Post-Vacation Wrap up and more

We're back from a wonderful vacation in Orlando.  Dan and I had a great time with our friends and it was an awesome experience.  Our main reason for going was that Dan competed in a gaming tournament for various fighting games.  He played Mortal Kombat 9 and there were also matches in Marvel vs. Capcom 3, Super Street Fighter 4 AE, Tekken 6, and a few others.  He's been a big gamer as long as I have know him (going on 11 years!) and my first introduction to competitive video game competitions was awesome!  We've already got another in our sights for later this year and I think I might actually give it a try this time, too.

So how did I do on the food part you ask?  Well, I think OK.  I packed on about 4 lbs but have already shed two of them since being back on Wednesday.  I stuck completely to vegetarian and pescetarian meals (with the exceptions of two small tasting bites: Greek gyro meat at local place we've wanted to try (I love Greek food) and chicken at Three Broomsticks in the Wizarding World of Harry Potter at Universal Studios).  Where did we eat you ask?  Not half as many places as I had hoped!

Our first planned stop got cancelled.  We had a late breakfast on the road and were all still too full to have lunch.  This was a bit of a bummer as I had hoped to get in a meal at the Ethos Vegan Kitchen in Orlando.  Next time...  So we moved right ahead to our second planned stop at the Raphsodic Cooperative Vegan Bakery.  I ended up here because I had purchased a Groupon (it might have been living social) deal a few weeks in advance.  Completely worth it!  This is a quaint little shop in an odd little place in downtown Orlando, but it was awesome.  The staff was super friendly and let us him and haw over our random sampling.  We each chose a treat or two and then headed to our hotel to check-in.  We got a handful of vegan cupcakes, a few cookies and a brownie.  Each item was so yummy and they kept well too.  We did not have a refrigerator in our hotel room so the items we didn't eat right away were just stored in the bakery box. On day three, they were still pretty good.  The brownie even made it back home (with part travel in a cooler) and was amazingly tasty almost a week later.  I couldn't imagine how good it would have been if I was able to eat it the same day!  Here's our goody box:

The rest of the weekend included stops at Giordano's for deep dish pizza (another Groupon deal and it was right across the street from our hotel.. we walked! I got mushroom and broccoli!), Whole Foods for random samplings (I love their hot bar for lunch or dinner.  Gives a great chance to try many foods that you don't usually eat... and so good!), and found a Sweet Tomatoes down the road (if you have one of these in your area GO! Salad Bar Buffet with soups and other yummy food.. such a good deal!).

Giordano's

Salad at Sweet Tomatoes

We landed at a few other stops as well over the five days we were in Orlando.  I'll post more about some of them in a separate post (World's Largest McDonald's and food at Universal Studios).  Overall, again, had a GREAT time!  We ate a ton and really enjoyed ourselves.  I did not get in the exercise that I had hoped, but we did a lot of walking while we were there so I felt that made up for some of it.  I feel like my food choices were for sure those of a girl on vacation, but I was still conscious of what I was putting in my mouth.  The stop at Sweet Tomatoes was awesome and definitely helped flush out all that cheese from the night before at Giordano's.  Hoping to get back to Ethos in the future and will for sure be stopping at Raphsodic next time we're in town... and I didn't stop at just one cupcake... I went for two!

I've got a new fitness / weight-loss / food plan in the works for the next two moths and will keep on my mission of getting healthy.  Which leads me to mention that I think I need to change the title of this blog.  While I was hoping to keep my focus on pescetarianism, things change and so has my life over the last 6 months.  As you've noticed, while my posts still include my pescetarian diet, I seem to have moved forward.  I'm enjoying sharing health, fitness, travel and overall life info with you and I hope you feel the same.