Hello all!

I’m baaaack! I’ve tried so hard to catch up on blogs and comment everyone who did new posts as I was gone, but I’m sure I missed some. Sorry…I’ll do better. Before I do the vacation review, it’s time for that pesky little thing called the weekly weigh-in.

Week 28 Results:
Start (9/1/09): 234.8 

Week 19 (1/14/10) 205.9  (+0.2)
Week 20 (1/21/10) 205.3 (-0.6)
Week 21 (1/28/10) 203  (-2.3)
Week 22 (2/4/10) 203.3  (+0.3)
Week 23 (2/11/10) 204.6 (+1.3)
Week 24 (2/18/10) 204.1 (-0.5)
Week 25 (2/25/10) 204.4 (+0.3)
Week 26 (3/4/10) 206.4 (+2)
Week 27 (3/11/10) 203.3 (-3.1)
Week 28 (3/18/10) 201.1 (-2.2)

Total Loss: 33.7 pounds in 28 weeks

Comments: It’s another miracle! I have no idea how I managed to pull this off (details coming…) after the week of fun I had, but I’ll take it. I’m telling you, this is further proof to my theory that my body is “behind” on what I’m doing. I fully expected to name this post: “Vacation Review…aka “How I gained 3 pounds in one week.”  Perhaps I’ll save that title for next week, but I’m hoping not!

I’m thisclose to being back in the 100’s. OMGBECKY!! I am back on track and counting calories and such today, so I’m hoping next week will be THE week. But, I’m a realist and I know that there’s gonna be a price to pay for vacation, so I’ll be okay with next week just being a stay the same week if I am indeed behind on when I see results/punishments. It’s all good tho, because I had a great great time on vacation! What’s that? Wanna see pics? I was hoping you’d say that!!  This trip included a MILESTONE for me (details coming…) and today is also another milestone as it’s the lowest weight I’ve been at since I started the big change on 9/1/09. I would say I feel like dancing, but I’m pretty tired from dancing all weekend combined with the long dance I did this morning after getting off the scale!

Vacation Review:
I went to Louisville, Kentucky for a quick getaway from real life, on Saturday morning through Monday morning. It was a very quick trip, but a very fun trip as well.
The first stop was Hardee’s on Saturday morning for breakfast (Bacon/Egg/Cheese biscuit.)  I was very excited because I haven’t had a good “bad” breakfast sandwich in forever, especially Hardee’s, so I enjoyed every bite!
For lunch, we stopped outside of Nashville at the Loveless Cafe. It’s been on Food Network and there were TONS of pictures on the wall of famous people that had stopped by and ate there and signed pics. They are known for their biscuits (Carol Fay, “The Biscuit Lady” was there that day!!) which are pictured here:

Loveless Cafe Biscuits

Loveless Cafe Biscuits

I’m not sure how they look in the picture, but they were delicious! Also, kinda small. I ate two of them, but sure did want more. I was gonna use the “I’m on vacation!” excuse but still had the calorie budget in my head.  For the main course I ordered the Fried Chicken Tenders with Creamed Corn and Mac and Cheese on the side:

Mmmm. Chicken, Corn, and Mac & Cheese!

I expected to stuff myself (it’s vacaaation!) but I only ate two strips, a few bites of mac and cheese, and about a third of the corn. I was VERY proud, especially when my goal was to indulge!

The trip continued, eventually into Louisville. Once there, we hit up the Louisville Science Center to see an IMAX film about the Titanic (“Ghosts of the Abyss”), which was great because I’m a big time Titanic nerd. While there, we checked out some exhibits:

Exercise Exhibit

And this, ironically, was the only real exercise I got on the trip! About 3 lifts of the weights…haha. Unless you count a ton of walking around town and the zoo (which I do count!) It’s ironic because we had a friggin’ awesome hotel with a GREAT gym. I was excited to use it (even on vacation!) because I can’t afford a gym membership here and was wanting to try out all the machines. Unfortunately, I’m still 18 at heart and woke up with a hangover from hell both mornings and skipped the gym both days. Oops.

There was also an exhibit about the food pyramid and had this big scale with all sorts of food models (good and bad) to see:

Just Say NO! to fruits and veggies!

and for a laugh I put all my fav foods (aka, the bad ones) into the scale for a funny pic. I told yall I don’t like any fruits and most veggies. I do wish I could change that, I really do.

It was soon night time which meant dinner time! We ate at a Bistro Cafe and I got a burger on an English Muffin with “chips” that were fried potato thingies:

English Muffin Burger & Fries

I ate about 3 of the fries (wasn’t really feeling them…) and most of the burger patty. I scraped off a lot of the cheese. I’m weird about eating too much dairy on road trips b/c it makes me feel ill. I did LOVE the idea of a burger on an English Muffin. I had never thought of doing that, and I love the idea because I always end up having to throw away my EM’s because they expire before I can eat that many breakfasts each week!

After dinner, we went to the bar and I drank way too much. I THINK I had a good time but it’s hard to remember details, hehe.

