did some yard work, and house cleaning so that meant no workout as well.  No complaints though.  A better day overall.

Here is the update for Saturday, June 16th 2012:

1. Wake up early - Fail - 0 point(s).
2. Eat breakfast - Fail - 0 point(s)
3. Eat healthy snacks - Nuts - 1 point(s)
4. Drink more water - Done - 1 point(s)
5. Spend 1 hour everyday being active - House work - 1 point(s).
6. Eat a healthy dinner - Skipped - 1 point(s).
7. Watch less TV and sleep early - Failed on both counts, but hey its a Saturday.  What do you expect? - 0 point(s).
8. Plan my day/week - Fail - 0 point(s)
9. Blog everyday - Fail - 0 point(s).

Total score: 4/10 - 40% - I don't care about what the score is.  I felt fantastic!