And Hey, welcome back. And I want to talk to you today about special occasions, special events that might make you feel nervous because you have your eating plan. regimented. And when you go to a special event, you may not have control over what you're eating. So I want to give you some ideas about how you can make this a simple stress free process. So when I talk about special events, it might be a wedding that you're going to or it might be a dinner reception or a gala or you know, a barbecue or any type of special event that's out of the norm.

And you may not be sure how can I handle the situation. So there are a couple of really simple ideas. Now if you are at your home or home base, or you know going from your office where you have some control, there are a few things that I recommend that you do. The first is to make sure that you eat normally throughout the day, make sure that you're eating healthy meals throughout the day so that you actually have a really good foundation before you have your special event. Then the next thing I'm going to say, which may seem counterintuitive, is eat before you go. Now, the reason why I recommend that is because if you're hungry, then you're going to eat anything that's put in front of you whether it's good for you or not.

I know that's certainly true for me that if I am hungry, then I will eat something that I know is not healthy for me just because I'm hungry. So if you eat before you go to the special event, it does a couple things. One, it ensures that you're not starving by the time the food arrives, so you can make better choices with a clearer head. The second thing is if you're going to a special event, you may not actually know when you're going to eat. So you don't want to go with an empty stomach. You want to go Knowing that you have some food already in you, now, they may be planning a great spread of food and that's fine.

If you eat something before you go, again, you'll be able to make better choices and say, You know what, I wouldn't normally eat this particular type of food, I'll only get a couple of bytes instead of filling your plate with something that you know is going to cause your blood sugar's to skyrocket or to fall. So that's the first thing. The second thing is make sure that you take snacks. So figure out what snacks can work for you and put them in your purse or put them in your car. So again, if you're out longer than you expected, if it runs over, you have a couple of options for yourself so that you're not finding yourself famished and eating, you know, four pieces of chocolate cake. The second thing is to think about the event.

A lot of times alcohol is at events and what you might not be aware of is alcohol can actually cause your blood sugar To go down, instead of going up, which is what you might think so again can cause a crazy roller coaster of food. So if you know that there's going to be alcohol there, please make sure that you eat something preferably something with protein in it like nuts and seeds or like a hummus dip or animal protein, whether it's fish or chicken or something like that, or beef whatever, before you start drinking alcohol that will actually help absorb some of the alcohol so you won't get drunk as quickly and your blood sugar's won't fluctuate as as much. The second thing is, Don't drink too much. Again, we drink more one or two drinks, there's a lot of sugar in alcohol. And if you do decide to drink well, then maybe you decide to give up dessert.

I am a dessert girl. So I will take dessert over alcohol any day of the week. So when I go to special events, I keep in mind, and I don't have five drinks plus dinner plus, don't take leftovers. So one of the best things that you can do is make sure that if you're going to eat on that day, and you're going to eat maybe more or differently than you normally do, don't bring leftovers home and then eat poorly for three or four days later. So the final thing is, if you're going somewhere where you have the option of planning the food ahead, call ahead and say, Hey, I have special dietary recommendations, I need to eat such and such. That's also a really good option for you.

These are all ways to kind of handle events. If you're at home, or you're at your office, you have some control over the food that you're going to get. In the next module, we'll actually talk about when you're traveling, and how you can actually make sure that you continue to have good behaviors as you're doing that. So there you go. Okay, so now go to the handout, where you'll get a synopsis of this and some ideas help you in the future.