Sunday morning, woke up way too early to a dreary rainy day. We had planned to go to the Zoo that day, and it wasn’t raining hard enough to not go, so we went. It was kinda barely sprinkling, but was rather chilly. With the umbrella, it worked. I won’t bore you with pics of all the animals, but I did get some good ones. Here’s my favorite:

Very friendly gorilla!

This gorilla was so friendly. He stayed up near the glass and let me take about 10 pictures. It was awesome! I love the zoo. We stayed there about 3 hours and did a ton of walking (with lots of hills) so hopefully that worked against some of the vodka I consumed. Oh and I avoided all zoo concession snacks! Yay!

Lunch Sunday was at a Subway-like place called Jimmy Johns. It was delicious. I later found out they were a chain and there’s one about 45 mins from here in a town we frequently go for some retail therapy!

Jimmy Johns Turkey Sub and Chips

After lunch, we wanted to explore (aka, I wanted to find a dessert place and enjoy one dessert!) and do some shopping. We found a great independent book store as well as a music store. But when I found the Chocolate Cafe, I knew it was ON!

omgomg

I ordered a chocolate chip cookie and one caramel:

YUM-but that's not all mine...

THIS was *all* mine, though!

The waitress could see how excited I was for the cookie and even HEATED IT IN THE MICROWAVE for me!!!

Heaven!

Damn that was a good cookie. Glad I only had one, though 🙂

Afterwards we walked about three hundred thousand more miles and then took a two hour nap at the hotel. (I’m 18 at heart, not for real…I had to crash!)

Dinner that night was at the Spaghetti Factory, the place I had picked out as “my” meal for the trip. I got  the Chicken Parmesan dish:

Chicken Parmegini or something like that...

It was pretty good. The pasta was kinda “tough” so I ate about a third of it and most of the chicken. Oh and some bread. For dessert they gave you a free fancy ice cream scoop:

Ice Cream Dream

But again, dairy on road trips is scary for me, so I had about four small bites and came to my senses.

It was now time to get spiffy for night two of bar hopping, and I was SO VERY HAPPY to report I could finally fit into my new outfit and vest!!!

Really glad for all that treadmill time right now!

So now it’s BAR TIME!! (My fav, hehe.) I had noticed one bar was doing KARAOKE on Sunday night. Now, quick tidbit: I love karaoke. I love it, love it, love it. I SUCK at it, but I love it. Last summer, I did karaoke like every weekend. The trick? It was in my LIVING ROOM with friends. I have always been too scared to do it in public. It’s always been on my “life list” but I always chicken out. This time I was gonna try it again. After having a few drinks in the room, and another at the bar, I decided what the hell? I’ll never see these people again, right? So I got the binder, cheered when I saw they had my all time fav song (“Baby Got Back”) and quickly filled out a request slip with the song title and my name. I gave it to the DJ guy and he said I’d be up in 3 songs. I went back to my seat and got pretty sickly feeling because, OF COURSE, the guy singing was doing good. This was only worsened when another guy got up and sang “Run to You” as if he had American Idol auditions the next day. My buzz was quickly wearing off so I ordered a shot from the bar, downed it and waited…still nervous. So I ordered another shot, downed it, and a few mins later he was calling me up on stage. I hadn’t been that nervous in a very, very long time. I don’t like getting up in public, much less singing. But I did it, YAY!

"I like big butts and I cannot lie!"

And you know what? It went great! As soon as the background voice said “OH MY GOD, BECKY…” people were laughing and clapping and I felt better. Then I started “rapping” (cough, sooo not rapping, but whatever!) everyone was dancing and smiling and I wasn’t nervous anymore. It was so much fun! Afterwards, I got lots of applause. Note–I KNOW they weren’t cheering for my singing, I just think they were glad the bar had a pulse. We had been there about 40 minutes and every song had been a slow ballad type song until I rocked the mic (rrrriiigggghhhht!)

A few minutes later, my friend and I did a duet of “Don’t Stop Believing” Glee style (minus the Glee talent, of course!) so I did two songs total. So YAY another thing off my life list! (Along with learning the Thriller dance in 2007!)  What’s next….hmmm stay tuned. Where DID I put that life list anyway?

We ended up at another bar and danced for about an hour or so and then hit the sack and headed home the next morning. I was verrry hungover Monday morning, as apparently the “rock star” lifestyle isn’t suited for me anymore. We stopped for lunch at IHOP because there’s no hangover food like pancakes, right?

YUM!

By this point it was after lunch, and I was pretty dang hongrey, so I ate about 3/4 of this and it was delicious!

I guess that’s about it. We got home Monday afternoon and I resumed my old habits (except exercise, start back to that this afternoon…) of counting calories, water, etc. I give the trip two thumbs WAY up, and after looking back I think I did fairly good eating wise, too. Most places I didn’t eat the whole dish and except for the chocolate place, I didn’t do all the snacking I do back home, which goes to show you most of that snacking is from boredom.

Speaking of, I could use a snack right now…LOL. Thanks for reading!