Free Travel Weekends?

When I'm traveling on the weekends, I'm adopting a sort of new policy: I'll watch my food, but I'm not gonna do all the calculations or stress too much about it.

Why? It's almost impossible to do it honestly. For example, last weekend, I had a small bite of my stepfather's meatloaf, a perfectly fine food for RNYers. But I don't know exactly what the ingredients were, nor did I weigh the bite. How do I count that? I want to be free to do those sorts of things without feeling guilty because, even though I know it's okay for me to eat, I don't know the exact calorie count.

Same with tonight. I'm in New Haven for a special event, and I'll be having the grilled beef tenderloin with cabbage and sweet potatoes. (Of the options, this was the most clearly pouch-friendly. Everything else came with regular high GI potatoes, polenta, or pasta, all of which I avoid unless prepared by a James Beard award-winning chef, and even then, I don't feel good about it.) If the dessert looks good/special, I may have a bite of it. I know I've made the best selection possible, but I still don't know how many calories it has.

It's really important to me to very honest on this blog when I post my menus. Accountability doesn't work if you lie. I've been tempted to leave things out so many times, like when I compulsively eat and don't know exactly how much I measured, or because I'm embarrassed (see, e.g., the calcium binge), or simply because I don't know the nutritional content of something. But I haven't. The only items I don't record are calorie-free liquids (for me, mostly water and decaf coffee) and sugarless gum. Vitamins, a tbsp. of milk in my coffee, all of that stuff - I try to post it all. I can't always have that level of control, however.

So that's what I'm doing for now. But ONLY (1) on weekends AND (2) when I'm traveling. Unless both of these are true, I'm screwing up when I don't post.