This weekend my fiancee and I headed up to the Jacksonville Jazz Festival. It was over three days, so we opted to get a hotel room right in downtown for two nights. Besides being super close to the festival, we had the added bonus of having a fridge and a microwave in our room so I could stick my healthy eating. I stocked my cooler bag with healthy goodies, and off we went.
So, how did I do? Pretty well, honestly. There was lots of temptation at the festival for unhealthy stuff, especially fried foods, but having a fridge stocked with goodies kept it at bay. On Saturday I even walked 3 miles roundtrip to the farmers market. A couple years ago 3 miles wouldn't be that much of an accomplishment for me, but since I had my herniated disc 6 months ago, I can't walk more than 30 minutes without some pain. There was a little pain, but luckily there were benches along the trail so I could stop and sit down if I needed. Plus, it was an easy walk along the river. SO glad I went because I almost thought about driving.
The farmers market was fantastic. There were lots of vendors there and unique stuff. I even got a massage. The only problem was, there were so many free samples. It's so hard to track free samples so I did my best, and only sampled healthy things. But it still can be a chore so I resulted to "best guesses". I tried not to buy too much, but I did end up buying three things (shown in the bottom-right square): Guacomole, Cashew Cheese, and "bacon"-flavored coconut chips.
Friday and Saturday I stuck to my calorie goal extremely well, and I even had a huge excess of calories from all the walking I did. Sunday wasn't bad, but wasn't as "clean" as I would have liked. We were having problems with our room, so the hotel gave us free breakfast. I tried to eat healthy and got a seafood frittata, but it was still more calories for breakfast than I'm used to. Then for dinner, I got some delicious oxtail. I skipped the rice and plantains, thankfully. And then on the way home, the fiancee wanted to watch the end of the Lightning game, so we stopped at Chilli's since not a lot of places were open. I got the steak and shrimp fajitas and ate some of that over a bowl of lettuce. No chips or other bad stuff, thankfully.
So overall I made healthy choices and stuck within or just went a little over my calorie goal (no "off the rail" days). So why do I call it a disappointing success? Since I "ate out" with three meals on Sunday, I think I waaay overdid it on the sodium. Today I feel bloated and bleh, and the scale agrees with me. I didn't gain weight, but for all that hard work and good eating on Friday and Saturday, I thought I would put up better numbers. So, it's disappointing, but I know I could have done way worse. Originally on Sunday we had reservations for an "all you can eat Jazz Brunch". While that would have been great, there would have been a lot of temptation and I'm sure I would have gone over on my calories even more. I really didn't need the fajitas at Chilli's, but there are definitely worse things to order. I do have to wonder how many calories were really in those coconut chips. It said 1 tsp was only 2.5 calories, but that sounds awfully low, and I had a ton of them.
My plan today is to drink a TON of water. I wanna flush out of my system and get rid of this bloated feeling. I originally was supposed to meet up with some friends at a wing place, but now I'm not so sure. I have SO much food left to eat at home. I'm going to Vegas on Wednesday (more on that in another post) so I really should eat some of it before it goes bad. Plus, going out to eat AGAIN is not gonna help with this bloated over-sodiumed feeling. So, we shall see.