My company holds an annual summer kickoff picnic every year.  Around 200 people attend in all.  It is quite an affair, with a raw bar, a carving station, a raw bar, a bar, a raw bar, chips and dip…. and did I mention, a raw bar.  I LOVE oysters, clams, shrimp, scallops… you name it.  LOVE IT.  I had a very busy today and never had a chance to eat a decent lunch, so going into the evening’s festivities I had plenty of calories to partake in the raw bar goodness.  I had numerous oysters and clams on the half shell, pan seared scallops and jumbo shrimp.  I literally could have sat at the table all night.  The oyster man learned my name (partly because I had a name tag on), and also because I probably frequented his portion of the table more than the other 200 people there.  What can I say… I LOVE oysters.

I also had some chardonnay– and I did a great job of limiting myself, because I have been known in the past to polish off a whole bottle.

After the picnic, when I entered everything I ate into my fitness pal, I was surprised to see that I had 440 calories left for the day still.  That is partly because seafood, especially raw bar items, are not really high in calories.  I tried to finish my entry for the day, but my fitness pal app yelled at me (ok, it didn’t really yell), but it wouldn’t let me finish the entry because it said I had not eaten enough calories for the day and by not doing that, I was being unhealthy in my weight loss journey.  Well, it didn’t have to tell me twice… I made myself a left over manwich on light bread– which brought me much closer to my daily goal.  At that point I was able to successfully log my calories for the day.  If I hadn’t eaten something additional, my fitness pal would not let me complete the log for the day and it would have reset my daily journaling back to 0.  I have been working so hard, I definitely do not want that to happen, especially since I have successfully logged for 32 days now.  I have been diligent and honest, logging everything I eat, both good days and bad.

I will be interested to see what my daily calorie log looks like on Saturday… my husband and I are going out for my birthday.  It will be my first time out at a restaurant for a special occasion since I started losing weight.  That will be a real test…. and it will be the first time ever I will have an honest glimpse of how many calories I really eat on a “date night”.  I keep telling myself I will reign it in and not go crazy– but it is also for my birthday and I feel like it would be ok to do it on this occasion.  The key for me will be to let loose a bit, but pull myself back together the next day.