Thanksgiving.

Happy Thanksgiving, my lovely blogosphere friends!

I am so thankful for each and every one of you—all of you that follow, read, and comment on my blog and so willingly offer support, advice, prayers, and well wishes to me. Thank you for being here. Thank you for joining me on this journey I’ve been walking since September 10, 2014. And, most importantly, thank you for caring about a stranger.

It is so very appreciated.

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My day was wonderful, and I stayed on plan! I woke up at about 7:30 AM and had a filling 9PP breakfast, then spent some time lounging around with my family watching the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, and then I played with my dog. Around noon I had a small 3PP “lunch” to tide me over until the big dinner, leaving me with 35PP to use for the feast.

The lovely Gen wrote a blog in which she talked about snapping pictures of her Thanksgiving dinner so as to doubly keep her on track, and I really liked that idea and decided to do the same. So here’s how my Thanksgiving meal went!

 

I started out with a bowl of Autumn Harvest Salad (4PP)

LaaLoosh Autumn Harvest Salad, 4PP

Then I moved on to the main meal! If you read my blog “289.6,” then you might remember that my plan was to have one plate of whatever I wanted, so long as everything fit on the plate without touching and without being piled sky high. That worked super well for me!

Plain sweet potato, about 4 oz. skinless white meat turkey, about 1/3 cup of Green Giant steamed broccoli cheese, 2 WW deviled eggs, and a dinner roll with I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter Spray, 11PP

Believe it or not, I didn’t even manage to eat all of what was on my plate! I ate about 1/3 of that sweet potato (from the smaller end, no less!) which cost me 1PP, and gave another 1/3 of it to my puppy before tucking the rest of it into a doggy bag so that I can take it with me for lunch tomorrow.

I ate my turkey (4PP) this year sans-gravy, which I never do, and I also stuck to white meat only, which is, again, something I don’t usually do.

The deviled eggs are a Weight Watchers friendly recipe, and they were 1PP per serving (which was 1 egg half). Since I didn’t eat most of my sweet potato, I did end up reaching for one more egg half, although I didn’t take a picture of that. So, in total, I ate 3PP worth of deviled eggs.

My folks usually make broccoli cheese and rice casserole for Thanksgiving dinner, but this year—in order to help me out—they nixed that recipe and just served up a box of Green Giant broccoli cheese steamers instead, which is a Weight Watchers endorsed product. The portion I had cost me 1PP.

And then the dinner roll was purchased from the King Soopers/Kroger bakery, and it was 2PP. The I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter Spray that I used on it was 0PP.

So my dinner plate was a grand total of 11PP. 😀

Including the salad I had, my total PointsPlus consumption was 15PP for the meal. Since I had saved myself 35PP to use for the dinner, however, I decided to “indulge” a bit drink-wise.

Seasonal White Wine, about 10 fl. oz. (9PP)

I had about 10 oz. of white wine with my meal, which added another 9PP to my total. So the wine was just about the same number of points as my entire dinner, which just goes to show you that alcohol is definitely something to be careful with. However, it was delicious and well worth the points since I had them to spare.

And then, finally, I had a piece of the Weight Watchers Strawberry Banana Pie (4PP) that I made, and I topped it with 1 Tbsp. of fat-free Cool Whip (0PP). The pie was fantastic and it looked beautiful as a whole, but getting it out of the pan was a major struggle—one that didn’t end with me getting a fantastic picture of it…

What’s cooking love? WW Strawberry Banana Pie (4PP)

The pie is upside down and totally falling apart in this photo, but que sera sera. It was so delicious and very easy to make. Check out the recipe I linked to above if you want prettier pictures. 😉

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So, my daily PointsPlus total was a usage of 40 out of my allotted 47. That’s right, ladies and gentlemen… I ate under my points goal on a food-based holiday! I can’t believe it! My Thanksgiving festivities did make up the bulk of my points usage today, though. For the salad, my dinner plate, my wine, and my dessert, I used 28PP.

I feel really great about what I accomplished today. What I’ve realized lately is that I’m making better choices all around now. I am finding that I’m still able to enjoy food—now I just eat less of it and I choose healthier options instead of the once normal unhealthy garbage I overindulged in.

I am weighing-in tomorrow morning, and I feel good about it. I did everything right this week, so if I don’t lose any weight or I don’t lose the 2.4 pounds I’m hoping to lose, I’m OK with that. Today was a day of “non-scale victories.” Today I proved to myself that I can control myself even when others aren’t choosing to do the same. I learned that I can manage holidays with my family without going totally off track and letting myself be out of control. That’s more important to me than a scale victory this week (though it’d certainly be nice to achieve that, too!).

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To all of my American friends—I would love to hear about your Thanksgiving dinners! What’d you eat? Did you stay on target or did you go a little awry since it was a holiday? Do you care either way? And tell me about some of your Thanksgiving traditions, too! What makes the day special in your family?

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Here’s to hoping that you all have had a lovely week and an enjoyable holiday. I’ll see you all tomorrow to talk about my weigh-in.

Until then, eat well and be well.

rachaelxoxo