Though I secretly wish the weekend had been filled with lots of green beer, it ended up being a pretty good weekend!
It started Friday with a wonderful lunch with Lauren at Whole Foods. It had been quite some time since seeing Lauren, so I was incredibly thankful that she drove and took the metro into DC to see me during my work day.
For lunch we both created salads at the salad bar, mine including romaine lettuce, carrots, roasted butternut squash, steak, blue cheese, balsamic vinegar, roasted vegetables, and 3 pieces of curried tempeh.
To drink, I enjoyed a Bai Antioxidant Infusion. It was avery sweet drink and although it was really tasty, I probably wouldn’t buy it again.
After the work day ended I headed to Bethesda for dinner with Becky at Assaggi Mozzarella Bar.
We started our dinner off with a glass of wine and a salad. The salad was butter lettuce, blue cheese, walnuts, and a lemon vinaigrette.
For dinner I enjoyed the Garganelli pasta. The meat sauce was exactly what I was craving and perfect the night before football practice. I crushed the whole plate, not going to lie!
After a great football practice Saturday morning I raced home and got cleaned up before heading down to the NBC4 Health and Fitness Expo.
Although Neal had been sick all weekend, he was incredibly supportive and came with to hear me speak at the Expo.
When I was invited to Expo as a DC health and fitness blogger I was thrilled to be given the chance to meet more people from the area, to hear their stories, and to be able to share my own story. I wish I could write and say that the experience was everything I had hoped it would be, but sadly it wasn’t. I was disappointed that Diet-to-Go, the company who invited the bloggers, didn’t organize the event in a way that opened up doors for us to be able to interact with those attending the expo.
Thankfully I was able to spend some time with Carly, Sana, and Allison (not pictured)…
And was able to be apart of a panel with these beautiful women!
The panel, which was organized by Diet-to-Go, was a great panel but it was unfortunate that they did not market it or offer it at a time in which more people could attend. It’s tough when your panel starts at 4:30PM and the expo closes at 5PM.
It really was wonderful to be able to speak to those in attendance (thank you so much to Becky and her Dad for attending), but an opportunity was missed to reach a greater population.
The panel gave the 4 bloggers an opportunity to share our stories, to discuss our grocery shopping techniques, and to define what “healthy” means to us. I was really looking forward to answering that last question as I feel our society paints a picture of what healthy is, and to me, it isn’t all that healthy.
When asked what “healthy” means to me I explained that we can’t allow the number on the scale to define us and to keep us from pushing ourselves further. When I walk into a doctor’s office and step on the scale, doctors instantly judge me when they see the number 230 pop up. To them I am obese… even morbidly obese on some charts… but to me, I’m healthier than that number!
I may not be at the ideal weight for my height or even at the weight I’d like to be at, but I am healthy. I workout at least 4 times a week, I play full contact football, I’ve run a half marathon, and all my blood tests (and other tests) come back as healthy! If I allowed the number on the scale to define who I am it would stop me from seeing how far I can push my body.
My hope was that the people in the audience would know that they are not alone and that their bodies can do more than they can imagine. Running may be scary.. but they can do it! Swimming may be tough… but they can do it! Weight lifting may hurt like crazy… but they can do it! I just wanted people to realize that the number on the scale doesn’t have to define them, even if it’s a number they want to change.
I didn’t end up attending the expo today as it was so unorganized, but I am thankful for the opportunity to be on the panel with the other DC bloggers and to have met the other people on the panel.
Today was spent running lots of errands, going to the dog park, and working on a few projects.
It was a weird weekend… filled with a lot of great things but also some weird things. Hopefully a good night’s sleep will have me prepped for the week ahead and I’ll be able to move on from the craziness that was last week.
