Hey guys,
I hope you’ve been having a good week. As you all should know, Monday is Memorial Day. Monday is also my sister’s birthday, she turns 25! If you’re anything like my family, you’re going to have a BBQ sometime this week. Since Memorial Day falls on a Monday and most of the adults in my family will have to work Tuesday morning, we decided to have our BBQ today instead. If you live where I am, it was a horrible day to have an outside BBQ because it rained all day. That, however, didn’t stop my crazy family from being loud and wild all day long.
There was so much food that it didn’t seem possible that at the end of the night there was practically nothing left. As Jamaicans, we eat a lot of chicken on a daily basis and today was no different. There was also ribs, hotdogs, hamburgers, corn, and other typically BBQ items, along with lots of different kinds of desserts. Thankfully I was strong and didn’t go crazy.
My day started off with me cleaning the mess that is my room. I moved back from my dorm room a week ago and never got around to unpacking my clothes and things. I made it a lot more fun by playing music and dancing around. I then had a decent sized healthy breakfast so that I wouldn’t later go and stuff my face. I then did a bunch of blogilates, which is just a certain brand of pilates that can be found on youtube under the channel blogilates. I like to exercise earlier in the day because I have less time to make up excuses as to why I can’t work out. Also, it makes me make better food choices throughout the day because I don’t want to waste the work that I put in. Word of advice: it’s rather hard to do pilates when your 2 year old cousin wants to sit on your mat and refuses to get up.
I later hung out with the family, joking around and looking through old photo albums. Like I said before, my family is a bit loud so everyone has to practically scream over each other to be heard. Once food is served, I would like to think that things quiet down but that’s a lie. We all laugh at my sister for the amount of food she eats and the babies for always wanting more food even though they haven’t finished anything yet. Personally, I ate chicken, which is high in protein and therefore good for you, a cob of corn because it’s delicious, some salad, and one small rib. I was too full to even think about eating anymore. My favorite thing about the Drop10 Diet is that it helps you learn portion sizes so that you stop overeating.
After I ate, I spent a lot of my time, running after the little ones (a one-year old, a two-year old, a seven-year old, an eight-year old, and an eleven-year old). For some weird reason I’m always on babysitting duty. My mom, my aunts, and my older cousins also had me running up and down the stairs to get them something. I couldn’t even find a second to sit for a bit. Pretty much every calorie that I ate today has been burned off.
Moral of the story: in order to not go overboard during a Memorial Day BBQ, remember that while you CAN eat more food, it does not mean that you SHOULD. Eat small amounts of your favorites and bring home extras so that you can have more at a later time. Go crazy and run around with the younger kids if there are any, or just walk around if you have to. Drink water instead of juice because you won’t realize it but you probably normally have 5-10 glasses of juice or soda during a BBQ and that’s lots of empty calories. Allow yourself a desert but only get a small piece. And above all, HAVE FUN!
Love loads,
Danielle <3
PS HAPPY HOLIDAY!