Cheat Meal

As I mentioned in my last post, my Dad took me out to dinner tonight. Since I'd done so well with my diet and training the last few weeks, I had earned a "cheat meal" that could be anything except a big dessert or pasta. Should have been easy... right?

Funny thing was, I still scoured the menu for something that would still sorta fit the diet basics that I've been following. It's now stuck in my head that I want to go for maximum protein and minimum carbs while keeping an eye on fat content and making sure it's not too high.

We started off with friend calamari, which is a hit or miss at most restaurants. Luckily at this one, it was a miss. I ate a few (probably 5) pieces, but it really wasn't all that satisfying, so I didn't feel the need to eat any more. Dad and I left half of them on the plate, and it wasn't a huge plate to begin with.

For my entree, I ordered chicken bernaise, which was a grilled chicken breast covered with lump crab meat and bernaise sauce. It was served with steamed broccoli and green beans, as well as a side salad and warm dinner rolls (which I didn't touch because of the carbs). The side salad was covered in cheese, but I managed to just pick out the lettuce and eat that. Dipped my fork in a tiny bit of ranch dressing for a few bites, but that didn't do much for me either. The chicken bernaise was very, very good, but with every bite that had sauce on it, I couldn't help but wonder how much fat I was consuming. I guessed that there was about 3 tbsp of sauce on the chicken, and MyDailyPlate estimated that that's about 18.5 g of fat... glad I didn't know it at the time. I probably wouldn't have ordered it. On the other hand, at least I got a lot of protein with the chicken and the crab, the carbs for the meal were still fairly low and I got some nutrients out of the steamed veggies.

I guess the main point of this post is just that my cheat meal wasn't nearly as enjoyable as it should have been. I've gotten so used to this diet, and it's helped me to make so much progress so far, that this cheat meal just made me feel guilty afterward. Maybe other people really need a cheat meal or they would just go crazy, but it certainly didn't have that effect on me.