Long winded victory post

Something really weird happened this weekend.  It's a huge non scale victory (though there was one of those too to a degree) yet it had me feeling irritated.

Saturday is my day to get a break from cooking.  I am not one to nuke something in the microwave in a little plastic film covered dish and consider myself satisfied with that.  Don't get me wrong, there's nothing wrong with that from time to time when you just don't have a choice but for me, I need to be inspired by what I'm eating.  I rarely eat a bowl of cereal and call it a day, there just has to be presentation involved for me even when I'm just cooking for myself.  A cut of scallion atop some scrambled eggs or a fresh grate of black pepper.

I agreed to make dinner Saturday night because I'd been craving a burger and even though we've got burger places around here, they load it with salt.  (Most burgers at popular sit down burger chains have enough sodium in the burger alone to max out your daily recommendation for salt.  No thanks.)  The Mr felt bad I was going to have to go to a lot of trouble to make a Hawaiian burger I wanted but I  didn't mind.  We went to the local butcher and got some organic, grass fed beef so we could get in a little healthier fare and not have to pay out the rump if we'd gotten the same thing at a hipster restaurant.  But let's back track a little...

We decided to go to our favorite diner for our meal out and get breakfast.  We looked at their menu the night before and we usually get their big breakfast if we know we're going to basically skip lunch. Thing is, the big breakfast is 2 eggs, choice of meat, hash browns (about 4-5 oz worth), toast and pancakes or French toast.  This is the kind of thing we'll get there before a road trip if we know we're going to power through and not stop.  Well, they have these chocolate peanut butter chip pancakes that are to die for but they're soooo filling.  We always find a way to jam them down the gullet and then spend the next 8 hours in misery.  One time I even had to walk just to aid digestion...the only other option was barfing at that point since the damage was done.  You all know how I feel about barfing...not gon' do it!  When I go out for breakfast, I must have toast.  I don't know what it is...it's ingrained since childhood but must have it.  The logical thing would be to eat the pancakes and skip the toast but for me it's like why bother going out for breakfast if toast isn't involved.  (Plus we do it so rarely, so it really is a treat.)  So I told him the night before what if we acted like normal people and split the pancakes.  I could get the other meal that basically comes with the same thing sans pancakes and we could do the whole eat slow thing and see how we fare.  We agreed and went in with a plan of attack.

They have very limited seating plus counter seating.  We're not counter sitting kinda people so we waited for a table.  Well it was about a 20+ minute wait and I was getting hangry.  When we were finally seated, it was lunchtime but we hung on to our plan.  I ordered a hot tea (to calm the angry beast whilst we waited for the food to be cooked) and a large water.  When it came out, we made a point to take a bite, put down the fork, chew slowly and take a sip of beverage.  Of course my toast was the first casualty just as after church brunch with the family.  I made sure to take a bite of everything so I could make sure I got some of it all.  We chatted and we knew we were going to have to dig into the pancakes soon or we'd be too full to eat them.  We finished the 1 1/2 pancake over the three we normally had and left a few bites of eggs and a few bites of potatoes on the plate.  It sounds probably like a horrifying amount of food to others but it's a normal amount.  It's never been done and we felt like we were sufficiently full but not gorged or begging for a barf bag.  A huge win for us.

We did a return I needed to get done, hit the butcher for the grass fed beef and a few other items and headed home to drop it off.  Then ran to another store to grab our sweet for the day, a slice of cake, and run another errand.  That came at the perfect time because breakfast had dropped and my stomach was saying "it's Saturday...send it down!"  Sadly, the cake was tainted by these horrible flavored sprinkles that were almost fruity and it was just bad.  Did that stop me from eating it?  No.

:-(

It was hard though because the Mr suggested 3 other sweet things we could "split" in an effort to be good but would still be 300-400 calories more than I planned.  I don't know how I found the strength to say no but I did.  I finally called him on it and told him to knock it off.

I flooded myself with water too so I felt full again.  I couldn't tell you what else we did because before we knew it, it was 6pm and we still had to run to Trader Joe's and Target for groceries.  My plan was to make bacon date jam and I knew I needed an hour for that so we had to get a move on.  We hit TJ's and stupid people were everywhere.  Thankfully the cashier was super nice and made that a good way to get out of there.  It figured the one thing I went there for, they didn't have.  We went to Target and lollygagged like we had nothing to do.  Before we knew it, it was 7:30pm and if I was being honest with myself, I knew I wasn't hungry enough to have a burger and fries...especially if another hour was going to be added on.  I knew I had to voice this even though a part of me wanted to do what I normally did which was justify the food that was already planned even though I KNEW it would make me miserable from eating so late.  I said something and asked how hungry he was and he said he wanted it but knew he wasn't hungry enough for it and by the time we'd get what we needed and get home it'd be like 9:30pm before we ate this big meal.  We both agreed...for the first time in our history I think...that we would forego it and just eat something small at home.  I thought of the caramel Cap'n Crunch cereal we'd eaten once but had in the basement out of sight and figured 300 calories of that wouldn't be nearly as bad as what I had planned.

It was stale.  Thank God I tasted it before I poured it out.  I had the Mr taste it and he made a face and I was just pissed at that point because I suddenly felt like I was being punished for making the right decision.  I know I wasn't but bad time management had robbed me of my plan for the day as well as my back up.  I ended up having a PB&J and tea.  He had the last of some special edition Pop Tart he's had for 6 months.

I was tired but because I drank tea so late, I was up peeing constantly despite not having much water at all that day.  Then the Mr came to bed and I just couldn't sleep much between his snoring and the heater coming on all night.  Finally at 6am, I couldn't take it and had to pop a melatonin (affiliate link)  if I was going to get any sleep.  (I know, shouldn't do that in the morning but seriously, I was exhausted)  I was pretty much asleep until 11am.  Unfortunately between that making me groggy because I wasn't able to get the kind of sleep intended when taking those and being in bed for 12 hours which left my back totally screwed, I was not in good spirits.  It didn't help I saw I didn't have the onion or butter I'd need for either meal I planned for the day.  The Mr told me to weigh in because he did and he lost 2 ounces from the day before.  I weighed in and gained the two ounces he lost.  But to be fair, he did "void" prior to that and I didn't.  But still stayed in the same number so for the first time, we didn't gain anything after a Saturday.  I was proud of us but I wasn't going to let the stuff we planned go to waste so I did some finagling and we'd be able to fit in the burger for dinner and I'd get to make the brunch recipe I wanted to try

I will say that when you're feeling groggy, have 60 things you're trying to balance and trying to make these eggs for the first time...you will be cursing the fact you tried to do it.  I call them "pain in the ass" eggs.  The Mr said they were the best scrambled eggs he's ever had in his life.  Enjoy them.  You may never get them again.

It's not that they were necessarily hard to make but when you're watching other things, it just makes you frazzled.  I'd suggest have everything else done and keep it warm in the oven while you tend to the eggs.  I also wouldn't make it for more than 2 people unless you're going to do it in a big Dutch oven or something.  Actually, that could work.  The eggs were creamy, fluffy and I put a pinch of Vermont cheddar on the sourdough before plating the eggs on top.  By eating slow, chewing thoroughly and drinking water after every bite, this held me all the way until dinner without issue.

Oh and that burger?  It was worth the wait...

I was able to get a goodly amount of fries made for both of us from one potato by doing it shoestring style.

What did you guys do this weekend?

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