199.6 What's Up!

It's hard to control weight when you travel. Travel often involves gatherings (around food) with friends and relatives, and sometimes the food options that are presented to me cause me to feel uncomfortable. I have blogged about this before, since this year in particular has involved a lot of travel for me. But something is at work within me that has enabled me to travel without gaining much weight at all.

I have been thinking about this all day and I think I know what's up! Portion control and staying present are keeping me from doing too much damage. Staying present is tricky for me, especially when I am facing high stress, anxiety provoking situations. It is easy for me to become unaware, to go inward into my own little world that is far removed from how much I am eating, how fast I am eating, and what I am eating. Portion control is easier, especially if I check in with myself beforehand about how I am going to deal with the immediate challenges faced by a long buffet of all kinds of good looking food, or even a menu that offers very little in the way of healthy eating choices. One of the nights when we were in Indiana the waitress asked me if I wanted a small house salad with my order and, thinking that would fill me up and be healthy, I said yes and automatically asked for the dressing on the side. Well, the salad came so heavily covered with grated cheese that I could not possibly remove it. I apologized for not asking more questions before I ordered it and then asked for a salad without cheese. This is a new behavior for me because in the past I would have felt that I shouldn't bother the waitress about it and I would have just eaten it, including the cheese. When she returned with the new salad, I was delighted and surprised to see that there were several cherry tomatoes on the salad that weren't even visible because there had been so much cheese.

So now I am back home for a while, totally in control of all that I eat. Let's see if I can't knock some more of this weight off. Or, should I say, let's see if I CAN knock some more of this weight off!