Making Good Choices While Tempted

Camping is fun. The campfires, grilling, snacks, BBQing, hanging out with friends–all fun things. It can also be a challenge for someone who is trying to make good food choices. Making good choices while camping can be easy though. Think about it: you are in complete control of what food you pack with you when you go camping.  You can bring bags of chips, Twinkies, hot dogs, etc or you can bring some healthier options too.

I like to think I bring the best of both worlds: I made a half batch of chocolate chip cookies to take camping. I also bought bratwursts, some healthier chip options plus healthy things like tomatoes and zucchini from our garden. I’m really happy with the food I ate during the weekend I was in the woods.

For dinner on Saturday night, I ate lots of healthy foods. Charles grilled up chicken drumsticks and corn on the cob for dinner. I love camping food! He made the chicken two ways, BBQ and ones with an herb rub.

I ate two BBQ drumsticks and one herb chicken plus one ear of corn on the cob.

The downfall of my food choices were liquid calories, of course. I drank two glasses of vodka mixed with sparkling water. I know two isn’t the end of the world and I don’t feel bad about them. I drank beer the second night. I enjoyed the downtime with friends, chilling in the woods and chatting around a campfire.

Erika brought s’mores fixings. She had these jumbo sized marshmallows (90 calories each). I should have taken a photo of how gigantic these were! We sat around the campfire and made s’mores both nights. I made myself one s’mores each night. They were so big that one was enough. I felt satisfied with my choices.

Breakfast both days were healthy and normal–eggs, bacon, sausage, pancakes, tomatoes.

Sunday night for dinner Michael and I made everyone bratwursts. I also sliced up our zucchini and Charles grilled the zucchini with olive oil, salt and pepper. I also made us salads. (No photos of that, I just forgot.) They also grilled up some burgers (which I skipped because the brats and veggies were enough for me).

I don’t regret anything I ate over the weekend. I made some healthy choices, I made some bad choices (beer and mindless chip snacking). It’s all part of living. Plus I balanced it out with exercise.

I went trail running, I did a lot of walking, plus the Adventures Package. Including some sort of fitness (even if it’s just walking) makes me feel better about myself, my choices and my body. I like to move, I like to keep busy. My body feels happier when I get in some activity.

The important part is to also not beat myself up about the food choices I made. Even though I had no cell service in the woods, I was still able to count my calories over the weekend. I wasn’t die-hard about counting. But having a number in the back of my head definitely made me think, “Do I really want another s’mores? Or is one enough?” I told myself I would wait 15 minutes to decide if I wanted a second. And it turned out, I didn’t want a second one.

I like that I can find balance and moderation in my life without feeling like I denied myself anything. I definitely don’t feel like I missed out on anything because I didn’t bring junk food.

QUESTION: Are social situations like camping/BBQ’s and potlucks stressful for you? How do you balance out the temptations and the fun?