Wednesday, October 08, 2008

Eating My Way Through Vacation

Before I move on to talk about the massive amounts of food I ate on vacation, I want to send a very special thank you to Queenie for taking care of my posts for me while I was gone That was so great of you to help me out and I REALLY appreciate it!

Now - to the main issue at hand!  Most of you know that I went on vacation to Laughlin and Arizona.  Let me tell you this up front - the food there at the hotel was freaking awesome.  Too awesome!  I literally ate my way from Laughlin to Phoenix and back again, and let me tell you - it was good!  It’s so funny how when you go on vacation, literally there are like no calories in anything you eat.  I ate huge ham and cheddar omelets for breakfast with hash browns and HUGE pieces of rye bread.  For lunch, if I even bothered to eat because I was still so full from breakfast, I either had McDonald’s (which was in every casino!) or I had a cheeseburger from the Beach Cafe.  For dinner I had the buffet one night (which I thoroughly took advantage of) and one night I had Mexican which was to die for, and then one night we ate at a sushi place where I skipped the sushi and had my healthiest meal of my vacation - spring rolls and chicken takatori.  YUMO as Rachel Ray would say. 

Sure, I could have at least had wheat toast with my omelets, or perhaps I could have gone with the tortilla salad instead of the big tortilla I ate - which was actually not bad because I got a huge amount of protein that night in the black beans I had with it.  Sure, I could have ate the salad and fruit at the buffet (well I had a salad, but it would hardly be considered healthy with all the crap I put on it, lol) and I could have even gone for a turkey sandwich instead of the cheeseburger.... but I was on vacation and I let myself enjoy it! 

Which comes to the point of this whole story - sometimes you just have to let go and have something you enjoy before getting back to business.  The funny thing is, I didn’t gain any weight.  I weighed exactly what I weighed the day I came back as the day I left and do you want to know why?  Because while eating all this stuff, I was walking.  I didn’t have a computer to sit at, I didn’t have work that needed to be done, I didn’t have anything to worry about but myself - and I walked!  I walked and I walked and I walked some more.  I did the river walk numerous times between casinos.  I walked miles in the casino itself between finding a machine and then finding more machines.  I walked all over the hotel itself just to get places.  I wish I had a pedometer because it easily would have been over 20,000 steps a day if not a lot more.  I would wager to say that if we all went on vacation for the rest of our lives, we’d all be thin!  Because while on vacation you feel energized and awake and ready to do things you normally wouldn’t do!  For me that was walking everywhere, everyday.  And I did!

Right now I’m going to continue my vacation mentality and get back to walking - I’m getting on my treadmill, pretend that I’m walking from casino to casino and hopefully get in as many steps as I did while I was there.  Why don’t you do the same thing?  Go outside and walk to the store if you have one nearby pretending you don’t have a rental car to take you anywhere like I didn’t.  Take a walk around the neighborhood - anything!  I guarantee, if you act like you are on vacation (minus the massive amounts of food of course!) you’ll start losing weight in no time!

Tuesday, October 07, 2008

Who Has Time?

You do. No matter how crammed your schedule appears to be. We can’t always make it to the gym for a workout. That’s the way life is. So, what do you do when you are faced with a packed full day planner and you need to get a workout in? You improvise of course. Here are some easy suggestions:

• If you live or work in a multistory building, skip the elevator and take the stairs. If you work in a high rise, take the elevator partially up and then take the stairs.
• Add some cardio to your morning routine with a run around the neighborhood or a quick jump-rope session!  Working out in the morning is also a great way to wake yourself up and boost your energy for the entire day. Set your alarm 20 minutes early to get in a quick shot of natural energy.
• When your kids head off to bed, do some circuit training exercises. When little Jimmy’s sleeping, you won’t be distracted. Less distractions = more focused work out.
• Get creative and put common household items, such as soup cans or water bottles, to use as exercise equipment. Putting away groceries just got a whole lot more fun.

No more excuses. Just get out there and move that bod.

Monday, October 06, 2008

Party Monday

Today is a day to celebrate. I have decided that we need a party. We have had all these good things happening and most of the time, they go by, unnoticed and unmentioned. Not anymore.

As many of you know, this site, was nominated in the Blogger Choice Awards for Best Health Site. Some of you even joined us in the voting frenzy that followed our nomination. Well, this past week, we received an email that we made it to the top 3 in our category. That is better than we ever expected, and way more than we could ever hope for. If you haven’t voted for us yet, click the link in the side bar and head over there to do that. There is a week left to cast the vote. The BCA people remove the vote totals for the last two weeks of voting so I really have no clue if we stand a chance of making it to the top or not but vote anyway.

Secondly, we were contacted a couple of weeks ago by the ladies over at Thindependence.com. They stumbled in here and were apparently so impressed that they decided to put us up as a spotlight site on their site for the entire month of October. They have a great thing happening over there and I would highly recommend a visit if you haven’t ever been there. Be sure to let them know that you are part of the Wicked crew over here.

And finally, I think we need to toss some confetti around for all that we have accomplished here in the weight loss zone. We have been here for a year in some form or another. Most of us are plugging away at dropping the pounds. I think it is high time that we celebrate that. So, comment below and give us your overall total dropped. No matter when you began your journey. I want to know your totals. And then, by god, let’s party a bit and enjoy our hard work.