Birthday Reflections

Overall, nurtition-wise, I think my 30th birthday was an absolute complete success! I had a fun, healthy lunch out with friends at a new restaurant. I had lamb shank for the first time at dinner at Spiros.

I splurged and got the soup instead of a dry salad at dinner. The soup was excellent, but I practiced portion control and only had about 1/2 of it. It was a chicken/lemon flavored broth with rice. It had a Greek name to the soup (Avgolemono). I just did some research, and the soup probably wasn't too bad. It actually has a tad bit of protein in it because it has some egg in the broth. I was actually pretty close with my estimate of it (since I only ate 1/2).

http://www.calorieking.com/foods/calories-in-soups-avgolemono_f-Y2lkPTMzMTMyJmJpZD0xNjAzJmZpZD05ODAzNyZwYXI9.html

My Lamb Shank dinner was definitely a highlight of the meal. It was my first time having it, and I was hoping that it would come close to being as good as prime rib. It actually far surpassed it, in my opinion. My dinner came with a small portion of veggies and a huge portion of yellow rice. I had almost all the veggies (skipped the squash), and I had about 4 small bites of the rice. All in all, it was an amazing dinner. The Greek red wine that I had selected for dinner was awesome, too.

For dessert, I had baklava! Because we ordered on the early bird special, the baklava portion was only 1 piece of baklava. In the past I remember getting 2 pieces per order. The 1 piece was the absolute perfect size for me. The nuts and honey and flaky crust were absolutely glorious! This dessert was definitely the other culinary highlight of the evening.

Here's the website for Spiros, if anyone's interested. I highly recommend it. We had an amazing experience - probably the best dining experience in a while.
http://www.spiros-restaurant.com/

When I left Spiros, I wasn't stuffed or even over-stuffed, which was great. I felt really good and seemed to have gained energy from the dining experience. When I got home, I took a walk on the treadmill for 25 minutes. This also helped my food to settle, as well, since normally I don't eat big meals. After that I had a cup of tea.

My husband had talked about getting me a cake. We almost got one from Dairy Queen. He wanted to stop at home first, though. After my walk on the treadmill, it was about 8:30pm. I went online briefly to check out Dairy Queen's nutritional information for their ice cream cakes. It was not very impressive. And, I didn't really think that it could compare to the baklava or the meal that I had just eaten. So, I decided to forgo a cake. Instead, I poured myself a glass of white wine, and we went to watch some tv. I only had a little bit of the wine (which I enjoyed), but then I didn't really want anymore. So, I only had about 1/4 glass total (if even that). Around 9pm, I decided to have a small IsoPure shake since my protein intake had been lower. After that, I was done eating.

All in all my birthday was a success. I wound up walking for an hour over the course of the day. I did some light stretching throughout the day, as well. I had a succulent dinner, which I don't think I could have enjoyed much more than I did. Probably I could have skipped the soup, but it was part of the special (soup or salad), and I enjoyed what I ate of it. And, I avoided a heavy late-night dessert that I wasn't really even in the mood for. Happy birthday to me! Hopefully the murder/mystery dinner theater on Friday night will be as great an experience as this was. Happy birthday to me!