the rest of my trip

After the business portion of my trip ended, I visited my family.  This went well but I did falter a few times including today when I returned home.   I now realize that family brings a lot more emotional/psychological issues into it than friends and business, which is hard enough until you get the hang of it.  My mother made vegetarian soup for me and it's hard to turn down your mother, so I ate some.  It was good but salty and my fingers did their usual swelling when I eat a lot of salt.  One thing to note:  when people say they don't eat or use much salt, don't believe them.  They aren't lying, they just think they don't eat or use much, but compared to those of us who add none to our foods, it's a lot.  My family is used to my weird eating habits, so they took me grocery shopping when I arrived and I cooked most of my meals.  This turned out really well.    I faltered by eating too many of their unsalted peanuts and almonds.  I did that twice in the four days I was there.  and I really did eat way too much of them--I'm sure I gained weight because of it.  I'm disappointed in myself but you just have to get back on the horse.  I don't think I should say I'm on the 6 week plan anymore (Dr. Fuhrman's Eat to Live plan), I'm on the life-plan.  If I'm on the 6-week plan, I'm inclined to say to myself, okay I'll restart tomorrow and pig out today.  

I made my meal plans and grocery list on the plane ride to see my family.   As in the business trip I just planned a few meals that were then repeated over the 3 days I was there.  Here they were:

Breakfast:   berries and banana over spinach or other chopped greens.  sometimes a few sunflower seeds.    I bought 3 bags of frozen berries:  raspberry, strawberry, and blueberry.  I combined them into one large plastic bag and every day took out 1/3 of them.  Put them on the plate, microwaved for 2 minutes to thaw and warm.  I bought a bag of spinach, arugula, and salad greens.  Chopped a bunch of them (sometimes all spinach, sometimes a mixture), and put them on top of the berries.  Sliced a banana on top.  This is a very enjoyable breakfast. 

Lunch/Dinner entrees:   chopped an onion, added a can of beans, and a peeled, chopped sweet potato, and some spinach or other greens (add a little later).  cooked until the onions were tender.    This lasted 2 days, then made another batch.

cabbage/apple/onion dish (without raisins):  Chopped an entire (relatively small) cabbage, 2-3 apples, an onion, added cinnamon and curry powder.  This lasted a few days, made another batch on the last day.

salad:  my mom made a salad with lettuce, other greens from my bags, sliced onion and tomato.  I added sunflower seeds soaked in my D'angou pear vinegar and sometimes and apple and orange.  

My parents tend to only eat two meals a day, a late breakfast and a late lunch.  so I had the entrees at the late lunch usually and then snacked on apple, orange and banana later on--and those darn peanuts and almonds.  You really have to watch out eating those things.  They are very high calorie density so you can eat a day's worth of calories in one sitting if you don't watch it.  And I think I did that, to my chagrin.  And they weren't raw so were not terribly healthy.  But at least they weren't salted.  So how do I keep from doing that next time?   Discipline?  I'm really bad at discipline, but I could give it a try.    I might try getting out of the habit of eating nuts by themselves.   Maybe just eat them as part of meals.  I'll have to work on it.  

My other indiscretion was having a few sips of a beer last night.  I might have had 4 oz or 6 oz total.  So no big deal.  I did feel more groggy than usual this morning and maybe it was because of that I don't know.  It did taste good to my surprise.  It was a  Leinenkugel's red, which is one of my old favorites.   That's probably what made me go for it.   When I think about it though, I usually drink a lot more when visiting my family, so this was quite an improvement.

Now I'm on my way home, with more food than I need for the airplane ride.  If anything, I prepared too much food the last 4 days and definitely overate.    But at least it was healthy food.   Edited later:  now I'm home and I ate a bunch of cashews when I got home and a nice big bowl of oatmeal.  But too many cashews!   I have to put a stop to the nuts!   I definitely overate 3 out of the 4 days I was with family.  Of course, when I think what I went through emotionally, I think I'll cut myself some slack and just get back on track now.   Dr. Fuhrman's response to that would be: no excuses, and he's right.   I'll have to try no excuses from now on.  No excuses and no nuts.