Disclaimer: While Nutrilite is paying the expenses for this trip I am under no obligation to write about the trip or their products. All opinions are my own.

I'm in California for the Nutrilite Sport Blogger Event. Friday was travel day and I documented my day in pictures in Walking Around Long Beach. Saturday was the big day of the event and it would be time to get to work.

We all met at 7:00am in the lobby of the AVIA Hotel, got introduced to our fellow bloggers as well as the Nutrilite team, and then took a shuttle bus to the Nutrilite Health Institute Center for Optimal Health, where we would spend the rest of the day.

The first order of business was to go through a complete health assessment which included a blood draw, blood pressure, height & weight measurements, flexibility test, bone density test, grip strength and body fat analysis. Once all of the results come in we'll each get a custom assessment from Dr. Duke Johnson, who heads up the Center.

We then got together for a nice healthy breakfast (always nice when you truly are breaking a fast) and then were led through a tour by Bob Tully who introduced us to Nutrilite's approach to health & fitness, with frankly only a small discussion about supplements and other Nutrilite products. This would be a trend of the day – I was thinking we would be actively "sold" on Nutrilite products but that wasn't the case at all. In fact a couple of fellow bloggers thought there should have been a little more product education. Through a short video and discussion we learned about Nutrilite's focus on organic farming, sustainability and truly how they focus on improving the communities around their facilities. I thought the story resonated very well.

Next was a session on Optimal Health by Dr. Duke, as he is affectionately called. He surprised us all with a signed copy of his book, The Optimal Health Revolution which is subtitled "How Inflammation Is the Root Cause of the Biggest Killers and How the Cutting-edge Science of Nutrigenomics Can Transform Your Long-term Health." A balanced health approach was the focus of Dr. Duke's discussion and I thought that giving us the book was a great approach because there was so much he wanted to share with us that a 25 minute discussion wouldn't do justice.

If we thought we would get away with sitting in our comfortable theatre chairs just listening to presenters we were sorely (and I mean sore!) mistaken as we were led into some real fitness activities by Diane Paetz, who was without a doubt one of the most enthusiastic people I have ever met in my life. She introduced us to 4321 Fitness and the The 10-Minute Total Body Breakthrough. The concept here is that lack of time is one of the biggest excuses for why people don't exercise and that with only 10 minutes a day you can truly make a difference. The 4321 program is very simple – 4 minutes of high-energy cardio, 3 minutes of resistance, 2 minutes of core, and 1 minute of stretching and deep breathing. We did a little warmup and then went through a simple 4321 routine and let me tell you I was feeling it. If you want to try this for yourself sign up for the Take Ten Challenge. I'm going to give it a go.

After a short break we learned a little more about the science of Nutrilite products with an overview presented by Micheline Vargas and then we got to hear the awesome stories of our special guest athletes, 2008 Olympic women's pole vault silver medalist Jenn Stuczynski and Tom O'Rourke, Masters track cyclist and world-recorder holder at the age of 75. The common thread between them other than they are Nutrilite sponsors? They both found themselves having outstanding success in sports that were not neccessarily familiar sports for them. In Jenn's case she went from basketball to pole vaulting and Tom has a lifetime of stories around his experiences in cycling and skiing – and let me tell you this guy has some stories! I'll buy any book about his life he puts together. I think he toned down some of the stories for this audience – I'd like to read about details of this amazing adventurers life. One tip that Tom shared that really struck home with me was that "if you want to lose weight don't make losing weight as your goal – set a goal related to achieving something else that will naturally result in losing weight." I am definitely going to take this approach seriously.

By now it was around 1:30 and it was time for a healthy lunch and then we slowly made our way back to the shuttle bus to take us back to the hotel. I thought it was really smart to end the day at the Center with lunch – I have been to so many functions that try to squeeze a full day in after lunch and the audience attention span is just so poor in the afternoon.

After we got back to the hotel most of us met down in the lobby for a group exercise time which consisted of a run down to Long Beach (the actual beach) and back. The real runners in the group actually ran, some of us walked, and I hung with Israel and Jeff from Nutrilite and did some running and some walking. Overall it felt great to work up a sweat in such a beautiful surrounding and it reminded me of when I had success early on in my journey and I was jogging in Paris. I need to get back to doing that, although with winter coming up here in Minnesota that will make it tougher.

