I spent 57 hours between Friday,
Saturday and Sunday “back home” in Louisville, KY. I slept from
1 AM to 6:15 AM on Friday, from 11:30 PM until 6 AM on Saturday, and
then Midnightish until 5:40 AM on Sunday. Saturday night I fell
asleep behind the wheel on Dixie Hwy. Living in Louisville was the
last time I ever fell asleep behind the wheel too. The place is just
so stressful to me. It's too big, it takes forever to get anywhere.
All of the stop lights turn red just for you! I generally just don't
like being in that city so I put it off.
I returned to New Hampshire with a sore
throat and a fever. Either I had a sickness before I went or I
caught something on my way to Kentucky and then my lack of sleep and
general lax nutrition over the course of the few days sent me into
full blown sickness. I haven't been sick in a great deal of time.
I'm bummed that I missed my first day back at work, I missed starting
ChaLEAN Extreme when I wanted to. Instead I have been so tired that
running to the grocery (since I had no food in the house after having
been out of town) was a painful endeavor that had me moaning in the
elevator, trying to hold on to bags of groceries.
Some great things about this trip is
that no one had seen me in person since 2011, so I've lost 38 pounds
since then and got Jillian Michaels'd since, so I'm looking pretty
good. And I didn't even notice how good I looked until I saw the
pictures that I took with friends while there. I'm actually skinny.
I guess it really sank in when I could see myself in a place where I
had always been overweight.
I've been thinking of how I want to
discuss my travels in blog form. I had some things happen over the
early week, before my trip, that I was proud of as far as food, but I
will save that for another time. Let's go through the hours piece by
piece.
Friday. 12:15 AM.
I stand at the grocery store near my
aunt's house trying to find something to have for first and second
breakfasts. Designer Whey makes pre-mixed shakes and I thought that
was easier than buying almond milk and the powdered stuff. I got 4
little 100 calorie shakes, a set of Chobani Champions, three bananas
and a set of JIF Natural To-Go (I figured that'd be easier to take on
the plane when I had leftovers).
I'm already exhausted. I didn't sleep
on the plane since I wasn't changing planes, just sitting there while
the folks from Baltimore filed on, so I was wrist deep in starting my
class work for my first term of Graduate School (yay!!!). I had to
stand there for 20 minutes while the lady at the car rental counter
tried to figure out how to use the computer that I suspect she uses
every day at her job. So my flight that came in 10 minutes early put
me getting to bed after 1:00 AM. Unfortunately, though the sun comes
up an hour later when you're so close to a different time zone than
on the edge of the universe that is New England, I was still up and
awake at 6:15 AM. That's 5 hours of sleep.
Friday. 11:00 AM.
When you travel, even if you're staying
with family, it's so much easier just to go out to eat. Everyone can
meet there. It's much easier to decide when to say, “see you all,
later.” I ate my normal “First Breakfast” of protein shake and
I ate a “Second Breakfast” of yogurt and banana. Thought I was
doing a good job. I even did my push-ups and some stretching first
thing in the morning. Made me feel good that my aunt thought I was
so skinny.
The problem with the South is that
there are tons of restaurants. Most of them aren't super healthy.
And the ones that are aren't really the kind of place that you drag a
large group of family members too (especially grandmothers who eat
“traditional” food rather than being willing to try something at
a Vegan place). We went to Cheddar's. Cheddar's doesn't actually
publish their nutrition facts because it would probably put them out
of business.
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| Four wraps! I had two of them. |
My aunt orders an appetizer of onion
rings, which I was very good about an just had a few. I order a
Buffalo Chicken Wrap. I ask for grilled chicken instead of the fried
chicken and a side of broccoli. This wrap could feed two people.
Insanity. I ate half (two sections as shown) and all of my broccoli.
The thing you can't see is that this wrap isn't lettuce. It's made
with cole slaw. Yea. Portion control gets the square on this meal.
Friday. 7:30 PM.
Between lunch and dinner I had some
time to hang out with my dad. We met at Starbucks where I had my
tiny little frappucinno in “non-fat” version. I went over to his
house and had a glass of skim milk and a spoonful of peanut butter.
Dinner was tough.
It was the last Friday of Lent and I do
have a Catholic family, so everyone was doing the “non-meat”
thing so I felt like an ogre if I ate meat in front of them (thought
there was some bacon on my wedge salad). Even my grandpa was eating
fish. We went to O'Charley's. I split a fried fish and shrimp meal with my half brother,
since the kids menu didn't have just fish and he wasn't so sure about
the shrimp (and because I knew I couldn't or shouldn't eat it all).
