What I Ate at the CNE

Happy What I Ate Wednesday! As always, thanks to Jenn @ Peas and Crayons for hosting.

I hope everyone had a fun long weekend – I certainly did!

For me, Labour Day weekend just wouldn’t be complete without a trip to the Canadian National Exhibition. And no trip to the CNE would be complete without a trip to the Food Building to sample all kinds of deep fried nonsense and weird food combinations (check out this list of Top 10 Must-Eat Foods at the CNE).

If you recall last year, I tried the infamous deep fried butter. This year, I went with a group of six people, which was a great way to sample a lot of food without overeating. Here’s what we ate at the CNE.

Chicken and Waffles

Sweet and salty is always a good combination so, naturally, when you take deep fried, crispy chicken and stick it between two waffles with maple syrup and icing sugar, good things are gonna happen. I really enjoyed this one.

Far East Taco

There was a lot of buzz this year about Far East Taco, a food truck that serves tacos with Korean inspired fillings. We tried the kim chi fries (left) and kalbi tacos (right).

Mac and Cheese

Deep fried mac and cheese from the Mac and Cheesery was another much-hyped food this year. I sampled a bit of my friend’s order and while I liked the crispiness and flavour, I think a full or even half serving of it would have made me sick. That being said, it whet my appetite for a bowl of traditional mac and cheese, which Josh and I shared for dinner.

Belgian Waffles

And, of course, you can’t leave the CNE without some kind of sweet treat. For dessert, Josh and I split a Belgian waffle with strawberries, ice cream and whipped cream.

I’d like to say I got right back on track the next day, but we ended up going to Ribfest on Monday.

Then we had a pizza lunch at work on Tuesday because our newly renovated office lacks a functional kitchen.

So, yeah, my diet hasn’t been great over the past few days and I’m assuming after the long weekend, a lot of people are in the same boat. But a few days of eating junk doesn’t have to be a setback. Here are some ways I balance it out:

• Don’t overeat – eating junk food doesn’t make you fat; eating too much junk food does. Not only that, overeating just because you’ve decided not to be healthy at that particular meal will only make you feel sick later (speaking from experience). So while the food I ate this weekend wasn’t exactly the healthiest in the world (understatement?), I tried to stick to reasonable portions of everything.
• Stay active – you can’t out-exercise a bad diet, but you can definitely burn off some of those excess calories. Plus, exercising helps you feel like you’re at least keeping up one part of the healthy living equation. My diet was less than stellar this weekend but I was very active. In addition to my regular workouts, I played tennis and did a ton of walking.
• Eat healthy when you can – just because you ate deep fried, fatty food for lunch, doesn’t mean the whole day is a write off. I try to counter a really unhealthy meal by making my other meals healthy and a little lighter than usual.

How do you create balance during your not-so-healthy phases?