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