So I eat most of my wedge salad. Once piece of fried fish (Luke got
the other one) and some fried popcorn shrimp. Ate half the order of
sweet potato fries too. The boy doesn't like real fries. I'm so
jealous.
I'm super proud of my “step”sister
(she's been around for like 10 years so I don't really think I can
call her that, but just so you understand my family dynamic, since I
do have a good 16 and 20 years on my sister and brother,
respectively). She plays on the traveling volleyball team and I'm
pretty envious of her taking to sports despite the fact that she
seems a little scared to make friends and be in strange groups of
kids. That takes bravery. Plus, it was cool to have a conversation
about Burpees with a 12 year old. We also compared biceps.
Impressed.
Saturday. 7:00 AM.
I agreed to have breakfast with my
uncle, his wife, his grandson and my grandpa at 7:00 in the morning.
Holy crap. I got to sleep around 11:30 the night before and got up
at 6:00 AM to make it to breakfast on time. That's 6.5 hours of
sleep.
Cracker Barrel really impressed me with
the few “healthier” options that they had for breakfast. While
most of the table had a pretty fatty breakfast, I had their Yogurt
Parfait with Fruit and granola (that granola was boss, by the way)
and a blueberry muffin. I only ate half the muffin then, but I ate
the other half later in the day. I'll get back to that.
Saturday. 10:00 AM.
ACTIVITY! I met up with my friend
Amie, who you all may know if you've been reading my blog for a long
time. Amie wrote a guest post for Autonomous Eats, which you can
find by following the link. I hadn't seen her since right before I
moved to New Hampshire. I was somewhere around 190 pounds then.
Gained a bit back once I did move, but I remember not being too
concerned about what I ate when I met her at Rocky's across the
river.
We met up to run and have lunch and
getting in some activity felt so good after a lethargic couple of
days. We enjoyed the new pedestrian bridge they have at Waterfront
Park now. VERY good for running, the whole park is really, but the
bridge is perfect for interval training because it has such equal
spaced landmarks. We did about 2.9 miles, but we moved much more
than that with our after lunch walk and with the walking to warm up.
For lunch we split stuff!!! It was so
great eating out with someone who also didn't feel the need to finish
everything we had. We got a salad to share and some tilapia fajitas
which were delicious! We ate at Tumbleweed on the River and it was
as good as I remember Tumbleweed being. Also the best service I've
ever gotten at a Tumbleweed.
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| We ate no cheese, no sour cream and no rice. |
Our waitress was nice enough to take a
picture of us together on the outside patio. I've put it together
with the last photo we took together on the patio when we had dinner
the last time. These two pictures show a collective 130 or so lbs
lost. I'm so very very proud of Amie and all she has accomplished!!
And we look pretty freaking amazing :)
Saturday. 5:30 PM
I had dinner with my gorgeous friend,
Alaina and a couple of the ladies we used to work with. That was a
good time, especially because the restaurant I chose, Rafferty's, had
$2 margaritas from 4 to 8 pm. Haha. Anyway...
I wasn't actually hungry when dinner
rolled around. I had eaten the other half of my muffin from
breakfast and just generally felt like I was a million pounds (maybe
it's because I chose the skinny jeans). I spent a little bit of down
time just walking around a bookstore, trying to not be sitting down.
Dinner consisted of one of those soup
and salad combos. Got a tasty House Salad and Soup combo. All of
the soups they had that day were a “cream of...” so I got potato
because hey, yum, potato soup. The house salad was all vegetables
with some carbs tossed in. You also get croissants there. Good
times.
Saturday. 7:45 PM
I was SOOOOO excited to get to see my
friend Emilie and her husband Jerry!!!! I hadn't seen Jerry for an
uber long time, though I did see Emilie at my last trip to
Louisville. We didn't have a meal, but their son's birthday party
was that day, so I enjoyed a piece of cake. And a piece of pizza. I
didn't need it but it was there and we were sitting there chatting so
I wanted it. And come on, cake... who passes up cake? Awful people,
that's who!
Saturday. 11:00 PM.
I fell asleep driving from Alaina's
apartment to my aunt's house. I remember the lights at Dixie Hwy and
Citation Road blurring into one. I wasn't drunk... $2 margaritas
don't actually do that... my throat was also starting to hurt. In my
sleepiness, I set my alarm for the next morning for PM instead of AM.
