Working Out of Town

Every summer since 2004 I have worked in Central Oregon doing professional development in mathematics and mathematics education. It is going really well and I am having a great time at it. There are five of us over here (2 math ed professors, 1 physics professor, one science ed professor and one math ed grad student). During the morning we do math (problem solving and working up to doing mathematical proof). In the afternoons the science people are doing various physics topics with our teachers (from grade 1-7). I don't know if it is the crop of teachers we have or we are doing a great job in organizing the classes but our students this year are doing so awesome. I have always loved teaching in-service teachers but this summer has been magical. A teacher-educators dream come true as every day is better than the last. I reaffirms my faith in all things educational..:)

ON the food front I am doing really well. I have tightened back up and am back to only being able to eat 1/2 cup of food at a time again. My class schedule means that i have to be in the classroom at 8:00am. I eat breakfast in my room or at the classroom. I eat a packed lunch and then go out to dinner with two or three of my colleagues who are also staying at this hotel. I will list my daily menus below:

Monday-1/2 my sandwich for breakfast (i had to throw away about 1/6 of it because i was too full), lunch was the other half, back at my hotel I had a 100 cal yogurt and dinner was 3/4 cup of Asian chicken salad. I had a screwdriver to drink before dinner.

Tuesday-1/2 my sandwich for breakfast (again threw some away), lunch was the other half. In the afternoon someone got out snacks and I nibbled my way through about 6 of them (bad I know). For dinner I had 1/4 of a southwest chicken wrap thing. That evening I had 4 cherries (any more and I would have stuck).

Wednesday-another 1/4 of the southwest chicken wrap but I ended up throwing 1/2 of that way (challenge-what is 1/2 of 1/4 haha). I got full and kind of stuck and the sandwich was super spicy on day two. I will throw away the second 1/2 tonight. Dinner tonight was a chili covered baked potato and a trip to the salad bar-a waste really on me. I had 1/4 cup of beets, 1/4 cup of peas, 3 noodles from a macaroni salad. By the time my potato came i could eat 4 more bites of the chili and I was done. I took the rest back to my room and have eaten the chili off 1/2 and had a few bites of the potato.

so---eating out with others. Everyone on the team knows I have had lapband surgery except the physics prof. It has been really weird eating such a small amount of food in front of someone who I can tell notices. The math grad student (we have a really good working relationship and flip each other crap constantly) started laughing and gave me crap when I brought back such a small amount of salad bar food. I told him to shut up and if I didn't have a problem with my portion sizes he could just live with it...again the physics professor is clueless about this whole thing. He is totally nice and I would tell him but it is sort of a personal thing and kind of too much information I think....

Anyway as I was paying for dinner the other science ed professor and I walked over to the register alone and I asked her if I should just tell him because i am sure he notices the small amounts (I have had two waitresses ask me what is wrong with my food!!)...I always say it is great and bag it up to take home. She said I should just keep it to myself and it was fine....so I'm keeping it to myself.

Eating out is kind of strange but I am loving the sense of control I feel over my food intake. I am loving that I have so much more energy (I used to be exhausted at the end of a teaching day with swollen ankles). I love it that I am surely losing weight (I am going to have my husband bring my scale over the weekend!).

Up until Friday I was holding my wardrobe to 2 pairs of shorts, 1 pair of capris and two pairs of jeans. Well we are having a heat wave-in the 100's every day and I figured i Had better get some more pants (I have shirts because you can keep wearing them too big). I now have two more pairs of capris.

All in all-life is good....