Just got back from my Disney Florida vacation, and I’ll tell you that it was a fantastic time! Just being able to get away mentally for a week did wonders for my stress levels.
I may have mentioned here before, but I haven’t gone on a non work related, non wedding related vacation (longer than a ‘long weekend’) since Spring Break in college 15 years ago!
Needless to say, I was due!
All the foods, all the steps!
I decided a while back that if I hit below 300 lbs, then I definitely would not care as much about nutrition. I for sure took advantage of that and ate all the foods possible.
Not that we weren’t burning calories. I checked the step tracker on my phone and we were averaging about 10 miles a day! Over the trip, it counted 70.9 miles total!
The Saturday we even walked about 7 miles. This also didn’t include the times when I left my phone in the room to take the nieces swimming.
Paying Dividends
I did have an emotional moment, where I found that all that I’ve been doing these past few years is starting to pay dividends. But instead of retype it, I’ll copy and paste my Facebook post about it:
I took this strange sweaty pic because I was really proud. Some (not pictured) not-so-considerate people stood in front of our group during the fireworks, so I held my 60lb niece in front of me the whole 18 minute show so she could see.
I 100% would not have been able to do that not too long ago.
My biceps, triceps, upper back, and quads all burned and I hope she didn’t feel me shaking by the end. But this is a good reminder of why I’m doing all this. Looking getter: cool, feeling better: great, being able to do more and have better relationships (especially with family): that’s real quality of life improvement.
It’s shown even more when we took at pick with Mickey and Minnie afterward. Sure, our shirts were wet from Splash Mountain, but everyone else’s have dried a lot more than mine.
I may have been sweating a bit while holding her up.
But it’s completely worth it, and it make for a memorable experience and a bonding moment between me and her.
Struggles and Perspective
The week didn’t go by without its struggles. Both my knee and Achilles did ache with all the walking. Luckily, my sister is a dance team coach and had braces and I decided to use the ankle one.
It helped keep some pressure off it, but I can feel deep down it was still fatigued.
But I made it through!
More impressively, my Mom kept up with us at the age of 70! She was slow, hobbled down, and stubbornly refused to use a wheelchair when really, she probably should have. Guess I know where my stubbornness regarding rest days and not going all-out all the time comes from.
Finally, now that we’re all sharing pictures, there is some perspective. While I’m super proud of how far I’ve come, these pics in the end of all of this will be classified as “early on in my health journey.”
Much better than the bachelor party last year, and sure as heck better than it would have been had I not burned the baby alpaca, but still not the most flattering.
As far as fitting on the rides, which I was super anxious about prior to the trip. I fit fine for the most part! My legs got a little squished on the Seven Dwarves Mine Cart ride. The biggest one was Avatar: Flight of Passage. I needed the ride operator to push the restraint in for me. It was pretty embarrassing the first time, the second time I rode it I knew how to position myself so it wasn’t needed as much.
Luckily, Flight of Passage isn’t in front of a group of people, so it’s not like I was publicly shamed, don’t even know if my Niece and Brother-in-law on either side of me even knew it happened. But it definitely had me shook for a while for Expedition Everest, which I heard wasn’t fat people friendly. But I fit in there no problem whatsoever!
Recovery and Reset
I’m still recovering from the trip, fatigued from the walking in the heat. I got big blisters all over both of my feet (which my nieces loved poking at while saying, “your foot is so juicy!”), and I need to catch up on work.
But I’ll sleep a lot tonight and tomorrow night and hopefully can hit up Orange Theory again on Wednesday. We’ll see, I do want to recover fully before going really hard again.
Next race isn’t until the beginning of November, so there is time, although I do want to have a good showing, so I’ll get back to it as soon as I’m confident that I’m healed.