Sunday. 5:40 AM.
I woke up 5 minutes after my set alarm
time. I'm pretty impressed with that. Equipped with one last
protein shake, my peanut butter (which I never actually ate any of)
and my last banana, I stopped by my grandpa's house to say goodbye
(drank my shake in his living room) and then I headed to the airport.
Dropped off my car. And then there was security.
Security through Louisville always
takes longer. I almost feel like NO ONE there knows how to ride on a
plane. You don't wear bracelets... you don't wear layers. You shove
everything into your bag and then you can bedazzle yourself until
your heart is content on the OTHER side of the scanners. This was my
first time flying since the full body scanners. I sort of wanted to
see the picture of my full body scan. I wanted to see the super
small Katie who probably had a killer figure with her hands above her
head. Would have been neat to see an underwire bra. Wonder if they
could see my thong. Yea. No shame.
The JIF To Go that I mentioned earlier... you can take it through security, unlike a full jar of peanut butter, but you have to keep it in the box that shows the ounces of each container and you have to slide the box down into your quart size ziploc. I take zero liquids when I fly because I don't want to deal with it. Honestly, I'd rather they continue not allowing knives of any kind and just let us start taking sealed bottles of liquid.
I head to Starbucks (really missed me
some Dunkin Donuts those few days) to get a coffee, thinking the warm
liquid will make my throat feel better. I also get a fruit salad and
I eat the rest of my banana. I didn't eat all of the fruit, but it
was a good alternative to the muffins, cakes and (gasp) bagels
offered there.
Sunday. 9:35 AM Central.
Did a little time traveling and had a
quick 40 minutes in Chicago. Long enough to run (literally) to the
bathroom and then get in line for the plane back to New Hampshire.
32 people on a plane. We all got our own rows. Lucky for me I got
the row in front of the tall, obviously Bostonian gentleman who had
restless leg syndrome.
Despite my exhaustion, I was freezing
on the plane so I couldn't sleep again. Did some more class work and
enjoyed a hot tea, again for my throat. My nose was starting to
become runny, though nothing unmanageable without tissues. I was
coughing and felt guilty with every cough. I coughed inside of my
shirt.
Sunday. 1:20 PM.
Finally back in my handsome gentleman's
truck. It was like the drive back to his house was encased in a time
rift and I was breathing in and out in slow motion. It felt good to
finally relax. My coughing got deeper.
Back at his place, I took a shower (my
first actual shower since Thursday, since my aunt's shower was
broken) and he made me a delicious little salad. I then went back
and took a nap in his bedroom. Three and a half hours later I woke
up with a fever and feeling generally not myself. He said I looked
pale.
Sunday. 7:00 PM.
Wendy's Frosty Shake.
Monday. 6:00 AM.
Calling in sick. Weight: 132.7.
Though I weighed as much as 136 during the trip, I feel that my
choices at restaurants were positive ones and once I drank enough water and flushed out the "fake weight" of all of the high sodium restaurant food, I was good. I also didn't feel the
need to finish anything if I didn't want it.
Later in the day yesterday (Monday) I
found out at the immediate care center that I brought back a nice
case of strep throat. What's amazing is generally, I never test
positive on a rapid strep test, but I'm glad I did. I'm glad they
gave me the antibiotics and that now I'm starting to feel better. My
throat is pretty unhappy, dry and so the coughing is unpleasant.
But I'm about to take my third dose of antibiotics and I know with
each I take in, I'll feel even better.
This morning I weighed 131.8. I logged
it because it's a weight loss, but I'm afraid that it is a result of
my losing some of my muscle. I know that isn't possible, since I did
keep up with my push-ups and I even went running, but it makes me
nervous. No matter, though. People get sick. And next week when I
finally get to start my new workout routine I'll build it back up and
build it more so. I just need to be patient.
I want to sit down with a calendar.
Plan my exercise. Plan my school work. Plan my social calendar and
plan my extracurricular activities. I just feel a little overwhelmed
right now. Probably because I can barely move from this spot.
I know I can do everything I put my
mind to. Already posted my part of all of the discussion forum bits
for both of my classes for the week. Just have to reply to the posts
of others by Sunday. Have a 2-3 page paper due by Sunday (Really?
Two to three pages is what I do in my sleep... not that I'm asking
for it to be harder... haha) and I have some reading to do. It's
hard to figure out what week I'm supposed to have which thing read,
hence my wanting to break out a calendar and plan it all in advance.
I have a lot to think about the next 11
weeks.
