Thoughts about life, crap, training, and stuff - Road trip edition

It was great to get home to Mississippi and see all of my family, however as the saying goes there's no place like home, and I'm glad to be back in the confines of my cave.

Since I'm running a keto diet/carbnite eating while I was traveling was not very difficult.  However, since for some reason this shit really interests people I will go over how I ate and what I did to stay on my diet.

It's a 12 hour drive home for me, and with three kids in the car I do not drive all the way through.  I generally stop about halfway and we stay for the night.  So I will give you a run down of my eating on the way there, while I was there, and on the way back.

Day 1 Driving - 
I ended up stopping at a Ruby Tuesday's.  They have a salad bar so I ate a big salad with lettuce, cucumbers, bacon, and sunflower seeds with just a little bit of ranch.

For my fat and protein I ordered the dry rub ribs (you don't want sauce) in a full rack, with a grilled chicken breast.  I also had the grilled zucchini as a side.

You are going to notice a pattern of doing this...that is, ordering the grilled chicken breast along with the fatty meat.  This is because generally the fatty meat is fattier than it is protein rich, so I always throw in a clean protein source with the fatty source to either even that out, or get in more protein.

I ate this meal pretty late in the evening, so once we got to our destination a few hours later I just took a shower and went to bed.

Day 2 - Driving 

The next morning I realized I didn't have any heavy cream for my coffee, so I ended up driving to (literally) 4 different truck stops to see if they had whipping cream (Tiff told me laughingly "no truck stop is going to have whipping cream, Paul!").  Of course they didn't, so I just had coffee with sweetener.

On the drive we stopped at a Stuckey's that was just north of Memphis on 55 south.  I opened the door to the bathroom and my first thought was that the Angel of Death had killed 72 people with a urine cyclone.  Let me tell you, the smell of piss and death was so strong that I literally stammered back when I opened that door.  I don't think this bathroom had been cleaned one single time since that store had opened, and I'm pretty positive it was opened by the wives of confederate soldiers.

As I exited the pisser, red faced from holding my breath as I pissed, I ventured over to a glass rack that contained some swords and knives.  Not just any ol swords and knives though.  They had knives that only a deranged serial killer could love.  For example......

should have purchased!

.....yes, they literally had the Cobra serial killer knife.  I was amazed.  So much so, that I almost bought it.  It was only $22.  More than that, I wish I had gotten a picture of this case because the other knives in it were just as ridiculous.

We stopped to eat lunch a few hours later.  This would be my first meal.  It was at a Western Sizzlin, and let me tell you what boy...it was ATROCIOUS.  It looked like the cleaning crew had been on strike for I dunno....they never had a cleaning crew.  If the service was a blowjob, it would have been from a gold star lesbian.

I had about 4 pieces of baked chicken with the skin on it (three dark meat, and one breast).  I also had another big salad.

I called my dad to tell him we would be there around 3 P.M. or so (this was around 12 I believe) and asked him if he had anything to cook.  My dad is a great cook, so he told me he'd have a roast ready for me with some green beans.  Perfect.

Upon arriving that was what I ate.  I also went to the store and got some heavy cream and ran by the GNC to pick u some ISO-100 since I had left my powder at home (you always leave something right?).

That evening Tiff and I went to Ruby Tuesday's (it was right by the hotel, I'm not in love with this place) and I did my same order from the previous evening.  Ribs and chicken breast.  I also had a shot of peach Vodka because I needed it from the drive and from being around 19 family members.  I love my family, but you know how it is.

The next morning, which was Thanksgiving day, I was able to finally have my coffee and cream so I had that all morning for the most part.  At lunch I did Turkey of course, with a mix of light and dark meat and lots of different veggies.  A few hours later I just repeated this meal.

That evening most of the food was gone, and it had gotten late.  It was Thanksgiving day so nothing was open except this one gas station.  So I grabbed some more almonds and some beef jerkey.  Tiff and I did a bodyweight leg workout in the hotel room then I downed three scoops of whey in water with some almonds and beef jerkey.  This meal was terrible and yucky as fuck.

1 carb load in 20 days

The next morning was the day we had reserved a banquet room in the hotel for both of our families to have Thanksgiving together (it was obviously booked for the day before).  So we got up early, and had coffee and went and found a gym.  Snap Fitness was the place, and they had a sign on the front door that said they opened at 11:30 that day, even though it was a 24/7 facility.  That means, 24/7 to members with a card.  So we knocked on the door and a dude let us in, even though that same sign reads "members do not let guests in for any reason".

Pretty awesome.

There was a sign in sheet at the front desk so I asked the rebel's name who let us in, and I wrote us in as his guest.  Hur hur hur.

