Destructive Down Time vs. A Victorious Vacation

How to keep from undoing all your hard work during a few days of vacationing.

I am going on vacation starting tomorrow WOOT!  I will be around good food (that's terrible for you) and some good binge drinking for 3 days. So I thought it might be good to go over some ground rules for vacation time so that I/we don't completely undo all our hard work.

1. Drink 2 liters of ice cold water through the day.  Easy Peasy. This will not only burn about 140 calories but will keep you from getting dehydrated and suffering a bad hangover if you are going to partake in the partay.
2. There are two options when it comes to throwin down beer (or whatever it is you drink):
1. Wait to drink til later in the day rather than drink slowly all day long.  You will end up consuming less beer if you are only drinking from 8:00-Midnight than if you have a couple drinks an hour from Noon-Midnight.
2. If you want to make it an all day thing, only drink one of the days. Not both. This may be the better way to go anyway, because it will leave everyone with an automatic DD for the day you aren't drinking.
3. When you are drinking lots of alcohol you are taking in LOTS of empty calories.  So, you will have to be really smart about what you eat. Try to stick to lean proteins, veggies and fruits. Stay away from chips, hot dogs, burgers, and desserts. If drinking is not on the menu for you, you can be a little more lax and indulge here and there as long as you don't go nuts.
4. If you are driving to your destination be sure to pack lots of healthy snacks for the drive so you don't get sucked in by the tempting sodas, candies, and chips at the gas stations along the way. Candy is my weakness.  If I don't bring along my own snacks the candy reels me in every freaking time!
5. Exercise. At least half of the days you are gone exercise.  Just 30 minutes of cardio. Use the hotel gym, swim in the lake, hike. This is the best thing you can do to keep from weighing in 3 pounds heavier on Monday.

We will be going to the lake with one of my very best friends and her family for 3 days.  So I am going to set some mini goals for the vacation to try and help me stay on track and keep me accountable:

• Run or Swim at least one of the 3 days for at least 30 minutes.
• Don't drink more than 6 drinks in a day. This shouldn't be hard. Now that I workout so much I am a total light weight and get a hard buzz off of 3 ;)
• Bring healthy snacks for the trip and make healthy choices at fast food joints along the way. So....I guess that means no double quarter pounders. Damn...
• Only have one indulging meal each day. (3 pieces of cheese cake = not one meal)
• Drink 2-3 liters of ice water per day.
• Have a F#!&ing blast and take tons of pictures to share.

Today's workout projections:

1. Run 3-4 miles - Easy Pace

Here's the Skinny . . . and Not-So-Skinny Of It.

I'll start off my story with the great stuff...
I am 26 years old. I have a completely amazing, sometimes maddening husband whom I love dearly.  I also have a 7 year old son that is the most fun and hillarious thing that has ever happened to my life.  Hopefully there will be siblings for him in the very near future! I have amazing parents, siblings, and friends.  They make my life so colorful and in more ways than their use of foul language.  I also have an amazing job working for hospice as a volunteer coordinator.  My co-workers and volunteers live in service to others with a smile on their face and love in their hearts. They make it easy to believe in the grace of God. All of these people rock my face off.
Now for the not so great...


Being Fat
I know what you're thinking, great family, great friends, wonderful job . . . I hate this hooker!  Well, now for the not so marvelous. Starting in my second year of college, which was about 7 years ago, I steadily put on weight until I topped 190 pounds (194 to be exact). (That was so incredibly hard to type, and much harder still not to go back and dial down or just delete all together. Gross.) While in college I drank WAY too much beer, ate WAY too much fast food and was a complete lazy ass. It was my own damn fault that I got so big.

Then at age 20 I started having intense panic attacks that completely screwed me up mentally and physically for a while. The ONLY good thing about that scary as hell experience was that I lost 30 pounds.  Then I met my future husband and after about a year of us being together and me finally learning to control my anxiety I was back up to 180. (Thank God he loved me for my personality too!) Then after I got married, well, I basically did the same things that screwed me in college minus the drinking. That's how I got back up to 194 AGAIN. I went through a mentally dark period of time where the only things I thought about myself were completely self depricating and aweful. I lived in a perpetual state of being completely disgusted with myself. I would avoid full length mirrors, scales, and sex with the lights on, at all cost.  I haven't been under 180 now for about 4 years. Anytime I would lose weight it would only last a short amount of time and then I would be right back in the 180's and 190's. It was a shittastic cycle fatassery and until now I was never willing to do what I knew had to be done to fix it.

I hated myself for letting it get so out of hand. Then I hated myself more for knowing how fat I was and never doing anything to change it. I attended family functions with all my tall slender/fit siblings and dreaded knowing that someone would want to take family pictures. Scratch that. I hated anytime someone wanted to take a picture with me in it. I hated how it felt to wonder if my husband could really find me attractive. Wondering if he was just saying all those sweet things to make me feel better but really just hoping to God I didn't get any fatter. I even worried what my family thought about how I looked and if they secretly pittied me for ballooning up like I did. I Hated Being Fat.
So, one day in February, I woke up and knew something had changed.  A switch had been flipped in my head.  I'm not even sure why that day or why out of no where I was finally so motivated to change my life but I just woke up and knew that it was going to change and that I was not going to make anymore excuses for my weight.  I was going to change it for good. I woke up and all I thought was FUCK BEING FAT ANYMORE!! It felt awesome!

That day I started eating healthier. I didn't say "Tomorrow's the day. I'm going to start tomorrow for sure," I started immediately.  I worked my metabolism by eating 5 small meals a day, I tried not to take in more than 1800 calories a day max, I quit drinking diet coke, and I drank between 2 and 3 Liters of water a day.  (I will go more into detail on my diet/eating habits in my next post.) Just by modifying my diet I lost 5 pounds in 2 months.  This just didn't seem like enough of a change for me.  So, in May, I started running. Let me just say, WOW! I was like, "So this must be why my marathon-runnin' brother is always preaching the religion of the road!" I dropped 10 pounds in the 4 weeks! CRAZE BALLS! Commiting to running has been the best decision I have ever made for my health. Did I enjoy the excessive and motionsickenss-inducing jiggling that was my thighs, stomach and ass when I first started? No. Hell No. BUT I knew it was going to and DID melt the weight off of me. (More on my running program in next post.)
SO . . . . Healthy Eating + Exercise + The Dance With No Pants = You become a sexy beast.
(If you didn't get that reference...what the hell is wrong with you?! Start watching the Big Bang Theory this instant!)
Hopefully I can help even one person feel and do better by their body and mind through what I write on this blog. If not, well, thems the shits...