Let the festivities begin!

I absolutely love this time of the year - not because of the weather (I hate hot summer days, plus it's spider season) but because I love Christmas, and I love the lead up to Christmas because it's the only time of the year my social calendar seems to fill up! As such, Friday was a fabulous day!

The work day was broken up with an excellent lunch, with Fork on the Road putting on a fantastic spread. I was supposed to have lunch with K & M at our usual cafe, but when I told K about all these food trucks, she got so excited by all the vegetarian options that we decided to go check it out instead. So there's me, who eats anything, K who is vegetarian, and M who has some gut problems and as such is on a very strict diet, including gluten free amongst other things. The challenge was on. It didn't take me long at all to find what I was after, as I ended up having a Chimi Steak from this Argentian food truck:

K and M both ended up grabbing something from Veggie Velo, with them being awesome enough to accommodate M's dietary requirements as best they could. As M headed back to her office, K and I perused the baked goods at the Craftea & Cake stand. K had been talking about how much she was looking forward to trying their vegan strawberry cheesecake for at least 24 hours, and had brought in a cooler bag so she could take some home with her, but unfortunately there were none on offer on the day so she was a bit disappointed. She ended up getting LOTS of veg-friendly cakes though, while I bought a Fruchoc cupcake and a Fruchoc rocky road (I cannot resist anything Fruchoc). They were DELICIOUS!

The Friday just kept getting better with the first of many upcoming work Christmas events being the social club drinks at the Hotel Metro on Grote Street. I made excellent use of the bar tab, knocking off many lovely frosty beers. Once people started drinking Jaegerbombs the bar tab quickly ran out, so several of us moved on to the Union hotel to dance the night away. I actually can't remember the last time I went out dancing and I had so much fun. The DJ at the Union on Friday nights is fantastic, especially for people in their 30s I think. Loved it! As Glen isn't used to me actually going out, when he sent a text after 11 asking when I'd be home I figured it was time I headed out to get a cab and do just that, but could have quite easily lost another couple of hours on the dance floor. Fun! Let the silly season commence...

Food, glorious food

I've been on this high protein Bodytrim diet for the last 6 and a bit weeks and so far have lost 5.3kg (it was up to 6kg at one point but I've put on in the last few days). The good thing about it is that I haven't had cravings for chocolate until the last few days, but what has surprised me is how much I've been craving bread. I didn't realise just how much of it I was having until I cut it down to one slice of toast in the morning. I also miss cheese, so have been caught overindulging in it when we have the occasional afternoon tea at work, because there's always a cheese platter.

Some benefits so far have been getting regular walks in, not feeling bloated and sick at work after lunch, eating vegetables more regularly, and trying out a few new recipes which are yummy. The downsides are the obvious things like having to be more organised with meals, less flexibility when going out to eat [although the places I've been have either had something on the menu I could have or have been willing to accommodate my weird requests. E.g. At lunch with the girls at Glow Cafe in the city they made me a cajun chicken burger without the burger bun lol] and finding myself thinking about food more regularly. I seem to think about food a lot, hence why there's a whole blog post dedicated to it.

Anyway I'm doing this for me. I got to the heaviest I've ever been and was feeling unhappy within myself and very unhealthy. I still have a long way to go but at least it's going in the right direction, and so far this has proven to be a lot easier than anything else I've tried. Fingers crossed I can stick with it!