The culmination of a year of work

Hi gentle readers, whoever, wherever you are.

It has been a while since I last wrote. That is because I've taken a vacation in Rome. A vacation from weight loss, and vacation from work, from intense exercise, from people... Most of all, this is a vacation to reward myself for losing 50 lbs this year. I still have a few more to go, and a tonne of maintenance and toning work to do, but for now this trip is a big, luxurious pat on the back for Number One.

So far, I have had an absolutely amazing time. The initial part of the trip I was mostly in awe at all the beautiful things, people and places. I've been hanging out with the cool artist crowd here (friends of friends who are a blast), and doing only basic tourist stuff. The mid-way part of the trip (now) has been crazier, with more partying and meeting more and more people. The latter portion of my stay will be spent shopping for thank you gifts and gifts to bring home, if I find anything worthwhile (I can guarantee I will though).

Food-wise, I will most probably NOT have gained any weight here. Most days we walk a ton. We start our days around 9-11 am with an espresso (marocchino is my new fav': espresso with a little dash of milk and chocolate/cinnamon) and a cornetto (essentially a croissant made with olive oil, delicious). Later, we usually have lunch around 2-4pm, and I've been trying to get in veggies. Dinner has mostly been light (unless we don't eat lunch), because they do apperitivo, which is widespread here. It basically means a pre-dinner drink, but in Rome you pay for your drink and that covers the food they bring you. So, for about 5-7 euros (about 8 dollars) you get a drink and all you can eat yum-yums. So I've been eating rather light.

Yesterday I almost didn't eat all day, so dinner was a large helping of carbonara, the best ever. I chased that with a lot of little bits and pieces of other dishes like skewers, spinach, chicory, etc. Oh yeah, and lots of wine, coffee and limoncello :)

I buy fruit at the local store and have that in the morning too. Their kiwis and clementines are fantastic, so I had to take advantage of that too...

I would guess that I am still at about 137, but honestly I have no idea. I base it on how my stomach looks. When I get close to 136-137 my stomach looks like I have abs. When I get near 138-140, it looks more even and puffed out. I ate VERY late last night and drank a lot, so my stomach is a little puffy right now, but generally speaking it has looked pretty thin.

Okay, enough talking about weight loss on my vacation. However, since I have to sit around and wait for my friends to get here in an hour or so, I think I might ACTUALLY do some exercise by going for a jog or walk... we'll see if I make it out the door...