Prep while traveling

Following on from my last post, though I am still over 24 weeks out from my comp I have successfully transitioned into my focussed mode and am loving it! But when the idea to travel up to Bundaberg for the weekend to stay with a friend for her birthday came up, I thought I should take the opportunity as I don't plan to do any travelling again between now and late September.

The past weekend really showed me just how successful I can be if I am both ORGANISED and FOCUSSED. When filling in my food diary I was able to see that while not overall perfect foodwise, I am very pleased with my effort and choices.

To complicate matters, I had a training course all day last week on Friday so I couldn't bring any food with me for the weekend that required the fridge. So in addition to meals for that day, I packed in my huge pink lorna jane bag: oats, protein powder, an emergency protein bar, 2 cans of tuna and a foil pouch of salmon. I asked my friend to have a carton of eggs, whole bunch of celery and a lettuce in the fridge for my arrival! Got there after work on Friday night and following my lonely walk in the morning (girls weren't keen on my idea to go to the gym unfortunately) I was able to have my oats, greens and make my eggs with some capsicum and mushroom.

It was great to be able to spend a bit more time with my girls than the usual 1-2 hour catchup here and there but really showed me how much discipline and organisation this sport requires with food! On the saturday I had to make sure I had a portable morning tea of a protein shake, almonds and celery with me to have while browsing through many a clothes store. Shortly after that my friends stopped for their lunch so I enjoyed a long black and waited until we were home to prep my enormous salad including the extra salad items and avocado I had purchased. Then it was off to the beach. Great thing about living in Bundy would be that everything including the very nice beach and Elliot Heads is closeby and the fresh air was great. We relaxed reading books and getting just a little bit of warm afternoon sun. I had my afternoon tea when we got home, tried something new as I didn't have any natural yoghurt to mix with my protein powder- I scrambled 5 egg whites with a banana and it was delish and satisfying!

That night we had planned to go out for dinner for the bday girl, there was mention of Thai which I thought would be a pretty good choice. When last minute talk of Chinese or Indian came up I made my protests polite :) As did I when the idea was thrown up of sharing meals, sorry I just don't do that, lol! So I enjoyed a beef basil and chilli stirfry which I asked be made 'gluten free' to avoid any flour in the marinade/preparation of the beef and simply avoided the 'extras' entrees, rice and wine.

Did another walk on Sunday morning with my ipod this time and there was a late decision to eat breakfast out before my train ride home. Breakfast is my favourite meal of the day and i'd actually be more inclined to struggle with making appropriate choices here than dinner! But i was ready and willing to order off the menu as is usually required at places offering the standard bacon creamy scrambled eggs and at least 2 slices worth of toast. However, the place we chose turned out to be excellent, it was one of those run by a couple with a real homely feel and had a choose your own menu items option which ive never seen before. I was able to choose exactly what i wanted, be able to eat everything on my plate and not get totally ripped off the process! Steak, 1 poached egg, grilled mushroom and tomatoes and 1 slice of toast later and I was very satisfied. (does it get much better than steak for breakfast?)

The focus is also allowing me to cast aside any thoughts of what others might think of how I eat or somehow 'offending' people by insisting on being different. I was able to enjoy a nice weekend without 'missing out' on anything and little disruption to my friends as I did not whine or complain about the diet so they didn't really notice! When you decide its no big deal, it really isn't! They were amazed though with how often I need the bathroom.... haha.