Thanksgiving

What a wonderful time of year.  Friends and family gather and reflect on all that they are thankful for. There are lots of hugs, laughs and of course food.  This year I spent Thanksgiving in Los Angeles all weekend.  I had a invites to a few different homes and spent the evening with one of my best friends and her family.  It was lovely. She is a fantastic cook and her family is so warm and wonderful that anytime spent in her home is treasured.
Since I did not do my usual Thanksgiving trek to Arizona, I decided that I had to make one of the pies that I would have had if I had been with the Fullerton family - Dark Chocolate Pecan Pie.  This pie is not on any meal plan, much less a plan designed to lose fat. But, hey, it's Thanksgiving and part of Thanksgiving is to feast and be thankful for the bounty. This pie is a bounty of calories and I'm glad I got to have some and share the rest with everyone else.  Another bonus to going to another home for the feast :)
I knew that I would over indulge on the bounty, after all Linda is an amazing cook, and so I stuck to the meal plan earlier in the day and reserved some of the calories for the feast.  When dinner was served, it was buffet style so there would be room for everyone at the table without having to juggle large dishes of food.  This is my dinner plate:

Mostly romaine salad, a couple of bites of stuffing and potatoes and a medium slice of turkey breast with one homemade roll.  I am the kind of person that will eat my weight in homemade rolls, especially on Thanksgiving.  I did have a second roll during dinner and I was done.  I chose to eat the salad first and since the 'roughage' was filling, I didn't feel the need to eat much more.  Yay!!!

[Note to self, eat a large amount of salad before the rest of any feast and you will have no need to be rolled away from the table like usual.]

On to dessert!  I did not taste the pie I made as I made it so I had to have some of it. I also LOVE pumpkin and HAD to have a piece of pumpkin pie so I cut small pieces of each:

The family dog got a big bite of the pumpkin pie - little stinker - and this is how much of the rest I ate:

On any other day of my life, I would have finished the dessert and had seconds. And that would be after eating my weight in rolls, potatoes and stuffing.  I blame the coaches and trainers at ABS Club LA! They have ruined me, at least the old me, and turned me into a more health conscious person.  In just 3.5 weeks I have lost 10 pounds (7 of which is fat) AND altered my feasting habits. Thank you to everyone that is supporting me and encouraging me.
This is a very hard transformation. I did 'cheat' a few times throughout the weekend. Mostly because I didn't plan ahead and didn't have good snacks and meals on hand when I was hungry.  I'm still learning and this is a lifestyle change not a temporary fad.  I'm so thankful to everyone for their support. I'm really trying not to let you down.
Just a note to leave you with.
It is tradition of the family I joined for Thanksgiving feast to pass around a bucket filled with slips of paper. Everyone takes their own slip and reads the question then shares their answer with the family.  Here is mine:

The recent passing of a young friend of mine has greatly increased my gratitude for the love, support, hugs, kisses and plethora of friends and family that I have. Not everyone in this world has even one good friend or relative they can call and I have many. Thank you for that.

What is something that happened this year that increased your gratitude?