TL;DR - I've had a crazy week and a half. I've slept in four different beds in three different states, I've been on airplanes and received certifications and attended a wedding. My calorie counts have been over, under, and just right. I logged everything religiously.
On August 23rd, I drove an hour to the next big city over (Madison, WI) for an all-weekend training that had me mostly sitting at a table or standing to present/work with a small group from 8 a.m. until 10 p.m. Friday, Saturday, and part of Sunday. I squeezed in a couple of short walks around the block, but we didn't get many breaks and I had to drive back to my hotel each morning/night, so time was crunched. I focused on eating smart instead, and brought along an arsenal of healthy snack options in appropriate portions for myself.
I'm budgeting around 1350 calories/day for weight loss, and over that training weekend I went over my calorie budget by an average of 200 calories each day. Not terrible, not beating myself up over that.
I got home Sunday, then Monday morning I hopped on a plane to Dallas, TX for a three-day work meeting. I had very little control over the food available to me during this time, as we were being driven everywhere by a local coworker and meals were being provided by the company. I had said I preferred high-protein, low-carb options when available when they asked for any dietary restrictions. Mostly that was ignored. Dinner on Monday night was at a fancy bowling alley entertainment center, and Tuesday night dinner was at a local fried chicken restaurant that serves all food family style and only serves four entrees: fried chicken, smoked chicken, chicken tenders, and fried fish. I budgeted for some smoked chicken and two biscuits, and I stuck to it. I was vocal about my food choices and the reasons behind my restrictions, and nobody gave me any crap (for the most part). People were respectful about my choices and it was relatively easy to stick to portions and choices that better fit into my plan. I also chose to drink coffee with creamer during this work trip, when lately I've generally been drinking tea instead.
During the work trip, I went over my budget by an average of 114 calories each day.
I got home from the work trip late on Wednesday night. I took Thursday off work and had a nice deficit day where I also got plenty of physical exercise and enjoyed some outdoors time.
Friday, we were scheduled to leave town again for a family wedding in Iowa, returning Monday (Labor day). This time, we'd be driving about four hours each way. Places to stop for food were kind of scarce along the way, and we didn't have the bandwidth to have planned ahead and packed our own food, so we stopped for fast food on the road.
We were staying at an Air BnB, which gave us the option to cook. We started off Saturday on a healthy footing, making ourselves avocado toast with poached eggs and veggies on top, probably about a 400 calorie per serving meal. It was delicious! Then we started helping the family set up for the wedding, and we got so tired and hungry that we grabbed McDonald's. I managed to do portion control - my stomach has "shrunk" since I've been tracking my food and losing weight, and I only have room for one cheeseburger and a few fries now, instead of two cheeseburgers and an entire medium fries.
We basically did the same thing Sunday (the wedding was on Sunday), plus someone showed up with donuts on Sunday morning. Saturday night we ended up ordering a couple of big pizzas. I sort of had two dinners each day of the weekend, in a way. Food timing was very weird. I was super hungry a lot of those days - we worked hard setting up tables, putting out decorations, cleaning things up, etc.
I've also been off alcohol for a few months (just to save calories and be good to my body), and recently started a new medication that I take for 14 days at a time and that does not allow me to drink alcohol while taking the medication. I finished my most recent course mid-week last week, and decided to indulge in a couple drinks over the wedding weekend. I had a great time, drank responsibly, avoided getting sick or hungover, and allowed myself to splurge on those alcohol calories without loading up a bunch of sugar.
From Friday through Monday, I went over my calorie budget by an average of 800 calories each day. That's a scary number to me, but it's also a good reality check of just how much "normal" eating adds up if I'm not tracking and if I'm not exercising regularly. It was a good reminder to stick to my tracking!
All of this is to say that it doesn't phase me that I had a "bad" weekend in terms of going over my calorie counts. I learned from that, it got me through the weekend, and I'm moving forward.
The "reward" from all of this was the reinforcement of knowing that my good habits are paying off, and that gives me momentum to keep going. Some of my family members commented over the weekend that they thought I had lost a lot of weight - they could really see it, they said, and for the first time I can really see it, too. I've lost about 17 lbs since I really started trying 99 days ago. I'm aiming for slow and steady, and it seems to be paying off. My goal is to get down to 170 (or even further if it's going well!). Today I fit into a pair of size 14 pants that I've had in the bottom of a drawer for months. Here's to size 12 in the future!
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