Avoiding temptation

Tuesday:

I went for a walk this morning before breakfast, 30 minutes along the other side of the creek and back. Like on this side, there are houses on one side of the road but often the other side is bushland. (That dirt track isn't the road, by the way, it's a path leading down to the creek!)

I diverted into every little side street as I went, there were lots of short cul-de-sacs on the quite steep hill. The suburb name over there starts with a B, and so far every street I've traversed on a couple of visits starts with a B. Some town planners idea of a good time. Seems a bit confusing to me, if you are looking for a particular street and they all sound the same.

I got home and had breakfast, home-made Greek-style yoghurt with fresh mango. Delicious! I had that for dessert the other day, but it feels like a virtuous breakfast too. I don't know how to turn the photo right-side up.

My sister-in-law invited us out for lunch at Yum Cha. If you haven't had it, Yum Cha is authentic Chinese food they bring around endlessly on little trolleys and stamp your card for what you eat so you know how much to pay at the end. It can be a bit challenging if you are used to Westernised Chinese food, and also the waitresses might not speak a lot of English, but Ping is Chinese so she can translate everything and tell us what is in all the dishes. I love Yum Cha (some of it! not the chicken feet or beef tendons!) but I just couldn't see how I could negotiate it on day two of a new diet. Lots of dumplings and rice noodles and salt and who knows what in the sauces. Either I would be tempted to overeat or frustrated trying to pick out a few prawns and vegetables. So we declined. I won't avoid restaurants for the rest of my life but that was just a tricky one. One temptation conquered!

For a morning snack I made myself some vegetable broth. A variety of vegetables simmered for half an hour with a dash of chilli flakes, then strain the mushy vegetables out (and simmer them again with more water for another batch, still full of flavour). It makes a tasty and surprisingly filling snack, and counts as a drink as well. I'm not really sure how many calories it has. I don't eat the veges (too mushy), but the broth is full of flavour so something from the vegetables must permeate it. Well, vegetables don't have many calories anyway so I don't worry about it. I count it as 20 calories per mug, which my tracker suggests for commercial vegetable stock. But mine has no salt!

Jasmine did my Dance game for over an hour (so much fitter than me!) and I joined her for 15 minutes of that, getting in a bit of extra exercise. Then made a delicious salad with slices of lamb and cheese on top - I forgot to take a photo. All this healthy eating is time consuming!

Second temptation of the day was after lunch when the kids were eating treats from their Christmas stockings. I love Cheetos but they are a real trigger food for me. Not ready for that level of difficulty yet. I left the room and brushed my teeth.

In the afternoon we went to Putt Putt golf (mini golf) with Ping and family. It was an indoor course with the theme of having crashed a plane in a shanty town in the middle of Africa. Half a plane, crates everywhere, open market, shabby homes. Strange theme to chose, especially the dark "public toilet" room with gobs of ... um ... mud on the walls. But the course was challenging. I hit a hole in one on the first hole but it all went downhill from there. It was fun, and an hour of gentle activity that wasn't spent sitting on my well-padded behind.

I made satay chicken for dinner, mostly vegetables for me with cauliflower "rice" instead of real rice. Most of the calories were in the sauce! Yesterday was pretty easy but today I was hungry. I had my third temptation of the day after golf when the kids were having ice cream. There was nothing at the little café that I was willing to eat, so I waited until I got home, had half a banana, then waited for dinner. I am very full and satisfied after meals, but today I did get hungry between.

Still finishing my daily allotment of water, but I've done great with food and exercise. I tried to put myself out of reach of temptations instead of relying on will power, and it seemed to work.