In which I white-knuckle brunch

For me, brunch is the most dangerous of meals.

It's all the deliciousness of breakfast combined with all the deliciousness of lunch.

If you're trying to lose weight, it's a minefield - your program can explode with any step in any direction.

Toasty bagels - boom! Eggs Benedict - boom! Carving station - boom! Desserts, for the love of God, desserts. Mushroom cloud.

I can anxious just thinking about it.

And while I would never say, "Let's go to brunch!", I had one thrust upon me this past weekend.

My family and I had a volunteer meeting that included a brunch. There was event before, brunch, then continued event after, so it wasn't like we could just show up post-brunch.

And, frankly, I didn't want to. One of my goals in my process is not subjecting my family to ridiculous "rules" because I'm trying to drop weight. Like, "We can never go out for ice cream again!", and so on.

So to force my family to miss one brunch because I have trouble with them seemed unfair, as well as a good opportunity to practice making smart choices.

What did I do? Well, I ran in the morning. The brunch was on a scheduled run day, plus when I work out in the morning it puts me in a good frame of mind for the rest of the day, as in: Do you really want to throw away all your good effort from this morning?

Then I ate my breakfast - first and second - per normal. And I drank a ton of water and stashed an emergency LUNA bar in my diaper bag in case there were no good options and I had to eat something. I went in prepared.

The spread was delicious and Points-unfriendly. Because, you know, it was a brunch and the two-dozen other people there did not have food issues. Again, one of those "Melissa adapts to the situation" deals, not "The world adapts to Melissa."

So I had a honkin' salad, my LUNA bar and a metric shit-ton of water. And I was OK.

Did I want a bagel - a real, New York bagel, mind you? Hell, yes. And the apple crisp? Uh huh. And the frittata? Num. OK, gotta stop revisiting the menu.

And could I have had a very little of one thing or another? Yes. However, I didn't want to. Operation October 5.1 is still in effect and I've got my eyes on the prize, despite everything going all icky-balooky in that department as of late.

I could have had either a little to eat for a lot of Points or continued eating the rest of my day at home, enjoying more food for fewer Points.

Does this mean I can never have a bagel again? No. Hell, I could even, maybe, venture brunch someday. Just not that particular day.

It was the choice I made and the choice I would make again.