Wednesday, October 1, 2014

A Fair Day

I attended the fair on the last day. It was a Sunday and I could see and understand that some of the vendors couldn't wait for it to end. Some were packing up early and others just checking their watches.

The food vendors seemed to be getting all the business. I admit, I was there for the traditional Fair Scone, however, I was also prepared not to eat it for two weeks. We do a few things every time the fair comes to Puyallup. We buy scones, my husband eats an elephant ear, we look at the quilts and fine arts and we watch the hypnotist, who is different every three years or so.

And I did not eat sweets or desserts for the month of September. This was a challenge I accepted on the LoseIt website. (www.loseit.com) I chart my daily calories on this app. It is my favorite of all the food logging applications I have tried. So, I am sticking with it. 

Here are a few pictures of places to eat at the fair. 

I didn't eat at any of these food vendor huts. I drank a diet Dr. Pepper instead. I know, diet sodas are poison... well what about those onion burgers, funnel cakes and fried butter? Yeah, those heart clogging choices. I say, if a diet drink keeps me from having a heart attack, I can live with that. Now enjoy these photos knowing I didn't eat at any of the items they sell and saved a boatload of money. 



 
These were some of the places on my way into the fair. I passed them all by with nothing more than a photo. As I resist more and more temptations, I have found that it is easier to stay in control. When I have a moment of weakness, like I did right after the end of my official Serving Size Summer accountability, I couldn't eat enough food. For the weekend, I ate quite a bit. I also gained five pounds. (None of those pounds contained sweets or desserts.)

That might sound like quite a bit to gain over the weekend but I am still a food addict. It is pretty difficult to stay present when eating. There are times I catch myself shutting my focus down and it is like checking out. Once I am checked out, I can consume a lot of food. 

It might be hard to understand if eating is not your issue. I have spent the first part of this week in "recovery" from my binge. I consider this recovery to be a sign that I will never be able to stop keeping track of my food intake. I will make mistakes but that is not as important as getting things under control again. A deviation from my plan is inevitable and sometimes exactly what I need. Realizing that I can get back on my plan and gain control is the key to having hope that I will be in maintenance and one day fluctuating five pounds every so often will not be the end of all my hard work.

While at the fair, the sunset was amazing and made these next few photos much more stunning than the first series. This photo to the left was one I especially liked. I tried moving to a better spot for the sunset but there were too many people to get around, even though I went dashing through the crowd in an attempt to find a better angle. I could look at things and take photos from many different angles but this was after the hypnotist show and we were on our way out of the fair.


As for Fair Scones?  We waited in line for about 15 minutes. When we finally reached the counter, I realized they were making them as fast as people were ordering. I watched them for a bit and saw what looked like they were adding two tablespoons of butter in each scone. Yikes! That's like... 200 calories. 

I backed up a bit and asked the gal if we could order our scones without butter. The answer is "Yes." And yes, we bought a bakers dozen of scones which I took home, bagged and put in the freezer... in anticipation of the end of my self-imposed ban on sweets, October 1st.

That was today. I ate a fair scone for breakfast. It was delicious. I didn't even miss the butter and it made me happy knowing I saved calories that didn't matter. The good news, was that after a few weeks in my freezer, there were three scones left. Kitchen gremlins must have enjoyed the rest.

I will post in here every so often to update things and also I am being very lax about wrapping things up. So, until next time... have a great week.