A Breakfast Idea

An egg cooked over medium inside a ring of red bell pepper... with a side of black beans and Morningstar Farms vegetarian sausage. (Forgot to take the pic before I started eating, oops). This was delicious! Saw the idea on Pinterest and we made it yesterday... it was so good and for me eliminates some carbs since when I cook an egg this style, I like it on toast. I didn't think I would like this, but I did a LOT! I couldn't finish all my beans but ate the rest.

And YES!!! I KNOWWWWW I owe you all my one year update. We haven't had a chance to take the official photos and measurements yet, but are planning to do so tomorrow morning, so will hopefully get those soon!!!

Things I've Been Eating

I haven't done one of these in a while! So here I am to share a few things I've been eating lately.

I've gotten really into Chobani greek yogurts. I love pretty much all the flavors. At 15 grams of protein, it is a great choice. I add some high protein granola for some crunch which also makes it more filling. Sometimes I throw some fresh fruit on top. LOVE these for breakfast.

This is the type of granola I use:

Here's another recent breakfast:

Egg beaters with onion and pepper, a thin slice of cheddar and half a whole wheat sandwich thin.

Yet another breakfast:

Peanut butter, banana and some of the same granola on a whole wheat sandwich thin.

Um apparently I take a lot of breakfast photos, cuz here's another one:

On egg over medium on 1/2 a sandwich thin plus a morningstar farms vegetarian sausage (which has 10g protein on its own). A 16g protein breakfast.

I still eat a lot of the Starbucks snack plates when I am out and about. The other day I was out and didn't have food with me, so I ended up going to Einstein's and got this:

It's a Tasty Turkey, which normally comes on an asiago bagel (I used to LOVE that, but I still haven't eaten a bagel post op)... I ordered it as a wrap and without all the veggies except the cucumber. I wanted room for more protein. I ate 1/2 of this as one meal and the other 1/2 about 3 hours later.

I want to make these at home. I have tortillas and turkey, as well as a cucumber I bought and sliced up:

I am planning to go buy their onion and chive cream cheese soon and then I'll be able to make these and they will be awesome :)

I've been eating a LOT of tuna lately, chili, and starting to eat some salads but keeping them very high protein. Putting tons of chicken, sometimes a hard boiled egg or some cheese, sometimes ham or turkey, and keeping the lettuce portion fairly small.

I'm almost 9 months post op. I still eat 5-6 meals per day and around 6-8 ounces. Sometimes less if it's solid protein only. I still do not drink with meals or for one hour after. I have still not touched soda. :)

First Sleeved Thanksgiving

Our Thanksgiving was... interesting. I don't like to sound negative, but family drama is never a good thing, and we certainly had some of that this year. BUT, I will say, the cooking & eating part of the holiday went very well :) My dad made the turkey & stuffing and my aunt brought a delicious Costco pumpkin pie. Other than that, the rest was up to hubby and me!! He was my kitchen assistant and chopped all the things I hate chopping lol and he helped me stay calm. Cooking really overwhelms me, especially making several dishes at once!!

I opted to pick up mac and cheese from Panera so I had one less thing to worry about, so I just warmed that up in a small crock pot for about an hour before dinner.

The first thing I made was garlic mashed potatoes. I made them in the crock pot so I had to start them about 5 hours before dinner.

I'm having trouble locating the recipe I used but basically it is red potatoes (3 lbs), a whole white onion, diced... minced garlic. After that cooked through, I mashed them up and then added onion and chive cream cheese, milk, butter, and some additional spices. Forgot to take a pic of them finished but you will see a little bit of them on my plate later :)

The second dish I made was Shelly's Crazy Corn Casserole. For me this was a lot of work compared to stuff I usually cook, but not too bad and DEFINITELY worth it because it tasted absolutely AMAZING!

It then got cheese on top and baked in the oven til melty and bubbly. It was a crowd pleaser. I am already thinking about making this a meal casserole by adding beef and possibly beans also. Will have to try that sometime soon! This thing has just so much flavor.

The third dish I made was something I have done for about the past 6 years - green beans with almonds. I buy frozen whole green beans and cook them in the microwave first. I sautee sliced almonds in a little butter and with a lot of minced garlic. Then I add the green beans to the skillet and add a little garlic powder, salt and pepper. This is always tasty. I didn't take a specific photo of this either but they are on my plate.

Here's my Thanksgiving plate. FYI, it is a salad sized plate not a dinner plate!

