My apologies for disappearing for a few days. I was not hiding anything from you, I was just enjoying vacation and didn't pull out my computer all that much. Was able to check my email, Facebook, Google Classroom, etc from my phone so the only reason I would really take out my computer was to blog (and a 4 hour school work binge one night from 10pm-2am, but we won't talk about that.)
I'm going to try to recap at least the meals at this point from the past bunch of days. There is no way I can really give you a play by play of the snacking that went on for 2 reasons.
1 - it is 5 days I have to remember.
2 - I really was picking at stuff all the way through the day, every day! There were 9 of us in that house. There was a lot of food there!
Ok, let's see what I can remember. Here goes nothing:
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Day 58 - Tuesday, August 14, 2018
Breakfast - Today I experimented with making my own home-made "McGriddle." It was only for me because we had settled into a routine of breakfast being every man for themselves. Since Joey wakes up early, sleeping in was not a thing for me, so I cooked myself a nice meal. So as a bun, I made 2 syrup infused pancakes. (next time I have to put in more syrup!) Then I made 2 turkey sausage links and 2 egg whites/1 whole egg - scrambled. This is the result! Pretty awesome sandwich. And I maintain that although it sounds like a nightmare for a diet, it's SO MUCH BETTER than getting it at McDonald's!
Lunch - I made some leftovers before we went out for the afternoon. There were 3 small pieces of chicken and some egg noodles that I grabbed to hold me over. BUT then I went and got gas. What's the big deal you say? Well, the gas station happened to be at a ROYAL FARMS!! So I did the only logical thing. I ordered 1 single chicken finger. It was glorious in all it's saltiness! BUT WAIT, THERE'S MORE! Kristyn ended up going in and getting herself a 3-piece snack and it was too much for her so I had a 2nd chicken tender. Ok, I guess things could be worse, right?
Dinner-ish - We had an amazing time out with the family on a catamaran/pontoon/whatever it was called boat. Uncle Bill and Aunt JoAnn set it all up - the ride, the food, the drinks - soup to nuts. It was beautiful! An awesome event for us. It was my family, Karen's Family, Peter's family, Michael Mom, Aunt Arlene, and of course, UB and AJ. While on this trip, I was going to keep it light the best I could, but I ended up having 1 brownie, 2 cookies, a few chips a bud lite and an Angry Orchard. To my recollection, that was it. Not bad for the kiddie's first time on a boat! Check out this motley crew!
Late Night Stuff - Everyone was going to the boardwalk, but the bewitching hour was upon us with Joey, so we stayed back. I'm sure I had a mini-ice cream cone or something, but that was probably it. I feel asleep kinda early on the couch and got back to the next day.
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Day 59 - Wednesday, August 15, 2018
Breakfast - For the life of me, I can not remember what I ate for breakfast this morning. I know that I went to the supermarket bright and early and that's all I remember. . . .. Maybe it will come to me later.
Lunch - For lunch, we went to Grotto's for our one and only stop there this week. It was my only pizza all week. The problem is that I made the most of it, and by that I mean I made the WORST of it! Pictured below you see a pizza pie. Mike Draney had 2 slices, Kristyn had 2 slices and I had the rest! Yup, I popped off half a pie for lunch. I have no regrets . . . . oh wait, yes I do! That's RIDICULOUS! Normal humans don't do that! I will say that Grotto's pizza gets considerably worse as it cools off. Tastes so much better when it's hot and dangerous!
Dinner - This dinner tasted like 143 Ploch Rd in Clifton. Mom made macaroni. We had rigatoni with meatballs and sweet sausage. It tasted like old times, that's for sure. Pictured below is my first plate. The 2nd plate was considerably less, but still no needed. You'll learn about me that if I'm sitting at a table with people for an extended period of time, I have a real problem stopping the intake! If I'm alone, I finish and get back to my work. When I'm with a group, I can't watch people eat. Ask my mom - I've been like this since I was a baby. At the restaurants, they always had to give me cheerios when I saw the other tables getting their food. :-) From the looks of the photo, it would seem that I also had a Blue Point Toasted Lager.
