The Day AFTER Thanksgiving

I’m feeling quite proud of myself at the moment.  Normally, after a day like yesterday, when I eat way more than I usually do, I have the tendency to stay off-track.  Now that the train is derailed, why bother staying the course, right?  (Yep, I’m mixing metaphors)  But yesterday was Thanksgiving, and there’s no day like Thanksgiving, and therefore, no reason to continue eating like it was.  So I’m back on track, and ate wonderfully today (including staying away from most of the leftovers – more on that later), and I got a lot of exercise.

The exercise began early in the morning – my sisters, Sarah and Laura, and I headed to Sarah’s gym and took a group exercise class at 8:30am run by a trainer named Heather.  There were about 20-25 of us, in a big circle in the gymnasium at the rec center (read more about it here), and Heather had us rotate through a variety of strength training exercises for a minute each.  We went through the circuit twice, and some of them were really tough.  Then we headed up to the track, and all of us jogged around the track in a line.  The person at the end of the line had to sprint past everyone in front of them, and get in position in the front of the line.  Then the new person at the end of the line sprinted to the front, and so on.  With 20-plus people in the class, it probably took about 10 minutes for everyone to get their sprint in.  The last thing we did was abs, back in the gym.  We did the kind with a partner, where one person pushes their partner’s straight legs to the ground over and over.  My sister Sarah would probably say that the low point during the class was when, as I was standing over her, pushing her legs, sweat rolled off my nose and landed in her mouth.  Sorry, Sarah!  All in all, the class was an hour.

We swung back to Sarah’s house, and picked up her husband Justin and their two kids, and headed back to the rec center to use the pool.  The pool is awesome – actually, I should pluralize that, as there are multiple pools.  Check this place out:

That’s a lap pool in the foreground, and a lazy river wraps around that giant slide.  I can’t remember the last time I went down a water slide, and it was a blast.  I went down it more times than my 5-year-old nephew!  There’s also a separate kids’ pool:

Not pictured is a waterfall at the other end of the kids’ pool, as well as a hot tub and sauna.

I haven’t swum laps since high school, when I quit the swim team after swimming competitively for about 10 years.  I did about 250 yards while at the pool today (10 lengths of the pool), and I was pleasantly surprised when the technique came back to me, like riding a bike.  My endurance, of course, wasn’t what it was when I was a swimmer, but it made me think that perhaps I should look into local pools when I get back to LA and maybe incorporate swimming into my exercising.

On to my eating:  Here’s a complete rundown of everything I ate today:

• Breakfast: 1 banana, 1-2 ounces leftover turkey, raw veggies (tomato, celery, mushrooms, red pepper), 
• Lunch: Salad (romaine, cucumber, peppers, scallion, radish, cherry tomato, croutons, 1 tsp dressing), 4-5 oz leftover turkey, 1/2 pear
• Dinner: We went to Noodles & Company, where I had their Med Salad, dressing on the side (and I only tried once), and no feta.  What was left was: greens, onion, olives, grilled chicken, tomato, and about 1/2 cup pasta, no sauce/butter/or anything.
• Beverages: 9-11 glasses water throughout the day.

The only leftovers I ate was turkey!

Tomorrow is my last day in Colorado before heading back to LA tomorrow night.  I’ll be sad to go – it’s been a great week!

Keep it up, David!