On the left you see my green beans with almonds! Going clockwise there is panera mac and cheese, then my garlic mashed potatoes, then turkey, stuffing, and finally corn casserole. Everything was awesome!

Here is what I wasn't able to eat:

About an hour and a half later I had a 1/2 slice of pumpkin pie. YUM!!!

We had lots of leftovers. I only ate them a few times though. One time I used turkey to make a melt, and had veggies with it:

Another day I had some leftover meat loaf with some of the potatoes and mac and cheese. And I also had another 1/2 slice of pumpkin pie the day after Thanksgiving.

It's nice to enjoy this holiday, still eat all of the food, but not stuff myself. I never felt uncomfortable and never went into a turkey coma LOL. Enjoyed the leftovers too... but never any pigging out. And I lost 4 pounds this week, how wonderful is that?!

Thanks for stopping by my Thanksgiving table :)

Week 26 Update

No weight change to report this week. Booooo on sugar. The good news is I have cut WAY down and I am finally starting to feel the sugar cravings go away now that I've been really focusing on it for 3 days. :) I've been focusing on good protein choices, getting my water and cutting out the candy and other sugary items that were creeping in.

My SIX MONTH mark is coming up on Saturday!! So I will be weighing again and MAYBE there will be a change lol but I won't count on it too much. My post may or may not be ON Saturday because we have a really busy weekend planned.

Workouts this Week

Was sick for 4 days out of this week, had 2 workout days, and then really bad hip pain today. So not the best workout week, but at least I can say I worked out on the days I felt well. :)

Tuesday 11/16 - Leslie Sansone 3 Mile Weight Loss Bootcamp DVD (45 mins)
Wednesday 11/17 - Leslie Sansone 5 Day Slim Down DVD - Warm up, 4th Mile - Trim the Tummy, Cool Down (23 mins)

By the way, I will soon be posting a review of these DVDs :)

Hoping to get many more workouts in for this coming week!!


New Foods to Share
This week shall be referred to as "the week I accidentally bought tortillas when I already had a brand new package at home... now what?" :) I had been previously eating "tuna melts" made on these tortillas, and that was delicious, but I decided to try some new combinations this week! The tortillas I use are Mission Carb Balance Whole Wheat Tortillas - Fajita Size (which are the smallest).

Pizza Quesadilla
Hubby invented this. He made his with shredded 2% Italian and shredded 2% Mexican cheese, about 6 slices of Hormel Turkey Pepperoni, and Oregano.

I had a jar of spaghetti sauce in the fridge from when we made pizza burger - so I added some sauce to mine! I heated it up in the microwave first and added it into my quesadilla before folding it over. Messy to eat but DELICIOUS. I also put garlic and a little parmesan in mine.

Turkey Melt
Pretty simple - turkey and cheese! I ripped 3 slices of turkey breast up into several pieces and put them in the skillet first, turning them a couple times til they were warmed up and just slightly browned. Then I added them into my tortilla with some american cheese and grilled it up in the skillet.

As tasty as it looks, it tasted even BETTER. So yummy!!


These both came out great and now I am thinking of lots of possibilities. Ham or chicken would both be great, changing the variety of cheese and adding other things into it. I also thought of doing breakfast versions, like say, ham, egg beater and cheese. So maybe I will have more to share next week :)


Adventures in Shopping

Went back to Savers last weekend and picked out a couple of dresses. I don't have pics of both of them yet, but here is one. It is a light robin's egg blue with very dark chocolate brown. I originally bought a brown belt to go with it and help break up the pattern, but the belt broke... so I'm holding it up in these pics. I am headless because I still had a towel on my head and no makeup :)

Not bad for a $12 dress huh?

Since the belt broke and I didn't really want to try to find another one, I got creative hunting through my closet. I decided that this dark brown piece I had looked great with the dress!

Now I just needed shoes!!! (The silver ones in the first photo are cheapies I bought in desperation once and they are supremely uncomfortable!)

This week I've shopped at many shoe stores and have discovered I USUALLY fit into a MEDIUM WIDTH shoe now. This is ridiculous to me, having come from EXTRA EXTRA WIDE WIDTHS. Not all, but most medium widths fit me in a 9, 9.5, or 10. I still have many issues like the bone spur on my left heel and the fact one foot is bigger than the other, so it is still hard to find something but at least i stand a CHANCE now! Today I found one pair of brown strappy shoes for $5, and a pair of chocolate brown boots for $30.

