My family and I went camping in Key West over New Year’s weekend.

We met up with some friends from Massachusetts and hit all of our favorite spots.  New Year’s Day was spent kayaking and paddle boarding. It was a blast. After a very long drive back to Fernandina Beach, we arrived home late on the 2nd.

As I started my normal routine of setting the coffee maker & preparing to get our lunches together for the following day, I found myself frustrated while digging around in the refrigerator, pantry and even the freezer, to come up with only the following selection:

• half a bag of mini M&M’s
• red and yellow peppers
• 6 eggs
• full bag of mint M&M’s
• salsa
• frozen turkey breakfast sausages
• Sam Adams Cold Snap (how fitting)
• sad looking golden delicious apples
• pepperoni
• 2 half gallons of ice cream

And

…more cheese than is healthy for anyone’s digestive tract!

Uh oh.

“The best-laid plans…” and all…

See, I planned to not eat great over the holidays.  The few days leading up to and the week of Christmas to New Year’s was my planned time of “relaxed” eating.  I know it sounds weird but I tend to eat pretty healthy most of the time and I knew between the Christmas Cookies, the M & M’s that I always get in my stocking (thanks, Santa), the appetizers and our vacation to the keys I was going to be partaking in all of those foods.  Instead of trying to refrain, failing and getting angry at myself, I cut myself some slack.  I didn’t go overboard (except for one night that involved chips and dip) and I enjoyed myself knowing that when we got back it would be back to normal for me.

But I made a mistake.  Two actually.

1. I left all of the holiday “goodies” at my house. 

They taunted me as I walked in the door.  And I’ll admit that I might have had a few, a handful, a lot of those darn M & M’s

2. I didn’t have a plan

Well, I did have a plan.  I had my plan of relaxed eating but that plan didn’t take into account the time after I got home.  My husband always tells our kids that a mistake is only a mistake if you didn’t learn anything from it (he’s pretty smart :)).

So here is what I learned.

1.  Keeping goodies long after the allotted “relaxed eating” time frame doesn’t work for me.  The temptation is just too great to continue on with that relaxed way of eating.  Next year, I will do the following:

• not make as many treats so I don’t have to deal with leftovers
• don’t buy more than is needed
• talk to Santa about the M & M issue

In the meantime, I’m cleaning house.  Any foods that tempt me, are gone.  A lot of people tell me that their kids or spouse like to eat x, y, and z so they can’t get rid of everything.  Then don’t.

Get rid of the foods that you struggle with and cause you to overeat.  If you are honest with yourself, you aren’t in love with ALL of the goodies.  There is probably a handful that is too tempting to resist (hello M & M’s).

2.  The “no plan” plan never works. I’m happy with my planned time off from my normal eating habits but admittedly I fell short in the after plan. Next year, I will do the following:

• make and freeze a few servings of healthy soup that we can grab for lunch
• stock up on the healthy things I usually eat (greek yogurt, cashews, oatmeal)
• stock up on convenience foods that I can grab when I just have no time (KIND Bars, pre-portioned nuts)

I did my best with what I had on hand. But the reality was, I had nothing for our lunches that even remotely resembled healthy.  We had to eat lunch out but tried to make smart choices.  I was at least able to salvage our breakfast though as I pulled together an egg casserole with the sausage, egg and red peppers. It was really quick and pretty tasty.  I’ll post the recipe on my Facebook page.

I have already started my grocery list and plan on battling the aisles of ALDI’s on Sunday.  I will take a couple hours Sunday night to make a few things that will last for most of the week.  I usually cook up some chicken, turkey sausage and peppers and onions, egg bake, huge salad and homemade salad dressing.

I have high confidence in my plan for the upcoming weeks.  Between taking yoga classes, preparing for my new small group training classes and getting ready for my ribbon cutting, I will be depending on the plan to stay on track….way better than my previous “no plan” plan!

…Not having so many M & M’s around will also be a HUGE plus! 😉