After a couple of hours relaxing in our hotel we met for the last time in the lobby and took a short walk to Wokcano Asian Restaurant & Lounge for dinner. I had a couple glasses of wine, some nibbles of shared appetizers including edamame, short ribs, chicken satay, scallops and calamari and then for dinner had some miso soup, a really tasty seaweed salad (although Lindsay didn't think so!) and some sushi. I also had to have some of Israel's sweet shrimp. Yeah, I think I ate too much, but not really bad. The big surprise at dinner was when Jenn mentioned she plays paintball at least once a month – although she has to be sure to do it a few weeks before a meet in order to allow the welts to go away!

On the way back to the hotel we stopped in at Cold Stone, and I had a small dish of Mango Strawberry sorbet. We slowly made our way back to the lobby and then said our goodbyes – I think we all had a really great time.

The bloggers:

Jennette – Pasta Queen: a blog about her personal quest to lose weight.
Mark – My Fitness Hut: a blog by a former NCAA Division 1 athlete about fitness.
Roni – Roni's Weigh: a blog by a mom and wife on a quest for Optimal Health.
Evita – Evolving Wellness: a blog about a holistic approach to health and wellness.
John – John is Fit: a blog about one man's journey from fat to fit.
Israel – Fat Man Unleashed: a blog about weight loss with a community of support.
Steve – I Wanna Get Physical: a blog about triathlons and other endurance sports.
Pharmie – RX Ironman: a blog about a Pharmacist and her love for endurance sports.

Thanks to the Nutrilite team for inviting me to this great event!

I highly recommend you check out the definitive guide to guest posting, Chris Garrett's Guest Posting Workbook.

Post from: John Is Fit - Personal Weight Loss Blog

A Focus on Health & Fitness – Nutrilite Sport Blogger Event

Disclaimer: While Nutrilite is paying the expenses for this trip I am under no obligation to write about the trip or their products. All opinions are my own.

Today was travel day for the Nutrilite Sport Blogger Event which means there were no scheduled activities and we were all on our own to do as we pleased.

I had a 9:00am flight from Minneapolis that was totally uneventful, even considering I was carrying on my CPAP machine. At the security checkpoint I was pulled aside by TSA as expected but they cleared me through very quickly without any grief.

At LAX met our driver along with Steve and his wife, who doesn't use her name on her blog so I'll call her Pharmie like she does there. Coincidentally we graduated from the same University and she's a pharmacist (hence "Pharmie") like my wife. That's about where the similarities ended, I'm afraid. They are young, fit triatheletes and I'm old, fat desk jockey. Bleh! But just talking to them about their races got me really focused on need for fitness, so that is good.

After about a 30 minute drive we arrived at Hotel AVIA in Long Beach. Beautiful boutique hotel that only just opened in August. I got checked in quickly, rummaged through a little gift bag that the Nutrilite team left for me, donned my Nutrilite hat and headed out for lunch and a long walk.

As I was leaving the hotel I was flagged down by Lindsay and Andy from Nutrilite and we chatted for a little while. In another coincidence they actually flew in from Grand Rapids, Michigan and I'm going to be flying out there this Monday for business. Small world!

I walked down to the harbor and looked for a place to have a little lunch. There were tons of chains like Bubba Gump Shrimp, Chilis, Bostons, Famous Daves and PF Changs but wanted something I could not get at home so I settled on Gladstone's, which I guess is a small chain in California but I've never been to one before so chain or not it was a good candidate. I had a couple of fish tacos and an iced tea.

After lunch I spent a couple of hours walking all around Long Beach, following a bike path that went up into downtown, then followed that along to the beach and back through the Harbor. It was a great day for a walk. I wore shorts and a t-shirt and the weather was such that probably everyone that was in a similar attire was a tourist and all of the locals were in pants and a windbreaker, but for this Minnesota boy the weather was great.

Here's the Queen Mary, permanently docked at Long Beach since 1967:

At one point on my walk I found myself on Ocean Blvd. Kudos to you if you know without Googling why I tried to see if I could find a 461 Ocean Blvd., but alas I could not.