The photo quality is CRAPPY because I took this at night with a dim overhead light in our room and tried to lighten the pic. I'll be sure to get better pics later :)

This is my FIRST EVER PAIR OF KNEE HIGH BOOTS. EVER!!! They are VERY VERY stretchy in the calf which is the only reason they fit. None of the other ones I tried on fit, although some came close. A couple more inches off my calves and I should be able to wear any boot I want... and I can't wait because man, I like boots!!!

That's it for this week. Hope to be back with my 6 month update over the weekend!!

24 Week Update & Hubby's Progress

Hey everybody. Firstly, I'm sorry my update is late, and that also there is no video this week. My family is going through a difficult time and we got some bad news last night. I will elaborate eventually, but I can't just yet. If you are the praying type, I would ask for your prayers for my family. Thank you and I will provide more information soon.

Also thank you for all the kind comments on the last post. I wasn't upset or angry or sad, just kind of perplexed and didn't understand why he would do that :) All is well.


As for this week's update, there have been some pros and some cons.


Cons:

- my lower back and hip pain have been especially bad this week. Possibly due to getting new athletic shoes. When your back is this weak, the simplest changes can throw everything off.

-On Monday night I tried to work out at the gym, but my body was NOT having it. I did the treadmill for 5 mins and gave up because the pain was intolerable. I switched to the ARC trainer and managed 10 mins, but then had to stop. My hip was just killing me and no amount of stretching was helping at ALL.

- Halloween candy is still around, and I'm still eating quite a bit of it. I've kind of had my fill and we are getting rid of it this weekend. Don't need any more.



Pros:

- Even though I couldn't work out as much as I would have liked, I still got some activity - a couple workouts plus a whole day of shopping.

- I cooked real recipes twice this week (actually twice in the same day!) and we ate off those for a few days this week.

- Had a decent loss this week, despite the cons mentioned above.



My weight yesterday was:

217.2 - that's a loss of 2.2 lbs this week. Still not as fast as I had been used to, but I will take it over a plateau any day :) I may not make my -100 lbs mark by the 20th like I wanted to, but I am super pleased things are moving again.



Workouts this Week:

Friday 10/29 - Swimming laps, 23 mins
Monday 11/1 - 5 mins treadmill, 10 mins ARC trainer, stretching (bad pain day)

I worked out Thurs and Fri, but those technically count toward next week's weigh in. At least I am getting a bit better now and able to work out more again. Stupid pain.. leave me alone please.



Some New Foods This Week:

I picked these up because I haven't had a muffin since before surgery. I LOVE muffins, ESPECIALLY with cream cheese. One of these is just the right size for my tummy right now. It's basically just the top of the muffin. They are frozen, so they will keep even if I don't eat them too often. You zap it in the micro for 18 seconds and it's ready to go. (Or you can thaw at room temp for 30 mins.) I put an individual pack of light cream cheese on top of it and YUM! Since it's higher carb and lower protein, I wouldn't do this every day, but it tastes GREAT for once in a while.

Not technically NEW for me, but I haven't shown a photo before. This is a protein smoothie from my gym - this one has strawberries, pineapple, 27g whey protein, skim milk and nonfat yogurt. Delicious. The one in the background is Ian's with all the same stuff but blueberries instead of pineapple. We order the kids size, but with the full amount of protein.

Double Bean Quesadilla. I made this up this week. It has refried beans, seasoned black beans (pre packaged), and cheese. Tasted good, but SO MESSY because of the sauce the black beans come in. Probably won't make it again. It did keep me full for like a gazillion years though.

Turkey Club from the food court at Super Target. I was grocery shopping and needed to eat (had been out a while already) before I did my shopping... was feeling weak. It was tasty but I had no interest in the bread and it had WAY too much bacon. I pushed most of the bacon off and ate about 2/3 of the turkey and cheese... threw the rest away. Tasty, decent price ($3) and got the job done in a pinch... but not something I'd go out of my way to plan to order.

Taco Chicken Tenders - one of my recipes this week! Chicken tenderloins (1 lb) rinsed and patted dry. Add as much taco seasoning as you like, patting it onto both sides of the chicken so it sticks. Cook it in a skillet over medium-high heat, flipping every 2 minutes til cooked through. (It took like 5-6 mins). Remove from skillet, squeeze half a lime over it all, and serve with some light sour cream. These were very tasty and very moist. A great all-protein meal. From the 4 Ingredient Diabetic Cookbook.