The biggest db's they had were the 100's so I warmed up and hit those for a set of 25 on db bench, which could be a PR, however I don't always keep up with reps that high or weights that light anymore.  I probably just haven't ventured past the 20 rep mark with these as a default so consider it a PR via boredom.

At lunch I loaded up on white meat turkey and ham.  Three plates worth.  However this was to be my carb up day and the real prize was the lemon cake my dad had made for me, and I planned on eating half of it.  I also grabbed what was left of the coconut cream pie, and a slice of triple chocolate cake.

I waited around until 4 P.M. to get busy on that shit, and I went through it pretty easily.  Since I still had another cheat meal for the day, at around 8 P.M. I rode over to the store and did my usual ritual of eating copious amounts of M&M's.  I also threw in a cookies n cream bar.  Why, I have no clue.  It was atrocious.  I think my thinking of "lean protein with the fatty protein" crossed over into my carb loading thinking.

"Lots of dark chocolate, so get some white chocolate too".

That's all I can think.

The next morning I did my usual coffee with cream and then said good bye to everyone, which for me takes a long time because I love my family so much and I hug them for about 2 hours.  So I didn't get around to eating until around 2:30 or so.  So I got in a long fast, which is fine, and then we stopped at a Cracker Barrel, who just happens to have a low carb menu.  I ordered the ribeye with green beans and a salad.

That evening we stopped off at this town and I actually did not want to stop to eat, so I rolled through KFC and grabbed a big bucket of chicken for Tiff and the girls, which I ate ZERO of.  Mainly because they were out of the grilled chicken, and I mostly detest fried chicken.  Not to mention that a piece of extra crispy has a whopping 17 carbs in it.  Yes I know, I could have peeled off the skin.  Did you miss the part where I wrote that I mostly detest fried chicken?

So I had a shake and almonds.  No biggie, it did the job.  Later that evening I stopped at a Texas Roadhouse, got the girls some dessert and I did the ribs and chicken thing again (I realize now this seemed to be a very constant meal on this trip).  I had a salad as well, because you know, veggies are important.

I didn't eat again until the next morning, which was at a Bob Evan's at around 10:30 or so.  I did the Farmer's Market omelette with two pieces of sausage patties, then headed home.  I had planned on stopping once more to eat however about 90 miles out from the house we ended up stuck in a traffic jam where we didn't move for over an hour.  So by the time we got the car moving again, I did not feel like stopping and just wanted to get home.  When we arrived I ordered a full rack of Chili's dry rub ribs with (drum roll) a chicken breast.

So as you can see, I never deviated from my diet regardless of circumstance or situation.  I can't ever figure out for the life of me, why or how people fret over these things or can't decide if they will or won't train on vacation.

1.  There is always a way to train on vacation if you so desire.  I honestly can't stand the "I'm going on vacation, how will I train....blah blah blah"

I've been on lots of vacations, and never missed out on training because of it.  I generally just get it in and don't worry about a "program".  So I've never been able to figure out why I even get a fucking question about training on vacation.  Either you do, or you don't.  If you do, I've been all over the world, and there's a gym even in the smallest and shittiest of places.  If there isn't (I've never been to a town that didn't have one nearby somewhere!) you can do bodyweight work.  Why, that's really hard to figure out, isn't it?

Also, the guys fretting that they will lose strength while on vacation if they don't train, well you're retarded.  Unless your vacation is like a month and a half long.  Stop being OCD and either take that week off, or just enjoy doing something fun in the gym you find.  Training should always be fun anyway.  If you're someplace nice, get a pump and walk around on the beach for a while.  These are not difficult things to figure out, so these particular questions always make me go "errrr?".

2.  There's food everywhere!  My wife has to follow a very specific diet because of a medical condition and she never has any problems eating on the road or on vacation.  If you eat low fat, it's not hard to eat low fat.  If you are eating keto, you eat fat and protein.  That's not hard either.  So I also cannot figure out why people have questions about how to eat when they go on vacation either.  Either break your diet and just eat whatever, or stay on your diet and make choices about what to eat.  Again, this is not hard, and I'm also befuddled that people send me "vacation eating and training questions".

I will probably carb load this week instead of going the 10 days again twice (though I am thinking about it).  The reason I went 10 days the first time is because of the prep phase, and because I wanted to be able to eat carbs on Thanksgiving.  So I didn't want to eat carbs a few days before Thanksgiving.  So I just went 10 days twice.  No biggie.

Plan accordingly, or just wing it, and don't make a big deal of these things.  A week isn't going to set you back much, if any at all.  I was still able to enjoy my trip and do everything I wanted to do, while never getting off my diet and still got in two productive training sessions.  This stuff isn't complicated.