Well…my home is so destroyed that I cant live there at the moment. The damage from the water leak has left me without a kitchen or living space so I have packed up and moved back to the Lake. Thank goodness I have a place to go…what would you do if you did NOT have a place to go? That would be rough. The stress of this debacle has given me a good reason to NOT stay on-plan and that is just something that I have to own up to. This little gem was delivered to my inbox last night and it could have come at a more perfect time.

Soooooo true. So today I am owning up to my “secrets”. When my home got demoed on Thursday morning I freakout out. Seeing the guts of your once pristine home is nerve wracking. Your studs exposed and the mold growing on them finally seeing the light of day is so hard to take. I started thinking about all the other things that could also be strong and lurking in the darkness. Its an older home…what if there is mold in other places or dry rot? Or something even worse? How are we going to pay for major damage that was NOT caused by the leak? I was in full-on freak out mode. I could not prepare any of my own food so Thursday and Friday I ate out, Saturday morning I had a training I was leading and ate breakfast at Starbucks then Saturday night Grady and I went out to dinner. At this point I did not even care about staying on plan. I was so upset and emotionally drained and frustrated at everything that I really did just want to check out and food allows me that check out. Two things came out of this food coma: I cannot eat as much as I could before and even though we were eating out I could have made on-plan food choices but chose not to.

I ordered a regular meal at the restaurant but could only eat 1/3rd of it. Before I probably could have or would have eaten the whole meal. But this time I could eat very little of it. I had had lunch around 2pm and w were eating at 7:30 so I am sure I was still a bit full from lunch but still…I just cannot eat as much as I could before and that is a GOOD thing. I need to readjust my ideal of a “perfect sized” meal. I no longer need massive amounts of food to be full. So we boxed up everything and Grady enjoyed it for dinner Sunday night! I talked to my Grandma Sunday night and she brought down the truth hammer on my food choices. She congratulated me on making good food choices during this stressful time and I had to admit that I had not in fact been on plan. She asked why and I said that I had no kitchen and had to eat out. She then asked if I could have eaten on plan while eating out and of course the answer is YES. And se said- “So you cant blame your choices on eat out now can you?” GOD DAMMIT Grandma can’t I have one day…three days where I just don’t think or deal with the struggle? Her answer is NO…you do not get a pass or a day off until you have released all your weight. That is hard to hear or admit but she is right…there are no breaks or excuses until the weight is GONE. So despite this extremely difficult time of life there are some lessons here that I need to learn and apply. These lessons will help me when the next disaster strikes and there are no avoiding the disasters of life.

So Sunday I stayed on plan and made Grady and I on-plan Hawks game snacks! Spinach and feta Turkey Meatballs and Cauliflower Breadsticks! I have posted the recipes in the Recipe section of the blog for you ALL to enjoy! Both were AWESOME and I was very impressed with how well the breadsticks turned out and how “bready” they ended up tasting! I baked it for 10 minutes longer than what the suggested and I am glad I did- it made the outside more crispy while keeping it soft inside! I also tripled the meatball recipe- I had 20 oz of ground turkey and did not feel like saving any of the ground turkey for this week. I also sautéed the meatballs in Waldens Farms alfrado sauce and it added some nice flavor to the dish! So it made 12 good sized meatballs and it was a BIG lunch for us!

So all in all, some off plan foods, a gut punch from Grandma, and my first 30/10 recipe adventure. Oh yeah…the Hawks WON so all has been restored in the Hawks universe. I also got our estimate from our insurance adjuster today so at least we can move on with that battle and begin to put our home back together.