Angel Food (lowfat)

I had a strange little weekend in Florida these past few days. My pilot, his dad, and I had planned to go to the beach (my double-digit sized tankini be darned), but the mean Navy scheduler decided that my fiancé couldn’t have the day off after all. So, my darling pilot-in-training cursed and went flying with an embittered instructor pilot (who, no lie, started the flight by saying, “I’d rather be with my kids right now than flying with you”) while my future father-in-law and I spent the day together at the beach.

I love my FFIL, but he can be an annoyingly randy old man. He’s not creepy toward me (well, there was that one time he drunk dialed me), but he’s the kind of man who admits to watching Sandra Lee Semi-Homemade simply because “she’s stacked.” Yeah. One of those men. I still haven’t quite figured out how he spawned my lovely husband to be.

Before hitting the beach, FFIL and I lunched at one of those tourist trap restaurants that dot the Gulf Coast. Our waitress blessedly steered us away from all of the fried seafood, suggesting that we try a grilled Amberjack sandwich for lunch. It was truly the best piece of grilled fish I’ve ever had and totally worth sitting through a day with the FFIL checking out women half his age. After lunch, I did my best to enjoy my time with said FFIL and not drown in the red flag surf. We got absolutely pounded by the waves. I’m usually an ocean gal, but it was stressful constantly bracing ourselves against the whitecaps breaking over our heads. Somehow, even with all the beautiful women on the beach, I managed to avoid freaking out about being in a bathing suit. Until, that is, my FFIL decided to take some photos of me jumping over the waves. I saw myself in a picture and thought, “dear Lord, where is my muscle tone?”

It was such a frustration to look at pictures of myself and still feel so dissatisfied with my image. Immediately, my thoughts turned to scrambling for my cover up, never eating again, or just eating everything because darn-it I have made no progress dieting in the past year and a half. But, I realized that I couldn’t let my frustration morph into desperation. You know the desperation I’m referring to? The one that means eating an itty bitty dinner because it’s low in calories, only to see your diet melt into a hungry puddle of butter later in the evening?

So, despite being unhappy with the state of my flabby midsection and arms, I didn’t eat a grilled chicken salad for dinner.  No, I ate quite lovely grilled steak and shrimp kebabs. I also ate a little bread (just a little), a little rice, and most of my grilled veggies. I even drank a non-light beer. I felt satisfied and not over full. I repeated the same dining process on Saturday and Sunday, refusing to think about dieting, instead thinking about enjoying my meals. I ate what I wanted, and not too much of it, and I lost 1.5 lbs this weekend. Perhaps this is how thin people eat?