The Party

I went to a large potluck dinner last night with old friends, and it was a particularly tough diet situation.

First, almost all diets say you have to plan out your eating in advance. Think things through carefully. Make your trade-offs ahead of time, not in the moment.  Even, if you are counting and calculating, do some of those measurements ahead of time.

But with a potluck, that is particularly hard to do. I had no idea what would be there. So I followed one of the common sense rules:  bring a dish you know you can eat.  There was some light coordination going on, and so I was able to sign up for a salad. That also met my laziness target - I just bought stuff, and brought along my favorite cilantro-lime vinaigrette.  So what ever else was being served, I'd be able to have a big plate of leafy greens.

I also ate a snack in the late afternoon before going. Rather than "save up" during the day expecting to eat big at the party, I decided to moderate my hunger with a new treat: crunchy almond butter on celery sticks. Yum! The idea is to fortify my will power by minimizing the actual need to eat.  I also decided not to drink any alcohol. This is not a huge sacrifice at a winter party. I knew there would just be beer and wine, nothing luscious and daring.

So everything went very smoothly at first. I did pause for an instant at the array of micro-brews in the beer cooler, but only for an instant. They had  a big pitcher of ice water and I made it my friend.  Thirsty or not, I wanted something in my hand to sip from and keep me looking social with everyone else. Then, pleasant surprise, the appetizer table included a big plate of shrimp.  So I was able to indulge. The cocktail sauce no doubt had the same sugar most commercial ones do, but the grand total volume attached to all my shrimp was probably no more than a teaspoon.  Dinner, too, went well.  Someone had said something about "lasagna" which made my heart sink, but there were other dishes as well.  Pulled pork. Spiral cut ham. A truly luscious salad casserole - broccoli, peas, other small-cut vegies with a little bacon and mayonaise - and a baked dish with broccoli and cheese.

I ate well, felt no deprivation, enjoyed the company, and stayed away from the dessert table. But towards the end of the evening, I drifted back over to eye it while most people were in the other room. Nothing store-bought on it. Cakes that looked good, but full as I was, not so tempting. But some very intriguing looking small cookies - a hard lacy-caramelized cookie sandwich with a solid dark chocolate filling. Surely just one little cookie wouldn't throw everything off? They were terrific, a homemade version of a cookie I know not to buy any more at Trader Joes.  And then the wall of resolve just disappeared.

I would take one, go out to where the other people were to eat it, then drift back to the table for just one more. I was stopped only because they were packing up to end the party.  How many did I have? I honestly don't know.  Five? Eight? Surely not as many as ten?  No, definitely between four and nine, but even though each involved walking between rooms, I truly can't say.  If each was twelve grams of carbs (an educated pure guess) that is between 48 and 108 grams.  And me with a daily budget of 25 carb grams, certainly exceeded on volume of food alone before hitting the dessert table. Two to four days worth.

What to expect as a consequence?  According to my understanding of sugar regulation, I am likely to be hungry and have more sugar cravings for the next few days.  Like when I started, though without the incredible strength and optimism that always is present at the beginning of each endeavor.  Be on guard, and make a plan.  Atkins specifically says to drop back on the carb allowance after a slip, but never below twenty grams. Keep those leafy green volumes up, because fewer carbs and less fiber is not a good ideal.  Also, both sugar and water regulation will be screwed up, so don't be surprised if the scale is unkind this week.  (It already is-two pounds higher today than yesterday.  That would be water, and what I do next determines whether it turns to fat stores.)

What could I have done differently? Besides the simple "just say no next time-firm up your backbone" resolve? What could I have done differently so that I would have been able to withstand the temptation? Why was I not able to manage this? What was I thinking?

I think it comes back to the subject of my previous post on Treats.  I don't think I'm prepared to lead a life feeling I'm being deprived, just for the sake of weight loss.  Some systematic form of rationed treats - genuine treats, not some horrible fake sugar diet form of so-called treat - is really necessary for the long run. I could have said no to all the desserts if there was a single jewel of a treat waiting for me at home. I might have been able to control the cookie intake better if I started the evening with a plan to allow a single precious treat right at the end. And one thing I did do right - I postponed the crumbling as late as possible in the evening, so the damage was limited purely by opportunity. Perhaps I should have surveyed the dessert table, decided on my single special jewel, and taken it then but not eaten it then, instead saving it for the very end just before departure. Truly, each cookie was very tasty, but the first taste is so much better and more important psychologically than the eighth, or even the second.

I think that "set aside" logic has promise as a future technique.  See, the post-game analysis does add value - I think I've learned something here, not just beat myself up and moaned about it.

What do I do now? It's Sunday morning, and I do not yet have a plan for managing my food and my family's food for the week. I've got supplies in both houses, but I need to make a plan.  I need to make it easy to stick to the plan by making sure I've got the ingredients and timing worked out for all the meals.  And this week's challenges include some out of the office business lunches and sort-of social events. Time to look forward, not back.