So unless we aren’t friends at all on any social medium, you may have noticed my awesome amount of statues from New Orleans this week! Megan had a conference in the Big Sleazy so I had to tag along for the ride. It was ridiculous on multiple levels. I had a blast walking around the town, checking out the street art on Jackson Square, exploring the little stores in the French Quarter…and then eating. So much eating.

Here’s what I learned on my trip…

Beignets and I have got a groovy kind of love. I ate them three times this trip…every morning. It’s hard not to just go down there and just soak up that quintessential New Orleans experience. There was something so calming about walking around a city before it wakes up, before it becomes the tourist trap that it kind of is. It was a delicious decision every morning to get powdered sugar all over your clothes while reading the local weekly newspaper and slowly drinking a cafe au lait in hopes that you wouldn’t sear off your tastebuds.

I’m more adventurous with food now than I have ever been. Although I think it helps that I was actually somewhere that deserves the label “a foodie town” (unlike Tallahassee…no offense Tally.) I tried some pretty exotic stuff from head cheese (Wikipedia it and the first sentence involves the term “meat jelly”) to rabbit jambalaya. Oh yeah… and smoked duck quesadillas, pork belly sandwich, pancetta mac n’ cheese and even duck confit ravioli. Like the beignets, it was hard not to just go nuts and try everything and anything that sounds rich and delicious.

Working out in a new city and while on vacation is a lot of fun! I’m going to do a big post about this later this week or so, but I still put 30-40 minutes in to exercising a day in to the hotel gym and running around the city this morning (although there is seriously nothing grosser than taking in a deep breath while running and inhaling the stagnant scent of last night’s vomit.) Granted I needed to spend about an hour or so more in the gym, but I still easily walked a good 5 miles a day around the city.

I have some awesome fans in Austin! I met up with Megan’s best friend Bethany who goes to school at UT which is where I met Heather. Come to find out Heather and her awesome co-workers at Capstar Parkers are big fans of the blog and have been doing their share of SAWSing it up and losing weight like ballers! It was so encouraging to know that I am hopefully helping people out there in the blogosphere! It really makes me want to be a more consistent blogger and to be more accountable because that’s what this blog is about. Thanks for reading Heather and gang! The next time I’m in Austin, let’s go for a run!

So I have no disillusions about how my weigh in is going to go on Tuesday. It’s going to be rough. But I learned from this trip about the importance of “treating yourself” when it is warranted. I truly feel like I would have missed out on a lot of the New Orleans experience if I hadn’t tried the local food which in this case is rich and delicious. On the other hand, eating stuff like cookies and a whole bag of chips isn’t treating yourself, it’s cheating on your diet and cheating yourself out of a healthier life. This trip made me want to be good so I can explore and try unhealthy stuff like on this trip. See ya tomorrow.