I really liked this area by the lighthouse where they were restoring some natural dunes and grasses:

Here's a cute fellow. Pelican I'm guessing. Wish I had used my AV setting correctly to get the background blurry though:

I like this more modern view of downtime Long Beach:

I suppose I should show a picture of the actual beach:

Now it's past 7:00pm and I'm back in the hotel room. Have started my fast in preparation for the bloodwork tomorrow morning.

Looking forward to a fun and educational day tomorrow at the Nutrilite Health Institute Center for Optimal Health.

I highly recommend you check out the definitive guide to guest posting, Chris Garrett's Guest Posting Workbook.

Post from: John Is Fit - Personal Weight Loss Blog

Walking around Long Beach – Nutrilite Sport Blogger Event

Disclaimer: While Nutrilite is paying the expenses for this trip I am under no obligation to write about the trip or their products. All opinions are my own.

Earlier this summer I was invited by Nutrilite to a Blogger Event in Los Angeles at the Nutrilite Health Institute Center for Optimal Health. The event looked really fun and educational and included an opportunity to watch a professional soccer match featuring A.C. Milan – having played and coached soccer this is something I would have really enjoyed. Alas, I couldn't make the event fit my schedule and I was not able to go.

But good news! They are hosting another event this weekend and I'll be there at their Sport Blogger Event representing the out-of-shape weight loss bloggers. I'll probably feel a little out of place among a bevy of fitness geeks, but fortunately fellow weight loss blogger Israel from Fat Man Unleashed will be there as well. Although he weighs less than me now so I don't know if that is a good thing or not!

If all goes as planned I'll be putting up some posts with pictures from the event over the next couple of days. I leave for Los Angeles in a few hours and will have plenty of opportunity today to wander around a little bit before I have to start fasting at 7:00 tonight.

"Fasting," you say? Yep – the first thing we are on the hook for doing tomorrow morning at the start of the event is a complete health assessment which includes a body fat analysis, flexibility test, grip strength, bone density check as well as a complete blood draw. I've had my bloodwork done recently but it never hurts to have a second opinion. And the flexibility test is going to be interesting to say the least.

The remainder of the day will be spent participating in a number of presentations on fitness and nutrition as well as a tour of the facility. There are also some joint exercise opportunities scheduled with the day culminating with a group dinner. Then Sunday morning I fly back home.

I don't know much about Nutrilite, vitamins or supplements and I am truly hoping to learn a little bit about how supplements could help me on my weight loss journey. Here are a few things I have learned about Nutrilite so far:

• Nutrilite is the world’s leading brand of vitamin, mineral and dietary supplements.
• Nutrilite recorded $3.1 billion in sales over the last 12 months.
• Nutrilite is the only global vitamin and mineral brand to grow, harvest and process plants on its own organic farms.
• The Nutrilite brand controls the development of its supplements from seed to finished product.
• In 1934, Carl F. Rehnborg sold the first known multi-vitamin/mineral in North America. In 1939, he founded California Vitamins, Inc., which was later changed to Nutrilite Products, Inc. The Amway Corporation acquired controlling interest in Nutrilite Products, Inc. in 1972.
• The Nutrilite brand encompasses more than 200 products including nutritional food supplements in liquid, powder, food bar, tablet, and capsule form. The newest Nutrilite product line in North America is Nutrilite Sports Nutrition, providing products that balance nature and science to fuel the body for peak performance.
• The Nutrilite Health Institute is a collaboration of more than 100 scientists that is led by Dr. Sam Rehnborg and the Scientific Advisory Board to keep the Nutrilite brand on the forefront of innovation and to contribute to groundbreaking nutrition research, quality assurance testing, and new patents to the brand.
• Together with Interleukin Genetics Inc., the Nutrilite brand is a leader in the field of Nutrigenomics, developing technology that enables people to look to their DNA for genetic predisposition to certain physical conditions and benefits of good nutrition.
• The Nutrilite brand is a world leader in plant-based phytonutrient research, evaluating hundreds of plant concentrates each year.
• The Nutrilite brand has been a leader in anti-oxidant research since the 1970s.
• Nutrilite brand products are sold in more than 50 countries.
• Nutrilite is available exclusively from Amway Global Independent Business Owners in the United States and Canada or by visiting www.amwayglobal.com.