Pizza Burgers - another all-protein recipe I cooked this week. It's from the Biggest Loser Family Cookbook. One major tweak - we didn't bother with hamburger buns. I also purchased premade patties. What I did was sprinkle the seasonings across them all and then take each patty, roll it into a ball and reshape it. I felt it worked well and then they all come out the same size in the end :) Doesn't need to be done, but I had bought these already so I tried it, and I actually liked doing it that way. I will have to post the full recipe later - I used my own concoction of seasonings in my own amount so I didn't really follow it. I used oregano, garlic chips, garlic powder, garlic pepper, a ground pepper blend (instead of red pepper flakes), salt and some Mrs Dash onion & herb seasoning. We grilled up the burgers on the George Foreman grill, adding sliced mozzarella on top and melting it. Topped with some Classico Tomato & Basil marinara sauce and then a dash of parmesan. Delicious!!!!!!! We really enjoyed this meal. We each can eat 1 patty, so we had it two nights in a row.



Some other Tidbits...

A quick little Calcium supplement review. These are both from Celebrate. The one on the left is the chewable calcium supplement. The one on the right is the liquid supplement which includes both multivitamin AND calcium.

The chewables are pretty hard to deal with, we feel. My friend hated them so gave them to us, and we pretty much hate them too. Today I tried the liquid - not so bad! The liquid includes multivitamin AND calcium, so I could stop taking my gummy vitamins if I am taking this. You have to take it twice a day though. It tasted totally decent, kind of like a koolaid. You empty the packet into 8 oz of cold water and shake to mix. I poured it in a glass after shaking it in a bottle. Might be ordering these to try for a while as I think it will be a good way to get everything in. But at $45 per 30 day supply, and the fact we BOTH need it, that's pretty pricey. So we'll see.


My hair is still thinning a LOT... Ovation isn't really helping. I decided to get my hair cut a bit shorter to help it look fuller. I am also using a protein spray I got from my stylist, makes your hair appear a bit fuller also. Here is me and my stylist Tarah :)

And FINALLY.... My husband Ian's 5 month progress photos from Nov 3rd. He has lost 70 lbs and is feeling great!


5 Months all in a row, front view:

5 Months all in a row, side view:

Start vs. 5 Months, Front View:

Start vs 5 Months, Side View:

Start vs 5 Months, Back View:

So proud of him!! He has gone from tight 2X shirts to loose 1X shirts, ready to start getting into some larges. His pants size has gone from 54 to 44!

That's it for this week - sorry so long. I probably won't have a chance to post again until next week's update. I'm expecting a bit of a tough and taxing week. I'm trying to still take good care of myself and keep on my path, but definitely have some bigger fish to fry at the moment. Have a great week everyone.

Week 23 Update

(I'm not going to repeat everything from my video, so if you can't watch it now, please do go back and watch it when you can.)

This is my first crack at doing WEEKLY videos instead of just monthly. I had PLENTY to say this week. I really enjoy making the videos so I will be trying to do so every week and see if I can keep up with that :)

This Week's Weigh-in...

219.4 ... a loss of 1.6lbs from last week's weigh in. Things stayed the same the first 4 days of the week, then I stayed off the scale til today... so it must have happened in the past couple days. I am only weighing in once a week from now on. I'm glad things are moving again, but I am definitely going to stop focusing so much on the scale.

Workouts This Week...
Fri 10/22 4 Mile Super Challenge DVD (Leslie Sansone)
Sat 10/23 1.0 mile walk in 20 mins
Sun 10/24 1.8 mile walk in 40 mins
Tues 10/26 1.6 mile walk in 30 mins
Wed 10/27 40 mins ARC trainer- level 4 hill intervals, stretching

My personal training on Monday got canceled so I walked Tuesday instead. :) I have workouts planned already for tomorrow and Sunday. Really ENJOYING my workouts this week! Here's a photo from our Sunday walk...

Some Things I Ate This Week...

I have been taking a lot less food pics lately since I eat a lot of the same stuff over and over, but I do need to get better about taking pics again. We had dinner at my aunt's house on Sunday and I didn't take pics of anything!!

Here's the ones I do have from this week...

Two round whole wheat crackers (Archer Farms), each with an ounce of chicken salad (Market Pantry). About 1/4 cup of grapes and 1/4 cup of cheese and salami diced up. I did finish it but it turned out to make me a little too full.

1/4 cup Campbell's creamy tomato soup and 1 small fajita sized whole wheat tortilla with about 2oz of tuna and 2 slices american cheese. I was only able to eat 1/2 of the tortilla shown here so I ended up saving the other half and having it later with another 1/4 cup of soup. Very comforting on a cold day. Since the soup container has 2 cups, it's going to take me a while to get through it! Ha.

