Lesson Learned!!

 Hello!

Hope everyone is doing well today.  Can you believe we're only 10 days from Christmas??  Eeek!  

I usually enjoy lunch on Tuesdays at work.  A little background: the place I work is considered "closed campus"; in other words, once you're there, you are there until it's time to go home.  This means no going out to lunch.   We do, however, arrange for vendors to come in each day and sell us lunch if we so choose.  We have a local pizza place one day, Arby's, Domino's, and on Mondays we do a fundraiser that we operate ourselves (this week was sloppy joes, for example).

Tuesdays are Boston Market.  I used to get the white 1/4 meal, with the corn bread and sweet potatoes.  You always hear how sweet potatoes are so good for you, right??  Well, one day shortly after I began pre-op prep I was sitting there and I decided to look up the nutrition info on their sweet potatoes.  YIKES, 400+ calories, not to mention all the fat, etc!  Well, the gentleman who brings in the food overheard our discussion, and watched as we began looking up more of their products.  He called me over, and now he brings me steamed veggies!  AND, he bring turkey instead of the chicken quarters, so I get a very healthy meal now on Tuesdays for lunch!

We had a really busy day today, and by the time lunch rolled around I was HUNGRY.  So I went to the front of the building, anticipating my wonderful Tuesday lunch.  I entered the cafeteria.  No one was there.  

NO ONE.  

I asked one of the other assistants, and Boston Market had to cancel today.  !!!!  I was starving!  And guess what?  I had NO OTHER OPTIONS, except the vending machine.  Ugh!!

I ended up with a small pack of beef jerky out of the vending machine, and I also had 5 Hershey kisses.  Not nearly enough, I was (still am) ravenous!  I could have done so much worse though - I wanted to! - but it just made the rest of my day miserable.  I came home and had some cottage cheese.  Then I had 6 wheat thins with some hummus.  I have to stop - NOW.

Lesson learned:  always keep something in the freezer at work!!

Hard lessons are never fun.  The Boston Market option is a good one, but a Lean Cuisine could've saved you today.  You made the best choice you could!

Sounds hard, hope you can stash an easy ready to eat snack at your desk for days like this.  The jerky was probably the best option from the vending machine.  Maybe a protein bar and some nuts stashed in your purse for such emergencies.  I keep almonds and a couple of protein bars in my locker at work.  Take in a pack of string cheese and nibble on that when I need a snack.  Working night shift, no other options besides the vending machines.  I feel for you.

Great of the vender to being you healthier options when he can.  Keep up the great attempts.  Success is right around the corner.  Hugs, Kathy

Wow.. that was a big bummer i am certain! You did good by the beef jerky, the kisses,,,,well.... lol. Maybe you shoulda got more jerky?  But all in all I know you could have done much worse from a vending machine.. so good for you! And your right.. a good lesson to learn .. and better now than after surgery when those kisses may have had you in the potty for much of the afternoon. maybe you could keep some carnation instant breakfasts or slim fast shakes around, and maybe some fruit?

You did well.. you could have really messed up.. so keep up the good work!
Hugs!

 That's funny, I actually had my packets of Carnation in my desk.  I was out of milk though!  Ugh!

Lunch is packed for today though, I have my milk, and my low carb lean cuisine, mandarin oranges, applesauce, and cucumber slices.  I have a couple extra applesauces and oranges to stash in my desk.

And the kisses were ok, I DID account for them and my numbers at the end of the day were ok.  You're right, after surgery probably not the best idea!  But they got me through the day, I stuck to my limit of 5, and I accounted for them. 

Not a big fan of nuts, but I'm sure I can find some protein bars to keep on hand.  My problem for now with the protein bars is that they don't fill me up.  In a few months when I am (finally) post-op I'm sure they'll be much better!  It seems like it's taking forever to get through this pre-op prep... but that's another post!  lol

I feel your pain. Do not beat yourself up on this one. Monday was the first day of my preop diet of 2 shakes and one lean cuisine type dinner and I have cheated on both days. I hate that I have but my cheating in itself was successful in that I limited what I did and like you I accounted for it and even though I did I still lost 6 pounds as of this morning. One of the best things I learned when I quit smoking I think can apply to a WLS Journey. This was my motto " I will do my best today". When I didn't it would change to " I will do my best to do better tomorrow". I had to literally say instead of " I am quitting smoking" to " I will not smoke today" and take it on a day to day basis. When you are in the beginning stages of breaking a habit, especially like smoking or just trying to control food choices, you tend to still be very overwhelmed and when we are overwhelmed we tend to make decisions that are not always logical or rational. If you take baby steps as far as progress goes and have daily expectations versus focusing on the whole plan and process you will have a better chance of succeeding. Take the good from the situation and run with it. Leave the bad alone. I would be jumping up and down if I managed to just eat 5 kisses and some jerkey. Especially when faced with hardly any options. SO pat yourself on the back, way to go and learn from it. Sorry, this is my soapbox so to speak. While I am typing this to you I am also trying to practice what I preach at my own inadequacies. LOL