1st vacation that didn't involve eating, drinking and MORE eating!!!

We are back from Oc.ean City... which was, overall, a really nice vacation. I was kinda dreading it for several reasons... one being that I wouldn't be able to eat like I normally would. Ever since I was little, vacation = yummy, yummy food. My whole family is super healthy and my mom always cooked us healthy meals growing up with very little junk around the house. When we were on vacation, we were allowed to eat junk. I still remember how excited I was in Dis.ney World (age 9 or 10) when my mom enthusiastically bought my little brother and I Mick.ey Mouse ice cream pops (the one of Mickey's head)... I was so surprised! Since then, I think I have equated vacation to "eating all the junk you want". As a result, I wasn't sure if I would be able to have a nice vacation while on my program (ridiculous, but true). My birthday was also on Saturday and, of course, that's another day where I've always eaten whatever I have wanted PLUS tons of cake. So, needless to say, I was a little concerned.

Shockingly, I found out that I could still have a wonderful vacation without hoarding tons of fried food into my mouth... who knew?!? Of course, I would've loved some crab legs (mmm) or funnel cake... but those things aren't going anywhere... I'll have them again, one day. For now, my "special treat" was a kid-size 98% fat free frozen yogurt at TC.BY. My only question is why did so many TC.BY's go out of business?!? It's truly delicious! Anyway... it felt really great to be "in control" at the beach. Instead of gaining my usual 5-10 pounds during a vacation, I lost 7.4 pounds. NIIICE. One night I was feeling really frustrated... definitely in the mood to eat eat eat but I had a good cry with my mom instead. I'm learning ways/strategies to handle things... besides eating... of course, this usually involves shopping, but I'm working on it. =)

P.S. You see that birthday cake, up above? I only had 1 bite and really felt fine about it. Really. As corny as it sounds, I am seriously "choosing HEALTH" this year!

19 pounds less... & lab results

This was going to be a long post, one that i carefully prepared in my head during my metro ride home... but since it is 3:36 in the morning (YIKES!) and I'm about to pass out from pure exhaustion (had insomnia again last night/during nap time), I think I'll do this entry in bullet points (which is better than these long run-on sentences, don'tcha think?). Here goes:

* Went to GW (love that place!) to get weighed and meet with the incredible Dr. F. The good news is:

-- I lost another 2 pounds, bringing my total to 19 pounds in 2.5 weeks (since I actually started eating the food)

-- My blood pressure was the best it's been in forever: 125/85... yay!

-- Got my blood work back from Saturday... great news is that my blood sugar dropped from a borderline 101 to a very acceptable 87. HOORAY! Also, my triglycerides dropped from a very scary 290 (yikes) to 187... only 37 points above the range... MUCH better than before. =) My cholesterol, which was fine before at 187, dropped to 135. However, my "good cholesterol" dropped, too, and it was already super low to start with. So that's not good. At all. I really need to start working out to bring that number up.

-- My iron levels went up a tad... well, the "iron stores" went from -1 to 5 so that's an improvement. But my hemoglobin and white blood cell count and all these other lovely CBC(?) ranges were totally off. Which is kinda scary. Even though the numbers were slightly better than they were last month... except for my white blood cell count which WAS okay last month. Huh. Bottom line: need to take the iron pills twice a day even though they make me incredibly nauseous. =( I'm also seeing an ob/gyn for the first time in 2 weeks (don't judge... I really have neglected my health in all ways!). Dr. F thinks it's my uterine fibroid that may be the cause of losing blood which equals low iron. If that's the case, I'll probably need to get the fibroid out asap. My boss is going to LOVE that. One thing at a time, right?

-- Headed to Ocean City tomorrow. Staying with my mom and her "significant other". Should be an interesting trip...esp. since I'm staying on the program and can't fall back to my crutch, food. I've NEVER EVER EVER "dieted" on a vacation before so this should be interesting. Especially since I love crab legs dipped in butter. Um, yum. BUT i can always go to Red Lobster (or wherever) at any time so I should be okay.

-- Did I mention my 35th birthday is on Saturday?!? I'm wishing for GOOD HEALTH for me and my family this year!

-- One last note: Just curious if anyone is reading this blog? If you are, leave a comment... anonymous is fine! =)