Family Vacation (Pt 3)

Greater San Antonio - Day Three

The night before we planned out what we wanted to do, but didn't really take into consideration what we were going to do for lunch and dinner... This can hinder lifestyle change big time if you're not prepared! On to the good stuff! We spent our morning touring The Alamo (Our 6yr old loves soldiers and it wasn't as boring as he thought it was going to be). By the time we left The Alamo grounds it was nearly noon so it was time to stop for lunch before our lunch turned into dinner which is not a good thing. We bought tickets to this museum/saloon and decided that we would just eat there... We had one choice and like I've said numerous times now, it was the better choice. 

Buckhorn Saloon & Museum

• Water w/ Lemon
• Fish Oil and an appetite suppressant
• The appetite suppressant helps a lot when you know you won't have many opportunities to actually sit down and eat something decent for most of the day.
• A Chef Salad (we both ordered the same thing and because it was pre-made, we had to take off the finely shredded cheese! That was hard! However, the salad was pretty good and super filling as it was probably all of our veggies for the day in one bowl! 

We didn't intend on staying in San Antonio all day, but we were having a really great time with our kiddos! The rest of the day we went to the Tomb Rider 3D and because our daughter is walking and sitting up on her own she got to ride too so no one was left out! She rode with Daddy and our son rode with me. After that we went into Ripley's Haunted House, then the Guinness Book of World Records (interactive family attraction), then we had to re-park the car so we could stay longer and not pay such a hefty fee... After a 10 or 15 minute walk we resumed with going to Ripley's Wax Museum, then the Ripley's 4D Movie Theater, and lastly Ripley's Believe It or Not Museum! Whew! Needless to say it was again a lot of walking and moving and we still had to walk back to the car (see time frame above). We didn't officially get out of San Antonio until 9 something at night! And no, I haven't forgotten about dinner! 

In the Car 

ASAP

• Water
• Protein Bar

After eating the protein bar, we decided to hold off on dinner, especially since the kids had snacked on a pretzel and were already sound asleep in the back of the car. While my husband was driving back home, I was busy looking up menus of restaurants and fast food places. Yes, I said fast food. Out of all the choices, McDonald's was the better choice. 

McDonalds

• Water
• Grilled Classic Chicken Wrap (Not too bad, but if ever ordered again, we would have them 86 the ranch!)

We drove a little longer, but we just couldn't keep driving, so we stayed the night at Super 8 in Temple, TX. 

Breakfast- Day Three

I will admit that breakfast is a lot easier to do at home! There wasn't too many places to choose from in terms of breakfast so we stopped at Dennys. We will probably never do that again and if we do, we will order our food completely differently! And for sure we probably won't stop at that particular location again. Here was our order and we shared this.

Dennys

• Make your own skillet - red skinned potatoes, jalapenos, cherry tomatoes, spinach, pico de gallo, zucchini, yellow squash, avocado, and 2 eggs over medium.
• This is just not healthy! We would have been better off ordering off the A La Carte menu, there was just too much oil and stuff on it. This would be great made at home though! 

From there it only took us an hour or so to get to my husband's grandparent's house and because we'd just eaten we shared a protein bar for a snack before having an early dinner. We went to his parent's house to eat dinner, this is what we had: 

Easy Dinner

• Water w/ Lemon
• 2 cups of salad per person 
• 2 cups of mixed veggies per person (English cucumber, tomato, onion, celery, green bell pepper, and white button mushrooms
• 1 grilled sirloin hamburger patty per person

Here is the amazing thing... When I left I was still in between 266.6 and 267.4 and because we consistently chose to make the better choice, we both came back thinner! As of this morning, I am 264lbs! I haven't been under 265 in what feels like forever! That is -26lbs since February 10th, 2014! 

You can be a new you too!

