Junk food + friends = failure?

There was pizza

I'm just back from my friends house and wanted to write down how I felt. It's been over 3 months since I really had any kind of real 'Junk food' and I can't recall the last time I had any kind of takeaway. I think I underestimated how I would feel, being in a garden with loads of other people and trying to eat healthy when the only option is Pizza / Cheesey garlic bread / chicken strippers...

OK, so let's start from the beginning - My friend invited me to her 'Guitar Hero gathering', where she had invited a number of work friends and a couple of other friends from other places - I was one of 2 people who she invited from 'other places' as I don't work in the same company as her. I was planning on bringing some healthy options in my bag and indeed, did manage to remember to put a Bakewell tart nakd bar in my handbag.

I arrived at 5:30pm and chatted to a couple of her work colleagues, whilst another 5-6 people arrived. We all sat in the garden and chatted, everyone was really nice and the weather was lovely. It gets to 6:30pm and my friend says' right, let's order Pizza'. I feel myself start to panic - What do I do? say no thanks? Produce my nakd bar from my Handbag and eat that instead? eat a small amount of pizza? I hate unknowns, it makes me feel really uneasy and I just don't want to fail at healthy eating, I genuinely want a lifestyle change.

We go round in a circle and say what we'd like to order - I was desperately searching for the healthiest option- I look at the pizza bases and decide to go for a thin crust pizza, rather than a normal base or stuffed crust. I also opt for the 33% less fat cheese and decide to go for a vegetarian pizza, so it's got vegetables, rather than meat on the top. I ask my friend for a small one, thinking I could have some of it, but other people could also have some...

Before the pizza comes, I wonder to myself if I should eat my nakd bar, thus being less hungry later on and eating less pizza, however I actually felt really uncomfortable about eating in front of others when they weren't eating anything. I also felt a bit 'weird' at the thought of eating something different and drawing attention to myself when the pizza came. One thing I genuinely believe - I don't want people to cater to me or my choices. The thought of bringing it up with my friend 'Er, I need something healthy' didn't even come into it - She actually apologised at not having any diet drinks when I asked for water (I was driving, so wouldn't be drinking alcohol anyway) and also said 'I'm sorry, I know pizza isn't very healthy, I hope that's OK?'

That's any awesome friend already in my book - It's me who's choosing to try and lead a more healthy lifestyle and I will never, ever compromise on my social life, so it's up to me to try and make the best choices. 

All of the food came.. and this is what I ended up eating.

Is it bad? Is it too much? I don't know.. I didn't feel completely bloated, but I certainly wasn't hungry afterwards. To be honest, it wasn't overly nice and certainly not as nice as the normal 'Texas BBQ' but then I guess it lacked the normal thick base and lashings of BBQ sauce that I usually eat - not to mention all the meat. Whilst I didn't feel guilty when eating it, I certainly didn't think 'God, this is amazing, I want more'. Despite there being 4 garlic bread pizzas to eat, I stayed away from them completely and now that I'm back home, this is how I feel:

1. I feel really thirsty, I've already drunk a pint of water and I still feel like I want more.

2. Sorry if TMI, however this is the first time in over 2 months where I seem to be farting a lot :-S

3. I feel a compulsion to eat more crap - This might be totally psychosomatic as it's a trigger for me, however if there was a bag / bar of chocolate in front of me, it would be gone in minutes.

4. I feel frustrated - I was eating really clean and healthy today up until tonight. Now there's pretty minging pizza in my body, making me fart and feel bloated. 

Now that I'm back home, I've been looking at the 'healthy' options at Dominos. It turns out that I was right about choosing a cripsy thin base as apparently:

A crispy thin base has 80 calories and 3.5g fat  Vs A traditional base has 160 calories and 6g of fat

Also

A crunchy thin crust Domino’s pizza contains less than half the carbohydrates of Domino’s classic hand-tossed pizza

I also managed to find the Dominos nutritional information online. Now, in case you haven't realised yet. I am lazy... I really am, I'm not going to spend hours of my time, working out the best combination, however I did look up the think and crispy based vegetarian pizza and find out the nutritional info per slice.

This is what it said...

Vegetarian Supreme - Thin & Crispy Crust - Medium .. 99.5 calories per slice.. 2.8g fat. As I ate 3 slices plus a few other bits on my plate, I'd assume we're talking less than 600 calories and less than 2g of fat.

Am I happy with that? Honestly? No, not really as it tasted pretty crappy and I just don't want to put that kind of stuff in my system at the moment. I think I'd much rather wait for a while and then actually order a small Texas BBQ pizza and really enjoy it. Same as with my chocolate - Why have manky car melted chocolates, when you could buy a small bag of maltesers and really enjoy them?

I'm glad I saw my friend, I'm also glad I didn't make a fuss about eating pizza.

I'm glad I know a little bit more in regards to the healthiest choice to make if I'm faced with a similar situation, however as I'm going away for the weekend, I'm concerned that I've got out of my 'routine' and that it's going to be hard to eat healthy for the next few days. Tomorrow is my last day at work, so for the time being I'm going to focus on getting it over and done with and then meal planning for next week.

Tomorrow is another day and it will take a long time to lose my excess weight - but I'm still committed to that journey :-)