Adventures in Travel: Confession Time

A week ago Thursday, I traveled to Virginia for work, which included the bonus of seeing my family and some friends. I just got back Thursday evening--two days ago. Man, that's a long time to be away from your own home and routine.

I packed plenty of workout clothes and got in some good workouts actually.

I also did well with packing up my flaxseed, bee pollen and wheat germ so that I can have hearty oatmeal every morning and packed up some almonds. I bought lemons and apple cider vinegar for my morning drink/cleanse routine. I also bought some eggs, whites, sweet potatoes, hummus, bananas and a cucumber so that I could have some clean snacks. Mom had apples from an orchid in the mountains of Virginia too.

So food wise, if I made good choices in restaurants I was all set. Well, I did GREAT until (HERE COMES THE CONFESSION) I left my parents home and headed to Richmond! There I discovered two great restaurants that were not there when I lived there: Mama J's and Conch Republic.

Conch Republic was on the river (a beautiful scene from the patio where we dined). It had good fish and veggie choices, but they also plantains (yum! hadn't had these in a while!) and Swamp Fingers (alligator meat fried up nicely--YUM! NEVER had these and they were awesome!). I indulged in both dishes. One day of indulgence would have been fine. BUT, then I was introduced to Mama J's!

Everything is made from scratch and just oh so good! My cousin and sorority sister-friend and I basically had a buffet on our table. I opted for the better choice crab cakes, and only sampled the yams and mac n cheese while eating plenty of collards and cabbage--both cooked in a healthy way but oh so good. If I had stopped there--Shay Shay would have patted myself on the back. BUT NOOOOO!!

There they were--the wall of homemade cakes! Oh, I wish I had taken a picture. We split the Buttercream cake with Buttercream icing. We shared the cake--which is good--but it was a huge slice and not on my plan! Then on top of that, my cousin ordered the peach cobbler for us to share. I'm so glad I passed on the conference lunch desserts--they clearly were massed produced!

On top of the food, Mama J's was just a really nice social experience. The venue is just adorable and the people of Richmond, especially my peeps (including my sorority pledge sister who is a manager in the evenings) just topped off the atmosphere. It was like a mini-Thanksgiving! I enjoyed myself, but I know that this type of eating CANNOT happen for a long time if I want to achieve my goal of getting Stripped!

I'm back home and ready to get back at it. I'll be cooking my meals for the week and planning my workouts. I did a little damage with my progress with all the food indulgence, but nothing that can't be undone (I've already undone some of the damage) once I'm back on routine and up the ante--which was the plan anyway.

I'm going to get back to it next week and will report back with the results my effort to undo and move ahead toward my goals.

Stay tuned . . .