Snacking - I had the bright idea to make fresh chocolate chip cookie ice cream sandwiches with Breyer's Chocolate ice cream. But while I was at it, I just made an entire tub of Nestle Toll House chocolate chip cookies. In the end, I only ate half of one because they were HUGE and since we had more company, we didn't have enough to go around anyway, so everyone kinda cut them in half and dug in. I can't believe I don't have a photo of this. Thanks to Alice Apice for the inspiration to make these!!!!! I also ate a cookie or 2 while I was "Checking to make sure they were cooked thoroughly." :-)
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Day 60 - Thursday, August 16, 2018
Breakfast - Ahhhhhh, my wife shamed me and went out for a walk while I sat on my ass and did nothing. But when she came back, she brought the best present you can ever bring: A dozen donuts from the Fractured Prune. This is a specialty donut shop that makes awesome concoctions with their donuts - fresh on premises. They were still warm when she got home with them! I think all in all, I had 1.5 or 2 donuts. Reese's Peanut butter donuts, Smores donuts, I can't even remember all the options, but it's the type of donut that you cut a half or a quarter of the donut and taste test them all. Oh, I think another was called "Death by chocolate!" It was great! What a nice surprise!
Lunch - For lunch, we had a BBQ and Uncle Bill and Aunt JoAnn's place. Always the great host and hostess, we had a relaxing day at the pool with some good food and drinks. (Well, as relaxing as it can get with an 18-month old running around by the pool, up and down steps and a ramp, and even playing his own little game of chicken by leaning into or trying to climb down the stairs into the pool!) So it started with some tostitos and some pretzel nuggets from Philadelphia Pretzel Factory (at least, I figure they were from there!) Then for actual lunch, I had a hamburger and a sausage sandwich. Really should have just stuck to one, but again - social and long term eating situations - I have trouble with them! I had a couple diet sprites today. Stayed away from the beer. What a good boy. :-) But then . . . . dun dun duuuunnnnn!!! Came my worst moment of the week. THE BINGE! I must have popped 15-20 of those pretzel nuggets while waiting to head out. They were just sitting there, on a tray. And you know how big those trays are - you can eat 10 and it doesn't even look like you are making a dent in it. I just kept eating them. 15-20 may even be a low estimate. I really have no idea. I just kept going. It was one of my worst moments of the past 60 days. Oh well, worse things in life, right?
Dinner - I guess at this point, the pretzels were my dinner, but this was our night to go out without the kids. The Grandma's were babysitting so Kristyn & I, Karen & Eric and Peter & Laura all went out. We headed out to the Rusty Rudder to see the band "Love Seed Mama Jump" which was a recommendation 2 years ago by Kristyn's old principal. But upon arrival, we found out that they had stopped serving food! We went across the street and ate at some place that I don't remember the name of. I didn't want to overeat, being 10pm at this point, so I got an order of buffalo wings and called it a day. Not the healthiest choice, but 8 small wings - not bad for me in that situation. I also had a Bud Lite.
Late Night - Back to the Rusty Rudder and I was feeling like a gambling man - so I decided to drink a lot and pray that Joey slept in so I can sleep it off. :-) All told, I had 3 long island iced teas, 2 beers and a jello shot. But my LIT's were a new concoction I made up called the "Bull-Shit Iced Tea." This was an LIT but instead of coke, RED BULL and instead of tequila, WHISKEY! So the total is Vodka, Gin, Rum, Whiskey, Triple Sec, Sour Mix and Red Bull. I gotta tell you, this was AWESOME! And it definitely did the trick. :-) We had a great time and closed out the place with a well-needed night out without the kids. And Karen had her first ever trip in an Uber!!! This photo is all you are getting from this night. Sorry!
Day 61 - Friday, August 17, 2018
Breakfast - Yes, the morning after. How did I feel for this one? Surprisingly not bad. :-) Believe it or not, we were up and at 'em bright and early and left for the beach around 8:30am. But it was abundantly clear that a Dunkin Donuts run was in us. I went old school with a chocolate frosted donut and a plain toasted bagel with butter. I didn't want a Red Bull though so I ended up with a Red Gatorade.
