What a Trip!

I wish that our trip was as peaceful as this picture.

Staying healthy, eating well and traveling;  IMPOSSIBLE.  Well, maybe not impossible, but extremely difficult, for me at least.  I packed lots of healthy snacks for everyone; grapes, cucumber slices, peanut butter apples and bread to make sandwiches.  So we left on Monday morning, dropped my husband's car off at the shop to get fixed before we leave out of town.  We begin our drive down to Gulf Shores, AL (vacation AND business reasons). 

Boom, puff & cu put!  Our van broke down in the middle of I-85 South.  Perfect!  About 20 miles out of Atlanta, we had a choice to either abandon our mission or continue on by renting a car.  Well, either way renting a car was in the mix.  We decided to continue on the trip because we really needed the money from this business trip.  Plus, I really want to see my Granny who lives in Mobile, AL.  So, our schedule was set back a couple of hours from the tow truck and car renting, but we made it to Gulf Shores, FINALLY, around 5:00 pm.  Just enough time to let the kids play at the beach for a couple of hours and then off to dinner.

Now, dinner, it was suppose to be a healthy one, so I planned, but ended up being at my families favorite seafood restaurant, King Neptune's.  I tried to compensate for having fried seafood by ordering a side salad and subbing veggies for fries, but ultimately, it was not a healthy meal, but DELICIOUS.

We finally arrived at Granny's house at 11:00 pm.  Why so late?  Embarrassingly enough, I got lost on the way there.  I haven't visited in a while and I was super tired.

So, morning comes and I am determined to make it a day just like any other at home and eat my normal low sodium foods and drink lots of water.  Eggs with toast and milk, then pasta with cream sauce and salad for lunch.  I was at about 800 mg of sodium so far and 20 oz. of water.  It was the snacking that got me.  I was so hungry!  Not sure why, because I had my protein in the morning and veggies for lunch.  My guess is that I doing alot more than I normally do at home from all the traveling, going to the beach and making sure my kids didn't break anything in my Granny's house.  So, snacking including whatever saw at that moment;  cookies, cheese crackers, pop tart.  Then, to my surprise, my cousin was graduating that evening and the party was going to be a Granny's house.  I'm all for a party, that is until the PIZZA arrived.  I could've just NOT eaten it.  But.....I did.  Two slices to be exact...and cake and chips and dip AND pigs-in-a-blanket.  A bit of emotional eating when I found out that my husband had a few clients back out of the training which meant us losing about $500.  Not good news, with us needing to get TWO cars fixed and pay for our past-due bills and the rental car.

I felt aweful!  Physically and emotionally.  I went to bed feeling the effects of my very unhealthy meal & the worries of the world.  So, the cycle continued through today despite the fact that I knew what came from eating this way;  swolleness, heart burn, fatigue, ect.  Those are all the things I experienced from the moment I started consuming the highly processed and high sodium food. 

Now, how to get back on track?  I know that when I started eating better and drinking more water, I felt great AND continued to feel great.    Truthfully, I mainly felt great because I felt the grace of God giving me strength to do all of that and faith that God was healing my body.  I think....I am sure what I need is personal time with Jesus to help me re-focus and get back on track.   Troubles will always be there, so I must learn to cope without sabotaging a healthy lifestyle. 

On a personal personal note:  I must say that was happy to get to see family and all, but so far this trip was more than I could handle (due to all the unexpected twists and turns).  I am glad that I got to spend time with Granny.  She's such a peaceful woman and peace radiates from her.  It ministered to me to see her at peace amidst my chaos.