Thanksgiving Success Story

Turkey Day has come and gone and I have one more thing to be thankful for this year - my plan worked!  My total calorie intake was about 2600 for the day - higher than a normal day, but definitely low considering the damage that could have been done.  I burned about 400 calories on the treadmill in the morning, took the dog for a half-hour walk in the afternoon, and stayed pretty active all day with prepping and cooking dinner.  Breakfast was bran flakes, one clementine and about 15 almonds.  Lunch was toasted naan with homemade hummus, followed by a couple of gingersnaps.  At dinner, the "veggies first" strategy worked well - I only had room for about half a plate of turkey, stuffing and potatoes, and only had one slice of pie.  Between workouts and a high level of activity, I managed to end the day without a calorie surplus to burn off on Friday.  Woohoo!

The capstone to the day was a late night shopping trip with a couple girlfriends - we decided to take advantage of the crazy sales at the Philadelphia Premium Outlet Mall!  Stores began opening at 11pm, so at 10:30 we got on line behind about 200 other people (yes, you read that correctly!) to snap up some Black Friday bargains at the Coach outlet.  We entered the store at about 11:45, bought a few things, then split up after that and shopped individually for another couple hours.  By 2 am I had 3 large bags - carrying them from store to store and weaving around a ton of other shoppers was definitely a bonus workout for the day!  Traffic was horrendous on the way out, but we made it home successfully, and after taking a few minutes to gaze lovingly at our new purchases we went our separate ways for the evening.  I finally got to bed around 3:30 and slept right through breakfast this morning!  Today will be a day of light eating, and due to many sore muscles from all my workouts this past week, I will have a rest day and just putter around the house instead of hitting the gym.  It feels so good to have made it through Thanksgiving without a load of calories to work off!