Blessings,

Adrian Graves

Family Vacation (Pt 2)

Theme Park Dining: Sea World - Day Two

Our first fun trip was to spend the day at Sea World! The last trip my husband and I had was before kids and the trip was a nightmare! I can say that this trip was awesome and we only had a few minor hiccups! It was so nice seeing our children smile and laugh throughout the day! Anyway, we were aware that eating was probably going to be an issue since many theme park places don't offer many healthy dining choices. Sea World actually has a dining venue that offers healthier choices. It's all about making the better choice and not beating yourself up because it doesn't 100% fit in with your lifestyle change. We ordered 2 meals and split them. Here is what we did at Sea World:

Sea World

• Water (Throughout the day)
• Turkey Wrap (All of their items are pre-made, but easy to pull apart and it is still the better choice!)
• Too Much Wrap- Unfold your wrap and tear off the excess tortilla or flat bread. This is what I did! Many places give you more carbohydrates as a filler which also fills your tummy and breaks down into sugar and stores itself into your thighs, butt, gut, and wherever else it can try to hide! However your clothes and the way you feel will always seek the extra fat out!
• 9 Grain Turkey Sandwich with a Pico type relish on the side
• Too Much Bread- Deconstruct it by throwing away the other piece and only have a half of a slice of bread (make sure it's whole wheat or grain. NO WHITE BREAD! White bread is a weight loss killer and not in a good way! So like I said we split this sandwich, basically my husband and I split one piece of bread and had the meat and stuff that came on it (Not a piece of bread per person to equal two pieces but one piece split in half. 
• Once we were leaving we each had a protein bar and more water.

We walked Sea World at least 4 times from 10:15 to about 5:30ish! That was about 6 1/2hours of walking and only about 45 minutes of total sitting! That is something that I wouldn't have been able to do in the past! It felt great! All that walking created an appetite! 

Restaurant #2

By the time we left we were ready to eat! Seafood is a good choice for us most of the time because we can get it grilled and don't have to consume all the extra fats and such. We went to Sea Island Shrimp House and it was pretty good! Not a whole bunch of healthier options, but again, we made to better decision. 

Sea Island Shrimp House

• Water w/ Lemon
• Split a side salad (Just veggies and dressing on the side see above)
• Entree #1: Diablo spiced grilled shrimp (5oz)
• Entree #2: Grilled Salmon between (4 and 5oz)
• Sides for Entree #1: Plain baked potato (we split the potato and used a small packet of butter and seasoning) and steamed zucchini and yellow squash w/ seasoning

Sides for Entree #2: Steamed zucchini and yellow squash w/ seasoning x2 (we had to order two sides so we took the other veggies to go)

Part 3 of Family Vacation will be posted next!

You can be a new you too!

Blessings,
Adrian Graves

Family Vacation (Pt 1)

Our son had spring break and like most families we decided to get out of town for a bit, but we had to let him recover from having the flu first. Having a kid with the flu and trying to stay on track with a serious food life change can be a little challenging. I'll admit, there were days that I didn't eat until dinner time and even worse some days I didn't even stop to drink water because I was so preoccupied with keeping him as well as possible. We weren't dealing with low-grade fevers... We're talking nearly 104.0! Dangerously high for anyone let alone a child. Anyway on Wednesday the 12th of March he had been fever free for 24 hours and we were set to leave on our short family vacation the very next day.

As some of you may know it can be difficult to eat well and travel (road trip). Many people want to snack the whole way to their destination and then pig out while they are away from home. I wasn't willing to pay the hefty consequences for doing that so I planned accordingly...

