Day 15: Indulge!

I forgot to check the morning’s challenge before setting out on our hike Saturday, but even if I had, I doubt I would have been able to do much more to indulge myself than I did. Especially if you define indulgence as doing what you want when you want and how you want. Which is pretty much exactly what I did all day.

Starting with breakfast – a meal I rarely eat but which was included with our hotel room – I planned to pay no mind to the number of calories I was consuming today. Totally reasonable since I also planned to take a 7-mile hike on a fairly challenging trail. As it turned out, the breakfast choices were limited, so I opted for a bowl of raisin bran and some coffee. Not terribly indulgent, but probably better than syrupy pancakes or waffles for giving me the long-term energy boost I’d need.

Next I indulged my senses by spending several hours in my absolute favorite environment: the woods. I’m pretty sure just about every sense was indulged today: the sight and smell of the autumn leaves, the feel of the crisp cool air, the sound of the wind whistling through the trees, and the taste … well, that was still to come, seeing as I didn’t eat anything I found in the forest. Though I did have a pretty decent turkey sandwich for lunch!

There is nothing quite like the tiredness you feel after a long hike, and after about 5 hours of hiking, I was there! So back to civilization we went, where I indulged in a LARGE caramel latte at the local coffee shop. While there, we asked a Williams College student for a dinner recommendation … after all, no one knows more about indulgence than a college student, right?

She suggested the Water Street Grille, so that’s where we headed for dinner, visions of a juicy cheeseburger dancing in my head. (Sure beats sugar plums any day!) They had a choose-your-fixings option, so I selected cheddar cheese, fried onions and mushrooms. Mmmm-good! And the sweet potato fries I ordered on the side were awesome too! I usually don’t eat fries, but I polished off about three-quarters of these babies, guilt-free! And then, because it was my day to indulge, I ordered a slice of key lime pie that was out of this world. (I did, however, split this with my husband.)

Sadly, I paid the price with somewhat of a restless sleep. Guess my body just isn’t used to so much indulgence so close to bedtime. Perhaps I need to indulge more often … that could indeed be awesome!