Day 19 - Fishing, Family, Friends, Dieting, Life, Death, Memories

Weigh-In - total down - 9.3lbs  (-1.2 from yesterday)

So today I went on the long planned fishing trip with Dad, Pete and Scott.  Was a great time but for dieting purposes, it was going to be a rough one.  They serve lots of food on the boat and so there were going to be issues.

1 - break streak of not "eating out."
2 - basically unlimited food, meaning willpower needed to be up
3 - you are basically supposed to drink on these trips
4 - no real healthy options
5 - guaranteed weigh-in tomorrow will not be down!

Now, I am ok with this.  It's a trip.  Happens once a year.  There is a difference between failing at a diet due to not trying and being reasonable/enjoying a day out.  I tried to do the latter.  Here's the play by play:

1 - started with a very small bagel piece with a little butter.   This was when the boat first took off at like 7:20

2 - 1/4 of a chocolate muffin - this was a little before 8am

3 - I finally broke down and grabbed a breakfast sandwich around 9:15 - Taylor Ham and Egg on a hard roll.

**This was followed by Beer #1

4 - around 10:15, I munched on another of those small bagel pieces with butter

5 - around 10:45 - I had another quarter of a muffin

**This was followed by Beer #2

6 - They brought out a tray of wings at 11.  Around 11:30 I grabbed 4 wings.  they were VERY small wings with BBQ sauce.  Tasty, but small. And They were not fried or breaded, so they were probably about as gentle of wings as you can ask for.  :-)  This was accompanied by my first of 2 cans of diet pepsi.

7 - then they brought out these nice mini-cupcakes.  I mean REAL MINI - but delicious!

**This was followed by Beer #3

8 - at 12:30, I had 3 meatballs on a roll for lunch.  Very tasty stuff!  Diet Coke #2 came here. 

9 - 1 more mini cupcake

10 - at 1:45, I had 2 meatballs, no roll.  

So, this sure seems like a lot, but when it really adds up - 3 beers, 1/3 of a bagel, 1/2 a muffin, breakfast sandwich, 2 mini cupcakes meatball sandwich and 4 small wings.  Over the course of a 7 hour fishing trip with no limit on food on a day that I was up at 5am - this could have gone much worse.

If I was not trying, I likely would have had twice as many bagel + muffin pieces, a couple more beers, a hamburger and some of the sausage pepper and onions.  Probably would have popped 3-4 more mini cupcakes too.  Yes, I am a PIG!  Luckily, I didn't do all that today.  I would have also left with a stomach ache!

I KNOW that I will be waking up with my weight being up, breaking my 18 day streak of dropping, but I also know that on Sunday, I'll drop it back down by being reasonable on Sunday.

By the way - great time on this trip.  Very relaxing and good people.  Good to spend the day with Dad and glad that Scott and Pete were able to come too!

Now on to Dinner:
Dinner - Black Bean Burger on potato roll + home made french fries made by cutting up baked potato and cooking in the air fryer.  I'll tell you what - those black bean burgers at Costco are BIG and GOOD!  Really enjoyed those. Just baked them in the oven.  Fitz was here to hang out and meet the kids.  Good times.  THe fries were not perfect - was my first time cooking them like that.  I'll have to work on perfecting that, but it was a good start and a good way to get fries in a healthier way.

Snacking - really?  You think I snacked in addition to all of that?  You are crazy!!!!  :-)

Life Thoughts - So late on Thursday night, I was informed of the passing of a good buddy of mine from work - Steve Kline.  He was exercising on the track at school and collapsed.  It was/is completely shocking and out of the blue.  I struggled all day getting emails and texts and reading the memories on Facebook from other teachers, alums and current students, friends, parents - their words about Steve are touching.

It's interesting how you never really know the impact you may be having on people or a community until you are gone.  It's been amazing to see the messages and stories left by former students and colleagues about him and all the good he did around Cresskill.  Personally, he was the guy who supported probably every single concert that was put on in my 13 year career.  He chaperoned and helped out the middle school concerts but always requested to be able to watch the HS concert because he wanted to see his students perform and talk about it with them later.  He also followed up with me after every show to tell me what his favorite part was!  He came on the Disney trip with us.  He did tickets for the school musical.  He was the ticket person also for Barbara Muller's Dancing with the Stars event pretty much every year.  Every night I was there late for a department event, so was he!  And he wanted to go get dinner - often requesting going out for BBQ at Fink's.  He came out for a drink after the show with us if we went.  He was a part of our community.   Then of course, he was one of the "voices of Cresskill football" announcing the games forever and sometimes reading the script for the marching band (if I didn't do it myself.)  He did the clock and other things for basketball (including for Kristyn's middle school girls teams.)  He often told me how much he loves the way Kristyn coached and communicated with the kids.  He did the pitch count for baseball.  If he was not working the game, he was at the game.  He knew everything about everyone.  And I never quite realized it, but the kids - they noticed, which is evidenced by the commentary I've been reading the past day on line.

*Remember when I did the faculty Sumo Wrestling - I actually wrestled him.  He destroyed me!  The man was like a brick house!  Could not take him down, even in those suits!
**Remember my annual Facebook post of a plate full of meat when I went to Bailey's Smoke House for lunch every year on Graduation (still happens now . . . ) - He was a part of that group.
***Remember when I was trying to do the 100 push up challenge and would drop down and just do pushups ANYWHERE (including in a bar) because I needed to get the work out in?  That was with him.  And He actually made it to the 100 pushups!
****Remember when I  did my first (and only) 5k trail run at Bear Mountain - he was on that too!

Anyway, the point is - he was a great dude.  I'm very sorry to see him go and we've lost a good dude and selfless friend.  These thoughts were all rumbling around my head while I was fishing all day and I needed to babble a little about it so this is where I decided to do it.  Thanks for everything, Steve!