Most of my time since leaving work yesterday has been spent in a car. My awake time anyway...

I stopped strictly following H.O.W. yesterday, but I'm still watching some aspects of it more carefully than I ever did before. Dinner was Marie Callendar's. I always get the salad bar there anyway, but I used less dressing and didn't have croutons or bacon bits. It was really good even without those things.

Today was difficult, but I made it through and feel good about it. Breakfast was easy, eggs, bacon and toast. My breakfast came with hash browns, but I don't like those so they were easy to leave on the plate.

Due to a detour out to Crater Lake that we were hoping would be scenic, but instead was massively snowy, we skipped lunch. At about 4:00 I turned to Keegan and said "How far are we from a real town?" He said about an hour, and I was silent in response. I don't snack, so I didn't have anything in the car to eat. He brought a snack bag, but all I'd seen out of it were some sour candies and couple of fun size milky ways. I was considering breaking my food plan and asking for some candy because I was just that hungry, but before I could say anything he said he had some crackers and soft cheese for dipping if I wanted some of that. I said yes please, because I was fast approaching low blood sugar bitch mode, and I said as much to him. He knows me well and knows how I get, and neither of us wanted that, so while I think it wasn't something I would eat given a choice, the crackers and dip were way better than candy.

As I was opening the package of crackers, he said something that was music to my ears.

"I have an apple. Do you want that? It's Granny Smith."

Yay! I love Granny Smith apples, and that was something I could feel good about eating. I had a some crackers too, 4 of them, but hungry as I was I likely would have eaten half the package.

My sister made chicken and rice and broccoli for dinner. My brother in law served the plates, and he has a huge appetite (and the metabolism to go with it, he's tall and thin). He put a chicken breast on my plate and started scooping rice. "Just a small scoop please," I said, and he put a larger scoop than I would have taken on my plate, and I served myself some broccoli. Then I sat there and stared at my plate. According to my food plan, I could eat this whole plate of food. But I knew it was more than I needed, so I cut the chicken in half and only ate about half the rice. I also declined the bowl of bread several times.

I was raised in a clean-your-plate family. Actually, the rule was "take what you want, but eat what you take." If anyone gave me guff about the food left on my plate I was fully prepared to counter with the fact that I had not served myself. My brother in law did tease me about not liking it, but I just said thank you, it was very good, I'm just not going to finish it.

Now it is time for bed, it has been a long day, and tomorrow is Thanksgiving. Oy.