Hey, I went on vacation! Here’s some photographic proof!
The picture above is a view of the beach at the Wyndham Resort on St. Thomas. The main thing that surprised me on St. Thomas was how expensive everything was. Food was especially pricey. We thought ahead and brought enough power bars to serve as breakfast for the entire time we were there. We also went to the grocery store and bought drinks to keep in the small fridge we had so we didn’t have to pay the resort prices. But we didn’t have any cooking equipment (not even a microwave) so we had to eat out for lunch and dinner.
I don’t think we were able to get any meal for two people for less than $30. That includes one vegetarian who is generally fairly cheap to feed. I always worry a bit about what there is going to be to eat for me on vacations. I’m not a person who is a fan of ordering a house salad for every meal. St. Thomas was a pleasant surprise. The salads were much fresher than anything you’d get in a restaurant in the states so I didn’t mind eating them. Almost every restaurant including roadside stands carried veggie burgers. I had a lot of meals of veggie burgers with a side of local fresh fruit.
Combine that with not having a lot of food stockpiled in the room so there was no snacking except for an occasional ice cream and with snorkeling a good bit and guess what? By the end of vacation my clothes were looser. I was torn between being happy about that and being slightly annoyed that with all the diet advice you get it may really only come down to “eat small, healthy meals and lay off the snacks.”
I decided to try this at home. I’m horrible about grazing. I walk through the kitchen and pick up a piece of string cheese. It is healthy, right? I may do it too many times a day though.
I was doing well and then I got nailed with the mystery virus that sucked away any desire to eat. I like that in an illness. No nausea. No vomiting. Just pleasantly happy not to eat. I would have about an hour in the afternoon when I would get hungry and then I would eat something with not enough calories in it to keep a flea alive and my body would say, “Ok, thanks, I’m done now.” I’ve been trying to keep my calorie count a bit elevated by drinking broths and soups but it is definitely force feeding. My body says, “No, thanks,” and my brain says, “You need to fuel this crazy immune response somehow. Drink your soup!”
I have a feeling that this phase is coming to an end too. I feel hungrier even though I have no interest in eating. In a day or two I’ll be back to chaining the refrigerator shut! But it is sort of nice while it lasts. This morning when I stared into the mirror at my sickly grey-green reflection my main thought was, “Oh, look! Cheekbones!”
I didn’t weigh myself before vacation mainly because I knew I was gaining weight but I didn’t want to really confirm that by weighing myself. I weighed myself today and saw a number slightly lower that the number this spring. Yes, lower than that number that refused to go anywhere but up in spite of diet, weight lifting, and taking up jogging. All it took was a vacation on an island with expensive food and a crazy virus to get it to move!
ZombieBaby being menaced by sharks at Coral World!
