Back from camp and a pound down!!!!!

Heard a great quote by Craig Groeschel, Pastor of LifeChurch.tv:

"Failure is an EVENT, never a person. Success is a process. Learning from your failures is a part of the success process.

Well I had a great week at Youth America Church Camp with my daughter. It was her first time at Youth America and it was Awesome! Incredibly awesome worship.
Worship at camp


Here is my daughter in line in cafeteria


Another of my daughter in chapel service

Well, I was more than a little concerned about how I was going to still eat correctly while at camp. So, I packed a cooler with veggies and meat and water bottles. Iced it down before I left. I ate eggs and sausage every morning which worked for my protein breakfast and skipped the biscuits and gravy. Everyone said the biscuits and gravy were really good. That was a difficult temptation to overcome. It felt like any minute I could go crazy on the biscuits so I was pleased with myself for hanging in there. So breakfasts were a success all week. Now we come to lunch and dinner. Monday and Tuesday I did great. Ate the meat I brought and had my oat bran I packed and snacked on veggies. I would also eat whatever meat was appropriate in the cafeteria and salad. By Wednesday though, I had run out of meat and veggies and was kinda stuck with eating what I could from the meals. I skipped bread, rice, pasta, tortilla's as much as I could. It was frustrating because every time I went thru the line I had to ask for more meat and nothing with carbs. Apparently they had been given strict guidelines because even then they would barely scoop any extra on the plate. It was a bit embarassing to say the least to have to keep asking for more protein and no carbs. By Thursday night I was getting pretty weary and tore thru the Rice, gravy and beef meal without asking for changes. The last two nights I got little sleep (late night services, 48 females in small room sleeping in bunk beds stacked 3 high! and very uncomfortable mattresses)

Here is a pic of me on first day of camp: Taken laying in my bunk:


Here is a pic of my daughter on her bunk:


After services at midnight they would open the burger bar and for $1.50 you could get a hamburger. Yes on Thursday night I got two and removed the bread from one and placed the patty on the other one creating essentially a double cheeseburger. Also ate doritos along with this. At this point I had basically given in to my eating dilemma and just threw caution to the wind. You know what they say about your decisions when you haven't gotten enough rest!

On Friday I took the kids to Pop's in Arcadia Oklahoma and devoured the best cheeseburger laden with sauteed onions and cheese alongside a pile of salty french fries. Washed this all down with a soda pop!

Here are some photos of Pop's:




Following this I began my drive home. I was getting so sleepy in the van I grabbed a couple of bags of bugles. Plain and Carmel! Started popping those to stay alert. I wasn't even hungry, just eating to stay awake! I know-Not GOOD! Well we made it home where I promptly dropped myself into my recliner and dozed off for an hour when my husband calls and says we have dinner plans. I got back on track with salad and steak that night but it was still a struggle and sketchy thru Sunday on getting back on track. Needed to buy groceries was part of the problem. Also taking steroids for asthma which makes me ravenous. But by Sunday evening I had gotten under control. I weighed when I got back Friday night and it showed a gain of 10 pounds. Some of that was just the natural gain of a day since I usually weigh in the morning but other pounds were there from water retention. My ankles and legs were swollen and sloshy following the avalanche of salt I was partaking in Thursday and Friday. Not to mention the steroids are great at causing water retention. So every morning since Friday I have weighed. Each morning showed the weight falling off by about four pounds a day. Today I was hoping to get back to my last lowest and when I stepped on the scales I had actually dived lower by a pound! So now I am sitting at 55 pounds lost!!! WooHoo! This is good news. I think because of all the hiking up and down this huge hill from the dorms to the chapel services in 100 plus heat all day and all over campus I actually think I burned off any weight I might have gained from eating incorrectly.

Here is a picture of that hill:

(The picture is deceiving! it is really quite steep!)

I really believe that most of the gain following camp was actually water retention. So I am pleased to be right on track!

In other news, I met a great friend at camp who at 1:00am in the morning we were setting up her SparkPage so we could be friends on Spark and Facebook too! You will have to look her up and say hello! www.sparkpeople.com/mypa
ge.asp?id=ET_PHOTO

Still yet other news, after returning from camp my husband had a surprise for me. He took me to a lady's house that goes to our church and walked me out to the back yard and said, "Happy Birthday!" It was a 24 foot above ground pool and Deck that goes around half of it! It is perfect for our backyard and what I have had on my wishlist for several years! She needed to sell it and was selling it for a great price! So the last couple of days I have been taking pictures, drawing out a map and labeling the boards to correspond with the map so we can disassemble it and then bring it over here and re-assemble it! What a HUGE project this has turned out to be but I'm sure all worth it in the end! Following are some pics of the pool:



Talk to ya soon! Get up and Finish What you started!
Tasha