Vacation Indiscretions

Monday, August 8, 2011.

Weight 173.5 Gain of 3.5 pounds.

No surprise at the gain. I've been sliding quite a bit lately. Last week I was on vacation for a few days on the coast. Thursday through Sunday I did very well with watching what I ate. To save some money as well as calories, this time I brought an ice chest along and packed it with fruits, vegetables, yogurt, low fat deli meats, pancakes and turkey bacon. So most of my meals I stayed pretty much on my eating plan. However, on Monday I went nuts.

One of my favorite television channels is, of course, the Food Network. A couple of years ago I was watching an episode of "Diners, Drive-ins, and Dives" and a little hole in the wall cafe in San Francisco was one of the diners featured. The name of the place is "Dottie's True Blue Cafe". It's on Jones Street near Union Square. They serve the most wonderful, creative foods - all made there in the kitchen. It's a very small place with a line of people out the door waiting to be seated. Although they are famous for their blueberry cornmeal pancakes I ordered one of the daily specials, chocolate chip, butterscotch chip french toast with chicken apple sausage. Oh yummm!

Then I hopped on a cable car and it was on to Fisherman's Wharf. I walked around looking at all of the tourist trap places and managed to resist the temptation to spend a bunch of money there. The Exploratorium is a place I've never visited and I decided to walk to it from the Wharf. It's over two miles, but it was a nice, cool, overcast day and I enjoyed the walk. I arrived at the Exploratorium only to be told that it's closed to the public on Mondays. As I turned around to walk the two miles back to the wharf I fantasized about what I was going to order at Ghiradelli Square. By the time I got there I had decided against totally blowing my diet by indulging in Ghiradelli chocolate. Score one for me.

That evening the lure of dinner at an Italian restuarant in North Beach, however, was too much to resist. I walked up and down the street trying to decide where to further blow my diet. Finally I chose to eat outside at Volare. An order of spaghetti with meatballs, french bread dipped in olive oil and balsamic vinegar, a glass of white wine anda piece of double chocolate cake later I headed back to the motel for the evening.

I probably could have avoided gaining as much as I did if my "naughty" eating was confined to Monday. However, I continued to make unwise choices until Thursday morning when I went back to the gym to work out. All in all, I didn't do too badly. Going on vacation used to be just one long excuse to eat whatever I wanted. That didn't happen this time and I feel very good about that.