WIAW: Meals and gratitude #3

 Hi all!

Time for another What I Ate Wednesday! For more information about its awesomeness, and links to other WIAWs, see Peas and Crayons blog.

Today’s been a bit weird eating-wise – I’ve been so rushed off my feet, spending 6 hours of my working day in meetings – and so food has been pretty rushed!

Breakfast started with the usual, trying to silently munch on my apple whilst talking to a colleague on a phone (there was mixed success). I find the combination of the sugar and carbs in the apple, and protein and fat in the nuts really helps me feel satisfied until lunch time.

I didn’t get chance to get out at lunch time, so was glad I’d thought ahead yesterday and bought my lunch in advance. It was a “new to me” M&S salad – pretty clean (if you avoid the dressing) bar a bit of refined sugar in the sundried tomatoes. It was pretty good, but I unfortunately didn’t give it much attention as I was trying to shove it down my throat in record time before my next meeting. Still, again a good mix of protein from the lentils and cheese, carbs from the couscous, and fats from the cheese.

There was a lot of food hanging around in my mammoth all-afternoon meeting: mini chocolate brownie bites, and mini rocky roads were there, and at the break a colleague offered to buy us all ice creams due to their being no air conditioning in the room and us all sweltering. This is a brilliant example of what I want to overcome: I said no to everything (and then grabbed a brownie on my way out…) even though I would definitely have benefited from an ice cream to cool down! But the eating in front of people, and having something that “naughty” was just not something I was going to allow myself (note: eating an ice cream is NOT naughty! There’s a lot of talk around foods good for the body, and foods good for the soul – see Laura’s brilliant blog, Keeping Healthy Getting Stylish – and I could have benefitted from some food-for-the-soul ice cream at that point!).

I didn't leave work until late so knew I was going to be on a train back home til around 8pm. I decided I probably needed to eat a snack dinner on the train otherwise I was going to get super hungry and then massively binge when I got home (as I always worry about doing on a travelling home day). Unfortunately there’s limited choice at the train station, and so ended up with a packet of plain crisps (rather than flavoured crisps which are packed with additives) and a packet of Belvita biscuits. Not nutritious at all, but I did the best I could with the selection, and actually I'm quite pleased because I got TWO items of food, mindful of needing to boost my calories.


Where I failed with having a mini "binge" when I got home - eating less nutritious foods far too quickly before my brain kicked in. Still I did stop it from going to a full on binge, and I know I'm still under my calories. I seem to have a mental block around the 1,000 kcal mark - going over just makes me panic. But that's why I'm getting help right?!

Gratitude

Things I have to be grateful for today:

- The weather! I know I keep banging on about the sun, but this is SO rare in the UK! But not only was it sunny, it was WARM (hopefully it will continue to a day where I'm not stuck in meeting rooms all day)

- My meeting this afternoon finishing early meaning I could get home a bit earlier

- Having a heart-to-heart with the graduate I "budy" at work regarding the same tough situation we found ourselves in at work. It's so good to support each other and know that someone else is feeling the same emotions you are

- Getting good feedback from my project manager during a performance review

- Going home!

What’s made you grateful today? I want to hear your good stories from the day!

E x