What I ate on my summer vacation
Friday, July 27, 2012
I was told when you bring your kids on vacation with you, it's called a trip. When you go without them, it's a vacation. Since I'm newly divorced, I'm happy to have taken my kids on vacation with me.
We took a road trip up to Kissimmee, about 25 minutes south of Orlando. We stayed at a hotel with a waterpark. The kids had a blast. I was keeping the trip on the cheap. Knowing my budgetary limitations, I bought gas for 45 cents a gallon after using my FuelPerks from Winn-Dixie, and brought a case of bottled water, two boxes of cereal, a loaf of bread and a jar of peanut butter.
We shopped for Jimmy Dean D-Lights turkey sausage breakfast sandwiches when we found that our hotel room had a microwave and a mini-fridge. The hotel even had a promotion where you could get a free weekday cabana rental for checking in three times on Foursquare.
We arrived on Sunday night; Tuesday, we got our cabana. I brought the loaf of bread and the peanut butter. Dining poolside was quite nice in a cabana with a ceiling fan at full throttle.
Our last night there, I took the kids out for one "fancy" meal. My daughter saw an advertisement for the Cheesecake Factory and told me she never ate there. All I could think about was Gail's Facebook post awhile back that said Cheesecake Factory has pasta carbonara on their menu that has over 2,500 calories. I figured I'll either eat "safe" or not eat at all.
The waitress handed each of us a menu the size of a phonebook (remember phonebooks?) and a long, skinny menu that featured its "Skinnylicious" fare.
Good. Done. There were my choices.
I got the pear and endive salad with chicken at 330 calories. Disaster averted.
But this trip was pretty sedentary. Two days of sitting on my butt. No theme parks for us (in the monsoon season and 150-degree weather?) No chance of beating Gail's step total. When the kids tired of the waterslides, I poured them into the car and we went to the mall. I got my 5,000+ steps on the Fitbit every day and even managed to climb a couple flights of stairs.
So while I wasn't "military strict" while on vacation, it also wasn't a complete wash-out. I kept up the fitness and kept the calories in check.