Good morning and happy Tuesday friends! I hope you guys are having a good week.
This week I am going to try something a bit different. I am going to go back to my blogging roots in order to help me stay accountable. As you all know, I believe in finding healthy moderation in order to live a healthy, happier life. This week as I am in Cincinnati for three days of business meetings and then heading back down to Avalon for a few more days at the beach, checking in with you guys more frequently during the week, on a more personal level, will help keep me accountable and continue to make strides with this month’s goals of getting back to a place of strength and confidence.
When I landed in Cincinnati yesterday at 12:45pm I headed directly to the Cincinnati Airport’s food court in search of a healthy lunch option. The new Chick-Fil-A Grilled Market salad was a great solution as the fresh berries provide a burst of Summer flavor and the cabbage provides some fun crunch. Even though the salad is only 320 calories, the 14 grams of fat and 26 grams of protein helped keep me full until dinner. Since I knew my afternoon would involve back to back meetings, I grabbed a medium fruit cup to snack on later in the afternoon.
When our meetings ended at 5:30 a group of us walked a few blocks to Igby’s for happy hour with some of our fellow team members. Due to the bar’s large size, we were able to snag a space for our group in the back that made our happy hour feel more like a private party. Their $5 happy hour was the perfect way to end the day and kick off a few days of team meetings.
After happy hour my friend Amy and I headed next door to Sotto for dinner. It’s always wonderful to catch up with my best friend when I’m in Cincinnati for business since she lives and works in our Cincinnati office. Due to multiple meetings and conventions in Cincinnati this week, we weren’t sure Sotto would have any availability. But, luckily since we were a party of two, we were able to sit at their chef’s bar. The atmosphere of Sotto is what I would call intimate Italian chic and the service is top notch. The chef we spoke to from across the chef’s bar was able to recommend a dish from every section based on our love of seafood and desire to sample a few of their signature dishes. We each sipped on their Nebbiolo wine while sharing three dishes:
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Baby bibb – apple honey dressing, croutons, olives, feta, pignoli
- Squid ink linguine – rock shrimp, tomato, spinach, spicy breadcrumbs
- Wood-fired branzino w/ swiss chard & grilled lemon
Unexpectedly, the branzino dish stole the show. I am still thinking about how Bo and I can recreate the flavorful branzino dish at home. The swiss chard was perfectly seasoned and paired perfectly with the lemon branzino. The fish was tender and flaky while the skin was grilled to a perfect level of crisp. While the meal was not cheap, every single dish was five stars and executed perfectly. I will definitely return to Sotto again soon!
By the time I checked into my hotel around 8:45 I could barely keep my eyes open. Instead of staying up and doing work I collapsed in bed. I decided that I would be more efficient after a good night’s sleep even if that meant setting my alarm for 4:45 AM.
This morning I woke up after eight hours of sleep feeling like a new person! It’s amazing what sleep can do for the body. Since my calf is still in quite a bit of pain due to the road rash from Sunday’s fall, I opted to do a hotel room workout instead of running outside. I skimmed over my hotel room workout board on Pinterest before settling on a combination of these two workouts:
I am going to be in non-stop meetings today so my two goals are to stay hydrated and avoid falling into the “meeting food trap.” Our catered meetings at the office tend to have lots of desserts and sweet treats which I would rarely eat during the day. Since I know we have a delicious team dinner tonight, I am going to stick to small, healthy, protein-filled meals throughout the day with some fruit for sweetness.
Your turn – What is your favorite way to work out when traveling? Do you have a favorite travel or hotel room workout?
