Social Triggers

I am a social animal.  I love spending time with friends eating, drinking, playing games – if it’s on, I’m in.  However, social outings almost always mean overeating for me.  This past weekend was a real challenge, but I definitely won this round.

Friday was my son’s 20^th birthday.  We decided to have a day in Golden Gate Park.  I knew we’d be walking lots, so I didn’t feel guilty when we started the day with waffles.  I made them and I ate two with a tiny bit of butter and some berry sauce.  We parked in GG Park, walked to the California Academy of Sciences and spent several hours touring all of the new exhibits.  When we stopped for lunch my son and I shared vegetarian spring rolls. Outside again, we all decided to walk around near the band shell.  We shared a soft pretzel three ways (wahoo!) and then walked over to the rose garden and smelled every rose, each choosing our favorite. I must say that I miss the smell of old growth roses – so fragrant and strong. Anyway, we went to Tacubaya in Berkeley for tortilla soup and came home for dessert which was homemade fruit crisp from a recipe a friend cut out of the paper exactly 20 years ago. Seems like a ton of food, right?  I certainly wasn’t hungry all day.  But the fact is I came in 556 calories below my allowance because of the simple act of moving!

Saturday I flew around getting things ready for my son’s birthday party with friends.  Mostly I was baking.  Pies for a dinner party I was attending and the annual theme cake for Collier’s birthday.  This year he has gotten into bouldering (rock climbing) so I decided to make a bouldering wall for his cake. It was quite the construction piece, but it came out well.  I ate some meat on the fly(but not with flies) for both breakfast and lunch and then, when I got to the dinner party I had some wine, ate veggie appetizers, had ravioli, salad with breaded chicken, bread, and pie…then I came home and ate some BBQ potato chips.  Bad, right?  No.  I was 105 calories under my allowance.  I had exercised enough to allow for desserts and snacks.  Plus, I was conscious of my portions.

Sunday my husband and I had to catch up on le Tour de France.  We had two days awaiting viewing.  I am a huge Le Tour fan (PETER SAGAN!) and can intelligently discuss bike racing.  However, I am not a bike racer…I am a sitter-on-the-coucher.  I did a little bit of housework – laundry, sweeping and the like – and then plopped on the couchie to watch all those men peddle away.  We decided to have our neighbors over for dinner to thank them for taking our dog on party night and chose London broil, grilled artichokes, three bean salad, cake, and wine for dinner.  Again, a social food thing.  But I was 326 calories short for the day and there was no way I could eat another bite!

Today I rode my bike for a bit, walked the dog, and worked.  There were some interesting mother-in-law moments that before might have driven me straight to the fridge.  But something has changed within me this time.  I just sat down to write this instead. I am very pleased.