Okay. Day one.

I hate to talk in terms of failure, but let's lay it out on the table.

I totally forgot that there was a farewell lunch planned at work today for a colleague. Said colleague is a good guy, and it's sort of sad that he's going. Mind you, I never had really very much to do with him. Nevertheless, I sort of felt compelled to go. Small office - wanted to put on a good show etc.

So. Off to Mecca Bah (seriously good turkish food, btw) we went, and the Office Manager promptly ordered the banquet.

I really should have stuck my hand up and said, "no, thanks. I might just order my own thing." That would have been not only the brave thing to do, but the sensible and healthy thing to do. But, again, there was a bit of peer pressure. Plus I didn't really want to stick my hand up and say, "sorry, if you don't mind, I'm trying to be healthy and I'm not sure that I want to eat a whole banquet."

So. Less than 24 hours into my new lifestyle, here I am confronted by a food situation that I'm not quite sure how to deal with.

To begin with, I only ate half of things. So when I was served a falafel, I cut it in half and left one half on my plate (actually - I passed the half over to our accounts assistant who vacuums food up!) Had as much salad as I could. Then mains started to come out. Again, I only served myself a little bit of the lamb tagine. Then the turkish pizzas arrived, and I lost my control. I had probably way too much than I should have overall.

Old habits die hard, huh?

So - what did I learn today? Stick your hand up to make a better choice for yourself (which I should have done). Try to reduce the amount you actually eat by leaving some on your plate (which I did do) and, as always, try to maintain self control (which I sort of managed)

While I'm not overly happy with the outcome and I'm not overly happy that I ended up in that "food environment", I can see that I did make some good choices in a situation where I could have done a lot worse.

On the upside, I was very VERY well behaved on the snacking front. Morning tea was a two wholewheat crackers and I didn't have afternoon tea at all.

Well done me!

Stay beautiful
Alys