Falling into the Family Trap

I fell into two traps yesterday: restaurant food masquerading as low calorie and following my husband’s lead. I was in meetings all morning so missed my morning snack. Rather than wait until I got home to eat and go too long without food, I decided to have an early lunch on the go. I enjoy Leon’s restaurants because they usually have a decent selection of gluten free foods and it’s all pretty healthy anyways. Unfortunately healthy does not mean low calorie! I was really surprised to find my small slice of pecan pie was over 600 calories, but truly floored to find the chicken and rice box topped 800 calories! This would have been fine if I had then eaten the meals I had planned at my normal times, but then we didn’t have dinner until almost 9pm, at which point I was starving. Despite having a large steak for dinner, and no workout, I was still peckish all night and ended up finishing off my husband’s Dairy Milk chocolate bar.  

I don’t recall if I’ve discussed the effects of friends and family on health and fitness before. Basically, we like to hang out with people who are just like us and we tend to unconsciously emulate those around us. If everyone we know is a couch potato, we are more likely to become a couch potato. If everyone around us is into exercise, odds are we’ll give it a go. One of the classic problems with this are the marriage/moving in together pounds. When women start living and eating with a male partner they often gain weight because they fall into the trap of eating the same foods, and the same amount of food, as their partner. Problem is, their partner is usually larger with a much higher muscle mass, so can get away with eating more without gaining weight.

In my case it means I am more likely to eat 300 calories of Dairy Milk chocolate I didn’t need because my husband is. Some days I just can’t be bothered to fight the psychology!

The Score:

Calories:	Protein:	Carbs:	Fat:	Alcohol:	Fibre:
3070.00	136.26g	344.27g	131.88g	0	24.77g
	18%	45%	38%
Calories burned through exercise:		Rest Day

What I ate:

Time	Item	Amount
07:30	Vitamins - Centrum Advance A to Zinc, 400iu of Vitamin E, 1000iu Vitamin D3 and 500mg Glucosamine sulphate	1 each
	Cold water	200mL
	Mattesson's Turkey rashers	3 rashers
	Sainsbury's Freefrom oats	50g
	with Sultanas	20g
	Sainsbury's pressed apple and cherry juice	200mL
09:30	Black Tea	500mL
11:30	Leon's Aioli Chicken rice box	1 serving
	Leon's raspberry lemonade	300mL
12:00	Leon's Pecan pie	1 slice
14:00	Green tea	250mL
15:00	Strawberry lemonade Nuun electrolyte tablet in water	750mL
16:00	Honeydew melon	150g
	Irish Yoghurts Diet Pear and Mango	125g
	Brazil nuts	6g
	Cashews	17g
20:45	Sainsbury's British Extra lean casserole steak	140g
	Boiled and mashed sweet potato	200g
	Stir fried Kale	40g
	in Olive oil	7.5mL
	with Pine nuts	4g
	Bisto Best beef gravy	about 5g
21:30	Sainsbury's Be Good to Yourself chocolate mousse	62.5g
22:00	Cadbury's Dairy Milk chocolate	10 chunks
23:00	Ellactiva Chocolate Calcium Chew	1 chew
	500mg Glucosamine sulphate	1 pill

Plus 500 to 1500mL of cold water sipped from a water bottle throughout the day.