That's all the news for this week. I had to cut time from my video where I was talking about some great blogs I've come across this week and how timely they were... they really spoke to me and helped me change my mindset also. I'll do a separate post soon sharing some of these blogs and the insight I've gained from them!

Week 21 Update

So I have really not been good at keeping up with weekly updates in quite some time. I am going to try to get back to that, now!! Since I was weighing a lot more than once a week, I usually forgot to do an official weigh in each Thursday. Definitely want to get back to that so I can look at my weekly progress overall :) Also thank you to the commenter who said they missed my more frequent updates... I do want to blog more!
As far as this past week... well I was kind of down and out because I found myself struck with Strep AND an ear infection!!! Yep, at the same time. Fun huh? I've been on an antibiotic for a couple of days now and I'm feeling MUCH better. Even went for a walk tonight with the hubby to ease back into working out.

Today my weight is...

222.0 lbs... finally down a little bit after being stuck in the 224-225 range for two weeks. However... I don't know if I trust it yet because of the fact that I've been sick!! It could just be loss from not eating much and it might bounce back on me. I guess only time will tell but it sure felt good to see a different number finally. Hope it does stick around.

Also to update on my last post... I am back on the pill again with a new pill pack and, fingers crossed, I think my period FINALLY STOPPED. I haven't had it for 3 days now. However, being sick could be affecting that too so jury's still out. The doctor I saw about my strep throat is also my obgyn and so I asked her about everything. She said her gut instinct is to wait it out a little longer and if in another month or two things still aren't right she'll have me try a different pill.

She confirmed something that I heard in the Vertical Sleeve Talk forums.... Estrogen IS IN FACT stored in fat cells, so when you lose weight rapidly and your fat cells shrink, large amounts of hormones are released into your body which can really mess with a lot of things... not just period wise but emotionally and energy levels and just all kinds of things. I was surprised she confirmed this as it sounded wacky to me. But it's good to know!!! Hopefully I've found the end of the crazy times.

In other news... I cooked twice this week! Real recipes!! I hate cooking and I haven't made any REAL recipes since surgery. Everything has just been grab this, grab that and we have a meal. It's been good, but it was time to start cooking again.

I tried one of these new McCormick Recipe Inspirations for Garlic Lime Fajitas. All the spices you need come in the package, and it has a detachable (reusable) recipe card on the back that is perforated and you punch it out of the package.

In addition to the seasonings in the packet we had to buy the chicken breast, a bell pepper, an onion, orange juice, lime juice and tortillas. We also used a little shredded cheese and sour cream. Soooo... it's not exactly all inclusive, but definitely did jump start me into cooking something. Probably a good way to try a recipe, but then in the future I can use the recipe card and just buy the ingredients and whatnot.

I don't have any pics of this dish.. but it turned out very yummy. I'd make it again for sure, but I would double the amount of marinade. There wasn't really enough to cover the chicken well.

Tonight I made this recipe I came across called Hot Chicken Salad. It turned out REALLY yummy. I didn't have enough celery, but it was still totally fine. It actually made a pretty small casserole... which for us as post-ops is great, but if you were cooking to also feed your family, there probably would be no leftovers.

Why I think this casserole is great for post ops is it is mainly chicken. There is no rice or potatoes. It's mostly protein and a little veggie. I did use light mayo and 2% cheese to help with the fat & calorie content a bit.

Here's my photos of how it turned out:

Very tasty and I definitely recommend.

That's about it for my week! We have dinner plans tomorrow night with some friends to go to the Spaghetti Factory. I have not eaten pasta since surgery so that will be interesting. I will probably order one of their famous meatballs and only eat a bite or two of pasta noodles. Their meatballs and marinara sauce are supposed to be excellent.

Will be back soon with another update :)

Thing's I've Been Eating: Travel Edition

So I wanted to post a little bit about the things I ate while I was traveling. The first part of the trip was easiest - when I was in Ohio, my friend and I spent all day the first two days at her tanning salon while we were scrapbooking. She bought a few groceries for me and we had a small fridge so it was easy to eat and drink all day long like I was supposed to. The basics were...



Apple slices with peanut butter. I had actually never had this before and didn't plan it or ask for her to buy it... it just sort of happened when we were trying to figure out breakfast. It ended up being DELICIOUS. Yum. It takes me 2-3 sittings to finish a gala apple (which are pretty small), so I use lemon juice to keep the slices from browning too much so I can eat them over a couple of days.



Light string cheese and turkey breast slices. Nothing fancy... but a good meal.



