Saturday, October 27, 2007

The Bread Brigade

So I've mentioned before that it's tough to live in the Netherlands and not eat heaps of bread. Yesterday was a prime example of what I'm talking about. Here's how the day went.

I put on make-up yesterday which took up the time I usually spend eating breakfast. Sometimes you have to sacrifice to be beautiful I guess and since I wear make-up about 4 times a year I guess it's alright this time. I knew I could just grab something on my way to drop Marco off for work. So I had a pistolet (a football shaped roll) with cheese from the shop right across from his work. (Bread #1)

snack: It was somebodies birthday at work so we had pie. I don't skip these occasions to eat pie. They don't happen often and a slice of pie every once in a while isn't going to kill me. My life will not be without pie, cakes, cookies, chocolates and the sorts on OCCASIONS so I don't torture myself and not participate. If I would never participate in the birthday celebrations I really feel like it would lead to me binging later. I don't want to go back down that path any time soon. No depriving for me.

Lunch was typical Dutch lunch in the canteen (and please let me know, do you say canteen in the US? I don't think so but my English and Aussie colleagues always call it the canteen so now I can't remember if we do too. I think we just use cafeteria.) so a buffet of breads and spreads. I did manage to skip any bread here and just had my cuke/tomato/red bell pepper/feta/pesto salad. (bread #2)

snack: one orange

Dinner was to be at Marco's parents house. We go there about once a week for supper. Usually it's a typical Dutch hot meal consisting of veg, boiled potatoes (no salt, no pepper, no butter...no shit) and meat (usually beef in my family's house) but last night was an exception. They were watching our nephews, Jordi and Milan, so they didn't want to cook a real meal so what was the alternative? BREAD of course! (bread #3). I was starving by time we got there and over ate by quite a bit. I had an open faced egg and bacon sandwich (fried ACK!), a small beef steak (fried ACK!), and a peanut butter and jelly sandwich (fattening ACK!). I followed it up with a cup of vanilla and chocolate pudding mixed. ACK! ACK! ACK!

So in the course of one day I could have eaten bread at all three meals! And before I started making a conscious effort to eat less bread I probably would have eaten bread at all three meals on more than one occasion. Granted my food intake yesterday sucked big time but it could have been worse had I not had the salad option for lunch. So yesterday wasn't a gold star winning day for me. It was a "put your name on the chalkboard and if I have to do that twice in a week then I get detention" day. Lousy lousy lousy.

But today is another day. I just keep going and keep yesterday's choices in the back of my head when I make today's selections. I started with a lovely breakfast of f/f yogurt with a sliced up banana and coffee. Good start...now I just need to keep the momentum going.

In other news... if I thought my abs hurt yesterday then I was in for a rude freaking awakening last night and today. OH MY GOD BECKY! Every time I would roll over in bed it would wake me up from the soreness. Crazy to think all this muscle soreness was caused by a simple 25 minute jump rope routine. I have a little tenderness in my calves but otherwise it's just my tummy that's kicking my arse. I'm going to try and jump again today and see how it goes.

Have a great healthy weekend all!

6 comments:

Daniele said...

aah.. the food in Holland. You remind me why I used to love living there, amongst other reasons :)
Do you cycle ? I know it's not easy when you're overweight. I certainly never did it, but I envied everyone who did cycle. It's a great part of Dutch life I think.

Well done for not having bread for lunch! People outside the NL don't understand the importance of birthdays and birthday celebrations in the NL. It's major. My then partner has 4 brothers and 1 sister. They're all in relationships and have kids. We practically had a birthday a week, just with family. Madness.

Lauren said...

yeah, I love bread and find it difficult to stay away from, this means that I will probably stay away from the netherlands.

Anonymous said...

Here in America, we don't say Canteen. We call it the food room.

Chubby Chick said...

I think everybody has a different "trigger" food. I'm not really into bread, but sweets have always been my biggest temptation... especially ice-cream. Thank God for low-fat frozen yogurt! It's a real life-saver for me.

And... no, we don't say "canteen" in the US. We say "cafeteria." hehe ;)

Chubby Chick said...

PS: I have a wedding to go to in 2 weeks. I'll definitely have a piece of the wedding cake. I agree... it's OK to partake in stuff like that at special times of the year and at birthdays, weddings, etc. Those few times a year of partaking won't hurt us in the long run. My motto is "moderation... not deprivation!"

Sadlebred said...

In college, we went to the canteen to grab a snack and a cafeteria to eat a meal. At work now, we go to the cafe (no cafeteria in our building, just a cafe with sandwiches and drinks>)