I didn't realize until I started looking into Nutrilite a little more that it was an Amway product. I remember years ago I attended with a friend a pitch on becoming an Amway independent distributor but at the time I think it was mostly focused on cleaning products. Whatever your opinions of Amway are, and any MLM company has many a friend and foe, I think you have to give them credit for being such a successful company.

And I will tell you that so far from what I have seen from interacting with their team setting up this event that they do things First Class all the way. So I am excited to share with you what I learn, and hopefully will have a great time out west.

Stop by again (or subscribe!) to check out the pictures!

I highly recommend you check out the definitive guide to guest posting, Chris Garrett's Guest Posting Workbook.

Post from: John Is Fit - Personal Weight Loss Blog

Going to California – Nutrilite Sport Blogger Event

Had a great time in Mexico even though the weather didn't cooperate – mostly cloudy with periods of rain. Still we accomplished what we wanted to accomplish, which was mostly all about just relaxing and trying not to think about all the worries of the world, be they personal or global.

I'd like to say I watched what I ate and drank while on vacation but I didn't. Buffet breakfasts, lunches on the beach and gourmet dinners. Many rounds of fruity drinks that I am sure were very calorie laden. Barely any water drunk. Minimal exercise except for walking along the beach or 5th Avenue in Playa del Carmen ,which is a bit like walking through a gauntlet. Shouts of "Senor Whiskers, good Cuban Cigars here. Ganja? Cheech and Chong!", "Come see my high quality Junk," and "Hey, come over here and let me rip you off" emanated from both sides of the street as we walked through.

The amazing thing, however, is that I come back weighing the same as when I left. Didn't gain a single pound! How does that work?

Good to be home.

I highly recommend you check out the definitive guide to guest posting, Chris Garrett's Guest Posting Workbook.

Post from: John Is Fit - Personal Weight Loss Blog

Back From Vacation

My wife and I are going to Playa del Carmen Mexico through Sunday while the kids are with the Grandmas at Disney World. All inclusive. I'm hoping I don't treat it like a buffet. I don't think I will as I think most of the time we'll be down by the pool and/or beach and I think I'll be able to be OK (I don't want to be GOOD, I just want to be OK). The tequilla may be another matter all together!

Interestingly enough I actually have a bunch of posts queued up so my posting frequency will actually increase while I am away from the computer.

My plan is to blow off some steam and come back ready to get focused.

I highly recommend you check out the definitive guide to guest posting, Chris Garrett's Guest Posting Workbook.

Post from: John Is Fit - Personal Weight Loss Blog

Mexican Vacation

There are two kinds of trips – business and pleasure. Over the last year I have had some success in watching my diet and exercising while on business trips but it's a different story when I'm on vacation.

And I think that's OK.

I suppose it's easy for me to say this given how bad I have been lately, but I don't feel the least bit guilty about not thinking about what I ate or drank or not exercising. This was a vacation. A time to get away from the stresses of life, which unfortunately for me includes stressing about not following a health plan like I would like to be.

I got some good comments on my last post about how I should find little ways to exercise (and I did get a lot of walking in, but that was just because everything is so big), but ultimately I followed Laura's:

I hope you’re having fun in Vegas! I admit I am jealous. If I were you I would concentrate on having fun and not worry about dieting/exercising … but that’s just me.

The good and perhaps surprising news is that when I go to Vegas I don't drink much other than coffee and water, and indeed on this trip I had only one Bloody Mary as the only alcoholic drink I had the whole time. I did do a morning buffet every day but just took one trip and didn't go too crazy. Because I was so busy gambling I didn't eat much throughout the day.

And if my scale is to believed, my wallet isn't the only thing that came home lighter – I actually lost 4 pounds, although I suspect that has something to do with water weight given how dry it was there.

In any case, I blew off some stress and I'm ready to get back at it.

I highly recommend you check out the definitive guide to guest posting, Chris Garrett's Guest Posting Workbook.

