'Sunny' here, on Day 5 of the September Challenge. Looking out my windows I see it's one gorgeous, blue-sky Labor Day out there today. The weather perfect (heat wave over!) and I do hope to get out and spend some quality time in it at some point.....
My food update from yesterday:
B: Banana
S: Glass of local apple cider at my folks
L: Leftover brown rice topped with salsa, a TASTE of Indian cooked greens from a can (a little oil I think, but vegan) that was my daughter's meal, one piece of homemade tofu 'jerky', some cold baked potato, half an ear of corn, plus an apple.
Dinner: Here's where it gets interesting. I had the first real test of my resolve since beginning this Challenge several days ago. My daughter was off to a sleepover and my husband and I were running errands yesterday late afternoon, when he suggested we stop somewhere for dinner. This was a surprise, because due to some unexpected expenses we've recently had to cough up, plus anticipating some large-ish upcoming expenditures that we know are coming, we are on a tight household budget for the rest of this pay period. But he said he still had some leftover cash from a recent gift, plus it was just the two of us, and so we were off to a local Thai eatery we know is relatively inexpensive and vegetarian friendly (we're a long-time vegetarian family). Well, needless to say, I
loves me some Thai food (any ethnic food really!) -- not to mention the fact that we really don't eat out all that often, so that the occasional times that we do, it always feels like a Big Treat. These two factors
could have tempted me to over-indulge, but I'm glad to say that last night they didn't. Doing my best to practice damage control, I did NOT order the Thai Iced Tea or Coffee as I might have been tempted to otherwise (sticking to water), and I did NOT order the 'Pad Thai' or 'Pad Se Ew' or 'Eggplant with Basil' or any other lovely saucy dishes likely to be high-fat. I ordered instead the Green Papaya Salad, which seemed a fairly safe option since, beyond the sprinkling of crushed peanuts, most of the recipes for it I know of do not contain added oil (plus the menu indicated no dried shrimp). I ordered it spicy (yum!), and it was light and crunchy, sweet and sour, and really hit the spot! After the meal I confess I did taste the Sticky Rice and Mango my husband ordered for dessert (I've had a weakness for sticky rice ever since we got to taste the Real Deal itself on our visit to Thailand several years ago), but had NOT tasted his very delectable-looking veggie entree
... In any case, I do feel as though I made it through this, my first 'challenge' of The Challenge, reasonably well (because trust me, it could have been a LOT worse)....!
Following dinner, on the way home we stopped by a park with a nice walking path and took a pleasant walk of approx. 1.5 miles....