What's Eaten in Vegas Gets Passed in Vegas!

Hi faithful followers, and fellow fat losers. That is - losers of fat, and not losers who are fat - that would be rude. Anyhoo, my beautiful wife and I took a break  last week from everything - kids, work, church, Maryland, electronics - everything but each other and took ourselves out to Las Vegas for a few days. I was really looking forward to having this free time with Julie but I was a little concerned that the saying of 'what happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas' wouldn't quite apply to the calories we would consume and I didn't want what I ate in Vegas to make the plane journey back to MD with me.

One thing that this challenge has definitely done has made me much more conscious of what I eat and how long it will take me to sweat those calories off, so 4 days of eating out in restaurants and the like could have been a set back. Having said that, I am the one who is in control of my arms and hands so if I dont put it near my mouth then I wont eat it. We stayed at a beautiful hotel (without a casino) with a fully kitted out fitness center - and I made sure I got a work out in at least on 2 of the days we were there. The other days our exercise consisted of walking, walking, more walking, climbing stairs, walking some more, climbing down stairs followed by a last little bit of, yup you guessed it, walking.

The highlight of our trip for me was the day we spent at the Grand Canyon. Wow! That is one impressive hole in the ground! As I stood at the top looking to the canyon floor some mile or so below me I was drawn to the notion of how good it must be to be able to walk down to the bottom and look up at the rim towering above you. We were only there for a few hours so that wasn't possible - plus the amount of snow on the trails would have made for an interesting decent. I did hear myself say though, "You know, it would be a great guy's trip some time to come out here with some good friends and hike to the bottom for a a few days and hang out by the river." The words were out of my mouth and I was a surprised as my wife that I was even considering the possibility of walking the 7-8 miles of trails down the 1 mile vertical decent to the canyon floor. But maybe next year that will be an option. Anyone want to come?

So, getting back to the challenge - well, to my great delight what I ate in Vegas was passed in Vegas and I didn't bring any extra of me back to MD - in fact I lost a pound while I was out there. Today when I stepped on the scales I achieved another milestone. Today's weight was 284.5lbs - that is only 1/2 a pound away from a total drop of 30lbs, and 3.5lbs under my driver's license weight - my 10 year old driver's license which is up for renewal in October.

So after a week of quality Julie and me time, a week when we reach another target and a week when I have been contacted by people from all parts of the country (thanks to the Catalyst podcast and blog) I am ready for the next few weeks. I am ready to reach the 40lb drop and the 50lb drop. I am also looking forward to the Compassion International Sunday when we will hopefully see a lot of children sponsored.

Its a good week. How is your week going?