Road Trip!

So I must say how proud I am of myself! I gave up everything with sugar and/or sweeteners this week and I must say I feel great! Half way through the week, however, I realized that I did not give up my addiction to gum, which has sweetener in it. I felt really guilty at first, but then realized that I gave up Crystal Light, Diet soda, sugar-free jello, sugar-free pudding, sugar-free popsicles, and mainly stuck to whole foods... so I figured I could justify my little 5 calorie stick of gum :) Sorry to you die-hards out there who may think that I have compromised my efforts. After a long plateau, I was able to lose 3 lbs... Let's hope I can keep that up! What am I saying?! I will keep that up!!!

So this week I'm going on a little road trip... I always struggle on a million different levels on a road trip. I get the munchies in a bad way... and not the kind of munchies that baby carrots and celery can satisfy (sorry folks, just don't like them that much).  Not only is the ride hard, but I'm going to see a bunch of my family, and for some unknown reason whenever I'm around my family I have a ridiculous bottomless pit! (I'm definitely a social eater... If I just stayed at home by myself all the time I'd be very healthy!) I must also mention that when travelling I have a strange desire to eat out at any given opportunity (which is not normally a struggle for me), and we all know that even the healthy options in restaurants are usually high in calories or have "hidden" fat and calories. I like to know exactly what's in my food and how it's prepared and there's very few places to eat that you can actually know those things... call me a control freak, if you must.

What do all these things have in common, you ask? Out-of-control portions... that's what! So in my day-to-day life, I try to eat 5-6 smaller meals, each containing 200-300 calories and each containing some form of protein and carb. Here's the deal... since I know I probably won't have my usual protein/carb meals, my goal this week is all about portion and calorie control. I budget 1200-1500 calories a day, so I will still eat 5 times a day (another hard thing for me to do when I travel) and each meal will still be from 200-300 calories. Here's the catch... I can't have more than one portion (suggested serving size) of any food in a meal. Meaning, if I want to go get frozen yogurt I can't get 300 calories worth, I can only have 4 oz., which is about 120 calories worth. Then I need to fulfill the rest of that meal's calories with something else (preferrably a healthier choice).

Since everybody has their own eating plan, hopefully one that works well for them, my challenge to everyone this week is to pay attention to the suggested serving size and stick to it. This goes for you skinny-minnies too! We miss out on a lot of nutrients from a large variety of foods because we tend to get full on, or waste our calories on one type of food. The more variety we have in our diets, the more likely we are to be healthy and energetic because we'll be getting the nutrients we need... that is, if we are choosing a healthier variety :) "Moderation in all things"! Good luck to you all! Hope you're keeping up :)