Party Food Temptations

I experienced my toughest personal temptation challenge at the party that my husband and I went to last night. It was an election celebration party (although the party conversations didn't really center on politics - it was more like a generic adult party).

I planned to have 1 glass of wine, and to skip all the food, since party food is typically all bad (health-wise). I succeeded on the wine front, although the glass I was served was huge - more like 1.5 glasses. So, I went over 50 calories there, which was fine. It was a V. Sattuti (a California winery) 2006 Zinfendel. It was actually a really good wine, with some nice spice to it. Once I finished that, I switched over to water.

There was a feast of a spread of food. And, to my surprise, so much of it looked amazing. There were homemade-looking cookies that I wanted. There was a thin cake with a cream icing on it with caramel and a slice of apple that I wanted. There were these chocolates filled with liquor that I wanted. I wanted to try one of the meatballs from a crockpot. I wanted to try the pasta and creme sauce that the hostess had made. The list goes on and on.

But, I knew I had my weigh in the next morning. So, my strategy was to take nothing on my own (except for 1 strawberry). From there, I allowed myself to take the tiniest nibbles of some of the things that my husband took (from his plate). This automatically controlled my portions tremendously. The most that I had was of this Indian appetizer thing. It looked like a giant fried won ton from the outside, but on the inside, it had some spicy rice, curry, veggies thing. So, by nibbling from my husband's plate, I completely avoided the entire fried crust, and got to enjoy small tastes of the rice/curry/veggies. It was awesome and something that I never would have thought to pick up because of the outside appearance. Plus, the wine interplayed with it, adding this amazing spiciness, enhancing both the food and the wine. I also took tiny nibbles of 3 jam-filled tarts, and boy were they good.

But, I left it at that. I avoided the cookie yet again! It was tough, though. If it had been a Sunday night, the temptation could have gone very differently for me. I might have tried that cookie, which could have opened me up for the apple cake dessert, etc. It could have easily gotten out of control. A year ago, I probably would have had 2-3 glasses of wine, and probably 1000+ calories of food. What a difference this fitness quest has made.

So, overall, I was very proud of the way I handled myself at the party. Aside from the food temptation, I actually had a lot of fun. We don't get out to parties very often, so this was a good experience.