I’ve run into my first snafu with the pre-packaged meal plan diet – TRAVEL. I travel often for my job. This week was my first trip under the new plan. My intentions were good. I carved out a fourth of my suitcase for the packing of pre-packaged meals – breakfast, lunch, dinner and dessert. I arrived at the hotel and was disheartened to discover no microwaves available. I’m able to “rough it” pretty well, but I’m not willing to eat a cold box of red beans and rice.
I looked at myself in the hotel room mirror and affirmed: I will make healthy choices from the “regular menu” at the hotel restaurant – something I’m going to need to do once I’m off the plan anyway. However, “healthy choices” doesn’t translate well for a foodie. Putting a fine dining menu in my hands is like cutting a line of crystal meth in front of an addict. All sensible decisions fly out the window. Soooo, for dinner last night, I ordered seared ahi tuna with a salad of baby beets, fennel and citrus. If I had stopped there, I would have been golden. However, that was just my starter. For the main course, I couldn’t pass up the tender and richly unctuous duck confit. Even the addition of the duck could be a salvageable healthy meal, but as soon as I sat down “they” were out to get me. I was also presented with a amuse bouche of decadently creamy potato leek soup and, of course, freshly baked bread with butter and copious amounts of wine. I scarcely made it out alive without ordering dessert. Hanging my laurels on the tiny victory of avoiding the dessert trap, I waddled back to my room where I found a cheese and charcuterie plate complements of the hotel. How did I have a chance?
Contrite, I started today with oatmeal and a piece of fruit. Lunch consisted of a nice green salad and white bean soup. “I’m so great – I’m back on track,” I told myself. Dinner, unfortunately, avalanched quickly around me. I ordered well – a winter fruit salad and pork tenderloin with brussel spouts, faro, and greens served with one glass of red wine. As if my semi-healthy order was brandishing a gauntlet against the foodie world, the restaurant broke my will with an additional small glass of white wine (the red didn’t “go” with my salad), a mid-course small plate of Italian soup and a prawn on roasted winter vegetables with its own second wine pairing – complements of the chef, of course and three ‘wafer thin” dessert bites. Come on people, I can only take so much! I ate and drank everything I was offered. In the words of Hemmingway, it was good!
My snafu, sob!, has not been averted…