Summer time is upon us, and for me, while that does mean lots of free time to spend with friends and family, it also means a lot more challenges to face when it comes to clean eating. My first major challenge was about a week ago when the United States played Germany. While I personally am not a huge soccer fan, Nate is all about it, so we made plans to head to a local bar in downtown Albany (The Albany Biergarten) to watch the game. Since I've been there a few times before I knew there wasn't going to be a single thing I could eat, and I definitely wasn't going to be able to make any special orders since there would be a couple hundred crazy soccer fans down there as well. I knew I would probably want at least a little something to eat while we were down there since it would be a couple hours so I needed a plan.
Admittedly I went back and forth for awhile about whether I could actually pull this outfit off, and whether I was comfortable enough to do it... but I said screw it! Who cares what other people think... it'll be fun!! Lucky for me most other people in the bar thought the same thing when they got dressed that morning, so there were lots of us in our crazy patriotic clothes.
Next thing to address... FOOD! Like I mentioned I knew I would need at least a snack at some point during the almost 5 hours we spent down there. First, I made myself a HUGE breakfast to hopefully help with the future hunger... it definitely took awhile to get down, but it was delicious and quite filling! Scrambled eggs with scallions and mushrooms and two
pieces of ezekiel toast topped with our homemade strawberry peach jam. Here's the recipe in case you missed it!One of the first things I was worried about having to give up when I first started this whole journey was BREAD! I come from a big Italian family, and I LOVE all things bread and carb related (don't we all?) So you'll understand why I was a bit worried about what my options for bread would be... but I find that I'm rather satisfied with ezekiel. If you're not familiar with ezekiel, it can be found in the freezer/refrigerated section of your health food store (I've never actually looked in main stream supermarkets so I'm not sure if you can find it there as well.) It's made from fresh live sprouted grains that are then blended together into a paste, put in a mold and baked. I'm also starting to venture out on my own (as you'll see in my next post where I share a whole wheat wrap recipe I tried) and experimenting with making my own bread products.
All in all I thought it was a successful outing and was really proud of myself for ignoring the pretzels, pizza and other food items that were floating around the bar.
BUT... my day was far from over! My next challenge... dinner with friends at Hooters for All You Can Eat Wing Night!! This was also going to be tough... I find that eating out is my biggest challenge, unless you want to stick to salads, you're taking a gamble. I had researched the menu ahead of time and gave myself two options to choose from, either a salad (which I really didn't want) or a plain hamburger, no bun, no toppings and a salad on the side. I'm glad I had made my decision ahead of time because everyone at the table but me got All You Can Eat Wings and thought I was a bit crazy for not doing the same. But I didn't care... I was sticking to my plan. I went with the hamburger, no bun, no toppings, no fries sub salad with lemon on the side instead of dressing. Now, I don't know what the hamburger was cooked with but I was willing to overlook that because I couldn't bare the thought of ordering a salad. It's not that I don't like salads but let's be honest, Hooters isn't known for their salads and I knew if I ordered one it would probably end up being slightly depressing and far from satisfying. Our food arrived, and the waitress accidentally (or maybe I ordered it wrong?) didn't replace the fries with the salad, but instead brought both of them out! So here in front of me sat a sad looking salad with processed cheese and croutons, a burger, and a HEAPING pile of curly fries. I was determined to stick to my plan, so I took the croutons and as much of the cheese as a I could off the salad and offered my fries to everyone at the table. While admittedly it was a little hard watching everyone else pass around the wings in front of me I'm really proud of my strength.
So... with a little planning and determination I successfully survived the day and still had a great time!! Until next time!! Health Travels!
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