Cream cheese cracker... a flatbread cracker with cream cheese and deli meat and cheese on it. Had a couple apple slices with it also.

This was the kind of stuff I ate at the tanning salon the first day. That night we went to this fun restaurant and I ordered this tasty burger:



I didn't even bother getting it with a bun. I cut off 1/4 of the burger which I ate with a few fries. This was what was left over:



I did take the leftovers "home" but didn't end up having much of it. What I DON'T seem to have a picture of - and can't believe it - is the tuna salad! I ordered tuna salad to go from this restaurant too and it turned out to be DELICIOUS. Chrissy and I ate it several times the next day until it was all gone. She had hers as a sandwich, I had mine on my flatbread crackers. It was just so good.

Now on to CHICAGO eats!

First stop was - as usual - Portillo's Hot Dogs.



Just looking at this makes me drool. I absolutely love these hot dogs. Mmmm. I used to eat either 1 or 2 of them, along with a large cheese fry and a large root beer. This time was very different.



I portioned off 1/2 a chili dog and 4 fries for myself. I wasn't able to finish all of the bun but I did finish all of the hot dog and chili :) Yum. I also had ONE sip of Sarah's root beer when I was all done. That was awesome. :) Here's my leftovers:



The next morning we went to my favorite breakfast place, Walker Bros. I got a Denver Omelette. It was HUGE!!! Check it out compared to my hand:



Here was my portion, about 1/6 of the whole thing, plus a piece of bacon.



I ate pieces of this for breakfast most of the time I was in Chicago! It reheated well and was super tasty.

Now for the WEDDING! I was very curious how that was going to go. Luckily, there was a LOT of time between each course. I just ate the things I really wanted.

First they sent around appetizers and I had ONE meatball. Pretty small but good protein, and it was a good 30 mins before the dinner began.



First course was cream of chicken and wild rice soup. It was a nice small portion and didn't have too much rice in it. It was FANTASTIC so I ended up eating all of it along with a very small piece of roll with some butter.



It looks big in the picture but it's a VERY small plate and a very small bowl.

The next course was a salad. I took a picture, but I didn't touch this. I don't really do salad now, and even if I did, this one had mushrooms and a mushroom dressing.. pass!



The main course was a chicken marsala dish. I pushed all the mushrooms off and just ate 1/2 of the chicken... ignored everything else.



Here's what was left:



At this point I was full but luckily it was a little while before we had cake. The pieces of cake were also VERY thin which was perfect... it was light and delicate, vanilla cake with a not-too-sweet frosting and a lemon filling. Yum.



No leftovers... I finished that :) All in all this was a success! At other weddings I have stuffed my face and if I didn't like everything in the meal I'd be cranky because I wasn't full. This was so much more enjoyable!!!

One of the other meals I had while I was out there was pizza at Tore & Luke's. Just one slice, and it wasn't thin crust.. .I cut it in half and was still only able to eat mostly the toppings, left 3/4 of the crust behind. I ate one half at lunch and another half 3 hours later.



Another night we went to Red Robin. I love this club sandwich...



I ate the fillings of 1/2 the sandwich, one piece of cantaloupe, and I'm not sure how many fries but it was too many. I ended up WAY too full. This was a case of having accidentally gone 7 hours without eating... we were out, we were busy, and I just wasn't able to eat. I was so hungry and ate too fast and before I knew it I was totally stuffed and uncomfortable. I had pain in my chest for like four hours, so that was NOT fun. I have since had this sandwich again here at home, and ate the appropriate amount and it was all okay. Whew.

Another night we went to Friday's, which has my favorite mozzarella sticks in the world. I was with 2 friends and we got the appetizer:



I had two, with some ranch:



I had planned on splitting the chicken and shrimp dinner with Sarah. But after the two mozzarella sticks, I was FULL! Totally full. Fried stuff seems to fill me up super fast. I couldn't even touch my dinner. It was sweet they even split it onto two plates! Here is what would have been my half:



Sad I couldn't eat any of it... but I loooved my mozzarella sticks :) Sarah took the other half of the dinner home to eat later :)

That's all the pictures I have of food from my trip! I hope you enjoyed it.
I felt like such a NORMAL person on this trip!!!!!! I ENJOYED my food very much still, but I didn't obsess... I wasn't hungry ALL the time and constantly thinking about my next meal. Best of all I was able to be ACTIVE and not exhausted, and when I was exhausted it was because I was up til 3am, not because of being too fat to do anything. It was a great time.