Why would you eat revolting food?

If you're going to eat chocolate, at least eat nice chocolate, right?

Breakfast: Oats so simple Golden Syrup porridge
Lunch: vegetable tempura / Chilli beef with sticky rice
Dinner: Baked paprika turkey breast, roast new potatoes with steamed veg
Snack: Packet of maltesers

Today has been an interesting day – Rather than ‘Cloudy with the chance of meatballs’ (I’ve never seen the film, I just find the title really random) it’s been more, ‘A voyage of self discovery’, although I appreciate that makes me sound like my Drama Friend, so won’t go on and on about it!

After I posted last night, I decided I’d continue to be productive and decided to clean out a lot of rubbish in my car. It’s certainly not dirty, however as I’m the only one who drives it and usually the only person in my car, I’ve got my gym kit in the back seat, a bag with some empty tubs in it, a couple of bottles of water thrown onto the back seat… etc etc. One of the paper bags I grabbed had a couple of unused Birthday cards in it.. I’d bought them for friends, forgotten I’d bought them, bought more cards and used them… As well as the two birthday cards, there was also a bag of ‘Mozart chocolates’ that one of my work friends had brought back from Germany for me – about 4 months ago.

Now, I’ve got very little will power when things are literally in front of me – which is why I’ve not been buying chocolate, crisps or icecream as not having them in the house removes that temptation for me. To be faced with marzipan chocolates is sheer torture as 1. I like marzipan and 2. I like chocolate. When I discovered them, I put them back in the bag and took them into my house to throw them in the bin.. except, I didn’t throw them in the bin as all I wanted was – Marzipan chocolate. It was almost as if I’d gone from not being hungry to being starving and the only thing that could possibly sate my hunger were these chocolates that I’d just discovered in my car…

I sat on the sofa, and ate one – It was quite unpleasant actually. Being in a car for the last 4 months and some of those days being over 30 degrees had meant that the chocolate had blanched. They were also really crumbly and tasted incredibly artificial… I ate another, and another, having to eat them over the actual bag as the chocolate was so damaged, it wasn’t sticking to the marzipan. After the 6th one, I finally came to my senses. Why on earth am I eating something that I’m not enjoying? They’re revolting… they’re actually not nice and considering I’ve not had chocolate for WEEKS, why am I bothering to eat really disgusting chocolate? If I eat chocolate, at least make it nice chocolate for crying out loud…. And that was it, I threw them in the bin.

I then took them out the bin so I could take a photo of them :-) And then threw them back in the bin, which is where they have stayed….

I don’t feel guilty and actually, I’m fine today – I’m not feeling as if I need to punish myself, nor eat a lot of unhealthy food – One thing I was wary of is that my lovely work colleague and I were having lunch today and had decided to go to our favourite Thai restaurant as it’s the last day we will ever work together at the company (I’m working from home tomorrow and she’s on holiday on Friday) I was actually feeling quite anxious about the choices I would make on the menu – What were the healthiest choices? Would I go crazy and pig out as I ate the minging chocolates last night? How can I ensure I stay focused on my healthy eating yet go to a Thai restaurant for lunch?

Well, I think I did OK - not amazing, but not totally badly - My lovely friend and I had 2 courses. For starters, I had vegetable tempura. I was weighing up tempura over chicken satay with peanut sauce, which I know isn't the most healthy thing in the world, but tempura batter is fried? But what if I don't eat the satay sauce? But then the chicken would be dry, surely?

I had no idea, I made an educated guess as to what would be the healthiest and now I'm back at my laptop, I can Google it to see if I was right.

Estimated calories and fat
Vegetable tempura - 320 calories / 18g of fat
Vegetable spring rolls (3) - 167 calories / 6g of fat
Chicken satay (3) - 250 calories / 5g of fat
Prawn tempura - 116 calories / 1g of fat

Different websites say different things, so I'm certainly not going to believe the figures above 100%, however it's safe to say that I think I chose one of the most lardy things on the menu... Hrmm. I honestly didn't think it would be that bad, after all, it's got the word VEGETABLE in it! It's certainly a lesson to me and something I'm happy to learn - So, the next time I go to a Thai restaurant, I'll probably choose the chicken satay or the vegetable spring rolls as opposed to the vegetable tempura.

The main course was Chili beef with vegetables and sticky rice. I usually had a massamum chicken curry, but as it's made with coconut milk, I assumed that it would be rather high in both fat and calories and on this occasion, I was actually more accurate. 

Estimated calories and fat
Massumum curry - 295 calories / 12g fat
Chilli beef with rice - 354 / 4g fat

I know from the above it looks like I was wrong - however the Massumum curry is just that.. the curry, and doesn't incorporate the rice. Stick the calories on from the rice and it's more than the chili beef...

Either way, it's more than I usually eat for lunch and after we'd eaten, we actually took a detour to Marks and Spencers to allow me to grab some vegetables for tonight - I picked up some marinaded turkey breast yesterday so my plan is to have that with some roast baby potatoes and steamed veg for tonight... As well as picking up some vegetables, I decided to pick up some maltesers - I don't even know why I did it, however I think there's something in my head that I'm trying to work through - as if I can eat chocolate 'if I want to', and it's not a bad thing... I'm not a bad person and so what?

They're currently still in my bag and I've not stuffed them all in my face.....yet. Tomorrow I'm working from home again, so I'll pick up some really healthy food for lunch and not grab anything unhealthy. 

I think I'm getting nervous as it's just over 2 days until I leave my job and I'm feeling a bit unsure about stuff. It's silly really, I've managed to hold it together for months when I've been having a really awful time at work, so to lose it now and go back to my old habits would be absolutely stupid. 

So tomorrow is game face - Get up, be healthy and get focused.