Been loving my vacay

Hi gang ;-)

I've been on Spring Break this week.  It's one of the absolutely lovely parts of working in education ... when the kids are off of school, I'm off of work.  I apologize for my absence the last couple of days.  I have been trying to stay active this week.  I've had the great opportunity to see some friends that I don't always get to see.  I went walking with them since we've been having such gorgeous weather, having lunch or dinner get-togethers and just enjoying our girl talk time.  I even allowed myself some alcoholic yumminess yesterday.

I don't drink that often, but like to have something once in a while.  A friend and I went to The Elephant Bar for dinner, both choosing to have two low-calorie options and splitting them with each other.  That was beyond delicious.  Then we decided to have a cocktail afterwards since they had some drinks that were all under 165 calories.  That was right down my alley.  Hers was a Skinny Snap Dragon Martini on the left and mine was the Skinny Mango Mojito on the right. So delicious!

I started switching up my food a little and been having more protein drinks.  The surgeons from Pacific Bariatric recommend patients start incorporating those into our food plan prior to surgery to aid in weight loss.  I usually drink the Premier Protein drinks from Costco.  If you're looking for a good protein drink, I highly recommend these.  The chocolate ones taste just like pudding.  Just sayin'.  The only problem for me is that they are super thick and really feel like I'm actually drinking pudding.  I love frothy drinks because I put in extra ice in a blender, but there's a difference between that and drinking pudding so I decided throwing it in the blender would be great.  I took one carton of the Premier Protein, with it's 30 grams of protein, put a splash of light vanilla soymilk, a couple of strawberries and blended it all with ice.  Look what came out.

It was amazing.  It reminded me a little bit of when I was doing Optifast and I would mix all my shakes in the blender with ice.  Of course it tastes nothing like those shakes (in a good way).  Those who are on the program or have been on it know exactly what I'm talking about.  For me, it's been a great and easy way to have my breakfast or a snack that is really satisfying.

For the rest of this weekend, I'm planning on continuing to get regular exercise in.  Since I purchased my lovely Fitbit, I have been incredibly active every day.  There was one day were I didn't reach my goal of getting 10,000 steps in but that was because my knee was hurting.  Otherwise, I have been able to meet that goal or even go past it.  Seriously, if you are on the fence about getting one or need some motivation for extra exercise, go get one.  It has been an amazing way for me to increase my exercise every day.  In fact, I find myself parking further away, walking far out of my way or not multi-tasking when it comes to doing everything in one trip (like piling all of my folded laundry in my hands and bringing it into my bedroom all at once).  You find reasons to get more steps in.  I even did 45 minutes of walking/jogging in place again at home this evening.  Sweat was actually dripping down my chest and I loved it.

Water Challenge Day 78:  Drank 120 of 178 ounces