Yesterday was our monthly Beach Cleanup day (which I host).

Yesterday was very tightly scheduled for me: After Beach Cleanup,I had an event on the other side of town (with the kids) and a meeting after that. There really wasn't TIME for everything I had to do.

We decided to stop for food near the beach, on the way home. (Windy day, we were all hugely thirsty, so this played a role.)

The place we stop is one of our favorites. Everyone in the family knows what they're having before we walk in. My husban? Calamari basket. My son? Gator tail basket. My daughter, who hates seafood? Cheeseburger. Me? Seafood burrito.

Except that's now off-limits. So I actually had to LOOK at the menu. A lot of what they serve is either in a sandwich (or tortilla), or comes breaded and fried.

I wound up getting a grilled shrimp salad. "Garden or Ceasar?" Ceasar, hold the croutons, please.

First? Been a while since I had a cesar salad. Forgot how good they can be.

Second? I cannot remember the last time I enjoyed a shrimp so much. They were grilled up in this oily sauce with lots of lemon juice and a few spices I couldn't separate out to identify, but that blended perfectly.

Every time I ate one, my eyes closed and the world went away for just a minute.

Last night, after that incredibly full day (with just time to shower/drop off kids between commitments) My last "thing" was a meeting, at the dinner-hour. Potluck.

I knew what was going to be at the potluck: "Turkey, and all the fixins". "All the fixins" looked like nothing I could eat: Stuffing, potatoes, sweet potato casserole, with marshmallows... Pie.

These carb-heavy potlucks are part of what's been keeping me from re-committing to LC for the past few years. They typically come at the end of a day that's as scheduled as yesterday (where for 12 hours, my only down-time was what we spent eating lunch), so I haven't got time to cook.

I stopped at the grocery. I grabbed a salad and some dressing (1 carb per serving on the dressing, though I was in a hurry so didn't read too closely), and some (unadulterated) iced tea.

My dinner plate last night had a good helping of turkey, some brussels sprouts that looked safe, and some salad. No one remarked that I wasn't eating (as they would have if I'd only had the turkey -- I know from experience and recent experience), I was satisfied, and I was able to be as on-time-as-humanly-possible.

Nice choices in maneuvering through this high carb world!

Amazing how we get criticized when passing on the high carb stuff, lol, so kudos to you for outsmarting the critics!! [clapping]

Way to go on taking care of yourself!!

I’m going to friends For a Thanksgiving dinner. I already know what I will be choosing to eat. I’m making low carb dessert and taking a nice horderve (sp) plate with healthy veggies. I think I will have a glass of wine with dinner. We have to make smart decisions for our health.

Last time I ate with this group of people, someone looked at my scant plate (everything was carbs.... I tried some meatballs, but they were sugared, so I was sticking to the veggie platter), and said, "If you're vegan, the corn-fritters..."

"I'm not vegan. At all. I happily eat meat."

"No, but I'm saying, the corn fritters are...."

"The thing I CAN'T eat is grains."

"Oh."

All off this was in an effort to be helpful. *sigh*

Now, there IS another woman who's part of that group (but fortunately doesn't show often) who's vegan and belligerent about it. She works in medical office, and so will insist she knows more than you do (even when she's dead wrong) on any topic relating to the human body. (She is NOT a trained medical professional. From what I can tell, she does paperwork. But she seems to believe that close daily proximity to doctors means she's absorbed all the world's knowledge in ways you couldn't possibly understand, trust me, if we knew what she does, we'd understand. *sigh*

And she gets super-belligerent over meat. My best friend is vegan, and we're able to share recipes. (I have stuff in common with vegans.... Like I tend to want to know EVERY SINGLE INGREDIENT. So that great recipe for green-beans cooked up in oil and lemon juice with some almond shavings and a hint of minced garlic? Yeah, I'm all over that! You want my recipe for nutrient-dense chocolate cupcakes? You'll have to replace the egg, but that's ok....) Luckily, she also tends to not show up to a lot of things, and she wasn't there this weekend. (I actually dread the first time she does. She has no respect for people who make different decisions than she does....)

With the exception of Moaning Myrtle, everyone in this group respects that the others are grown-ups, and can make their own decisions. My problem is with how helpful they are. And the fact that so often,I don't have time to make anything.

But hey, I survived it. Unscathed and uncarbed.

And holy moley, but I'm still having flashback-fantasies about that shrimp salad!