Lunch - We stopped at this place on the boardwalk and I got a BBQ chicken Sandwich and another Gatorade. Red of course.
Dinner - I needed to get back to eating home made food (and spending less money) so our last night on vacation was Turkey Breast with Broccoli Mac & Cheese, 1/2 a baked potato (although everyone else had sweet potato,) Brown Rice and Broccoli. Good meal!
After dinner, we hit up the boardwalk and I stayed away from it all! But when we got home, I had 2 scoops of peanut butter chocolate ice cream. And I had also bought a fresh peanut butter PB Cup at one of those awesome candy stores. So I told Kristyn that if she didn't remind me that I wanted to eat it tonight, I'd be very upset. Unfortunately, she reminded me right after my ice cream. So, double dessert time!
Day 62 - Friday, August 17, 2018
Breakfast - We had to pack and be gone by 10am, so all the food was packed, the dishes were washed, and that meant we didn't eat until after we left. Dunkin again. Donut, Bagel, blah blah blah. NO Red Bull. Just a water. :-)
Lunch - Hit Burger King on the way home. Unlike the drive in, I just ate. I hate a chicken sandwich and fries (medium) with Fanta Orange Zero. Again, I've done much worse. Usually, I get the largest size, a sprite and a burger or chicken nuggets on the side.
Dinner - After a long drive home and a supermarket run to come, all I wanted was some pizza. BUT Kristyn was a good influence on me so instead, I had a small bowl of gluten free pasta and a little turkey and broccoli mac & cheese leftovers. Thanks K-Mart!
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Vacation Round Up - well, that's it! I had a hell of a vacation. If you read this and were disappointed in all my failures, I prefer to point you to all the times where I succeeded while on vacation. Every successful meal was one less failure and on Vacation that's all you can ask for. I think I did more than my fair share to try to stay on track. You can't completely be great on vacation, no matter how hard you try. I'm not making excuses at all, but I am not going to call this trip a disaster because I had some bad meals or days. Could have been better, could have been worse, but I tried at least half of the time and that's pretty good.
Also remember, there was lots of snacking in here that I did not account for. Usually it was a mini-ice cream cone, a small cinnamon or white powdered donut or a few frozen grapes. Nothing huge, but I can't remember when/where/how much. It was just a long week to remember.
It was Giuliana's first time on a trip and on the beach. It was the first time that Joey and Giuliana got to spend a whole week with their cousins - and with young kids always around. My first family vacation with Mom and Karen (and my dad was even around for parts of it) since Myrtle Beach in High School when our car broke down at like 11pm in the middle of Virginia and we had to sleep in the parking lot of a car dealership because there were no hotels available!!!
It was great to have UB and AJ take such good care of us and it was very nice to see the Livera/Draney/Verderese/Sassano crew here and there during our trip.
Huge thanks to Mom for taking us on her trip and congrats to her on her retirement from the public schools where she was a secretary forever - between Montclair State, Wood-Ridge, Clifton and whatever the list of things she did before we were born. Well deserved retirement and what a great way to kick it off.
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Weigh-In at home - so I'm gonna spill the beans and if you made it all the way through this blog post, you deserve to know where it all went. I weighed in Sunday morning at 233.5 pounds which means I gained a total of 3 pounds on vacation and I'm currently down 14.8 pounds. My low point was day 52 when I came in at 19.2 down, so I have gained a total of 4.4 back. I was TERRIFIED to get on the scale because I have the ability to gain 10 pounds in a week and I was scared that I had done that. 3 pounds on an 8 day vacation? I'm pretty happy with this, but need to get back on track. Band camp is coming up this week so I have to get through Sunday and Monday. Then the big work comes in and I usually eat pretty light during band camp. I predict I'll be back down by Friday to where I was at day 52, and if I'm right - I'd call it a successful run. Wish me luck!
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