Gobble, Gobble, Waddle, Waddle

An optimist is a person who starts a new diet on Thanksgiving Day. -- Irv Kupcinet

After a few days of eating pretty clean, Thanksgiving comes along.  Now - don't get me wrong, I was always planning on eating what we had planned...turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, gravy, green beans, and pumpkin pie.  But my plan was to eat it in moderation, enjoy it immensely, and get back into the groove.  In fact, I've joined up with a group of ladies for a "challenge" in December to eat clean - which should be really hard but will be a great thing for me.

We started Thanksgiving with a Turkey Trot 10K.  I was a little disappointed in my time, but it was on a hilly course and really cold, so in retrospect, I should be pretty happy with how I did.  Then we came home and had a paleo breakfast casserole that I had cooking while we were at the race (and a ton of mimosas - yipe!).  Thanksgiving dinner was awesome and I didn't pig out.  Yeah me.

I was ready to get back to basics the next day - they don't call it Black Friday for no reason - but we had a substantial amount of leftovers and then we went out to an Irish pub for dinner and I had fish & chips, plus an Irish cream ale, for dinner.  I kind of viewed that it was one last shot before the December challenge.  :)

But now looking at the situation in retrospect, how I handled Thanksgiving was just right for me, but how I handled yesterday was not.  My real challenge for December (and forever...) is not to eat clean, but rather to reframe how I look at food.  On Thanksgiving, I ate food because it was part of a family tradition.  I only ate good tasting food, real food, that I made myself -- and I enjoyed it.  On Friday, though, I ate something with the mindset of a death-row prisoner eating his last supper.  That's just plain ridiculous and I shouldn't think that way.  It may not have been the healthiest of choices, but it was very well cooked and tasty, and I did enjoy my time with my family eating it.  It is not something I would eat every day; in fact, I rarely eat fish & chips, but I figured an Irish pub was the place to do it.  Food is part of life, for fueling my training, for spending time with family and friends, and for nutrition.  Food shouldn't be a reward, or a punishment, or a comfort.

While I will do my best to eat clean for the December challenge, it is most important for me to remember what food is supposed to be about.