On the Road - Day One
In the car we had bottled water and our protein bars, not chips, or trail mix, or nuts, nothing like that. Many of the "healthy" items larger people buy for these type of occasions are not really that healthy and cause more weight gain.
Restaurant #1
When we were closer to our destination, San Antonio, (we actually stayed about 20 miles out, Universal City) we stopped to have dinner at Dennys. Yes, we still eat out. We make the better decision... Our better decision was to order one entree and split it. Here is our order at Dennys:

Denny's

• Water w/ Lemon (It helps reduce your bill and fatten your wallet not your waist!)
• A side salad (we didn't split this as we need the veggies to help with other bodily functions and weight loss) w/o cheese or croutons and light/lite dressing on the side (It's better to order a vinaigrette or Italian instead of creamy dressings like Ranch, Blue Cheese, or Thousand Island)
• Dressing tip: Dip your fork first and then fork up some salad. You'll use less dressing which equals losing more weight in the end! Anyway to get closer to your goal!  
• 8oz Steak split equally (about 4oz a per person, but since we had red meat on Wednesday that meant we couldn't have it again until Friday. It's good to switch it up anyway.)
• A choice of 2 sides: Steamed broccoli and Steamed yellow squash and zucchini (We split both sides into equal portions) 
• Steamed or Sauteed? Always, Always go with steamed if you can! Many restaurants think that to sautee something means they have to drench it in butter and flavored oils. Also make sure that they don't add butter to their steamed veggies as some places add it to increase the flavor. You can have flavor w/o butter and oils. 

Part 2 of Family Vacation will be posted next! 

You can be a new you too!

Blessings, 

Adrian Graves

LifeStyle Change

Wow! How bad am I at blogging?!?!? So, here it is! So after the holidays and all those yummy foods I weighed in at a whopping 290ish pounds - GROSS! Even though I'm not a big fan of New Year's resolutions, I made a big one for our family... The resolution was to eat more meals at home than we do out. Then I became involved in a biblical experiment if you will and that encouraged me to take the resolution farther. No fast food for 7 days. That turned into no fast food for 13 days and then we didn't have fast food for even longer. That was back in January when I was still weighing in at about 290. 

My husband who is also over-weight was like we've got to get thinner and of course I was like "No duh!" Because I'm really encouraging him to become the spiritual leader and really the head of the household, I conceded and told him we would start a "diet" on Monday February 10, 2014. That meant no CHOCOLATE or SUSHI for Valentine's Day! Boo! I was nervous, but wanted to follow his direction. We have been doing our "diet" since that Monday and let me tell you, we feel fabulous! 

My personal weight loss is -23 lbs (267) with little to no exercise! My husband is at a -34 lbs lost! I'm not going to push diet pills on you, or tell you "all you have to do is sprinkle this on your food" or drink some kind of magic weight loss elixir. What I will tell you is it has to do with eating the foods you were always meant to eat. What, you mean all I had to do this whole time was eat better? Yes, that is exactly what I'm telling you. 

This is NOT a DIET! This IS a LIFESTYLE change! 

The first three days weren't the worst and they are definitely a game changer in terms of changing perspective. Those days are cleanse days with a lot of meat, a lot of water, raw green veggies, and two oranges! The only supplements we take are Fish Oil and my husband likes to take Zantrax occasionally. When I said the first three days change your perspective on things, it really does. So for our Valentine's Day date we went to Cotton Patch. Typically I would have ordered Chips and Queso, a coke, and an Entree a piece. This time we ordered water with lemon, one side salad, and a baked potato (we quartered the potato). We started looking around at all the orders around us and were like "Wow, how did we ever eat that much before?" This lifestyle changes doesn't require you to starve like other diets. We were satisfied with sharing a side salad and a quarter of a LARGE baked potato (No sour cream, cheese, or bacon! Just chives and a little butter). 

I'm proud to say that this is something that is attainable for everyone if you just put your mind to it. Finding recipes and making them work can be challenging, but there are so many ways to cook healthily! What is so awesome about this is that there has not been one single moment that I've been alone in this journey! I want to praise God for his faithfulness, my husband for being so awesome and encouraging, my friends, my friends from all the little church small groups I'm in, and my family. If I've forgotten anyone, thank your for your encouraging words and support! 

You can be a new you too!

Blessings,

Adrian Graves