Post from: John Is Fit - Personal Weight Loss Blog

Vegas Results

Skiing was great, nice fluffy winter snow up at the highest altitudes although at the bottom things would get a little slushy towards the end of the day.  We had fresh powder almost every day we skied which was great.  I skied OK but I'm still too out of shape, particularly with the altitude, to keep up with my 11 year old son.  My 9 year old daughter was more my speed, where I could get a rest while I watched her go down before following after.  By the end of the trip my son skied a black diamond and my daughter managed a blue square.  I did a couple of double blue square mogul runs that were brutal but overall I skied well and within my abilities – I think I only fell a couple of times.

I am disappointed that I wasn't in better shape in advance of the trip but that didn't impact the enjoyment of the trip, even though the drive was pretty brutal.  We drove 19 hours straight coming back from Durango on Saturday, getting home about 4:45am on Sunday.  And road food isn't the most healthy.  It's not at all healthy, I guess.  But we did manage to mostly stay away from fast food.

I haven't had the time to go through any of the pictures since I'm actually in Chicago for a couple of days – but I'll go through the pics later this week and see if I took anything good.

No broken bones, so no excuse not to resume the exercise!

I highly recommend you check out the definitive guide to guest posting, Chris Garrett's Guest Posting Workbook.

Post from: John Is Fit - Personal Weight Loss Blog

Back No Worse For The Wear

My hotel in Munich is right next to Theresienwiese, an open-air park that is the official grounds for Oktoberfest.  A couple of months late for that festival, I have to settle for Tollwood, a Winter Festival taking place on the same grounds.

Stop reading right now if you hold the least bit of respect for my dietary willpower.

The day started with a small breakfast of sliced meat, cheese, bread and some fruit.  I was too busy to eat lunch which was a shame because our office has a private chef who apparently is pretty good. The smells wafting through the hallway testified to that claim, but I simply couldn't take the time to eat.

One of the guys I was meeting with suggested I go to Tollwood after work as a good place to eat some traditional German food and maybe shop for some gifts.  Since I hadn't yet had any real German food this sounded like a good idea.

I walked around the park for awhile scoping the place out until I visited what looked like the most popular stand of the festival.  It turned out their speciality was Fueurzangbowle, which I believe literally translates to "fire bowl."  The drink takes the traditional Christmas mulled wine up a notch – adding rum and amaretto.  The mug the drink is served in has a lip that looks like a sippy cup or certain commodes and on the lip they put a sugar cube, soak it in some more rum and light it on fire.  You are supposed to wait until the sugar gets all caramelized before you start drinking the drink.

Yowza, were they good.  I could tell right away I should have eaten something first but I jumped right in anyway.  Then later I went back for another.  Merry Christmas!

As for food, I ate the following:

A bratwurst in a small bun.  Actually, I ended up having one for dessert later – it was that good.

3 kartoffelpuffer with applesauce.  These are simple German latkes.  One would have been enough, but the smallest serving was 3.

Something that looked like deep fried flat-bread soaked in garlic (which they call knoblauch).  Really tasty.  After I had walked around the corner still eating it a German woman came up to me saying something excitedly in German which I took to be "oh mein gott, where can I get me some of that?" and I managed to get her going in the right direction without saying a word, which was good since I don't speak hardly a word of German.

A bowl of schinkennudeln, which is flat noodles, ham, onion, garlic and some sort of herb all fried up over an open flame so that some of the ham and noodles are a little crunchy.  I'll definitely be trying to make this one at home.  Just smaller servings.  Their servings are HUGE!

Was that it?  I think it was.  I was going to get a crepe but after watching them being made for awhile I decided it couldn't be as good as the fresh crepes I had in Paris, so I didn't want to ruin the night by eating something I was disappointed in.  Which is how I ended up eating a bratwurst for dessert.

I missed Oktoberfest but the Winter Festival was fun too.  I just hope I don't pay for it when I weigh in this Sunday.

I highly recommend you check out the definitive guide to guest posting, Chris Garrett's Guest Posting Workbook.

Post from: John Is Fit - Personal Weight Loss Blog

Tollwood Winter Festival – Munich

I arrived to a chilly Munich tonight, finally settling into my hotel at about 9:30.  It is noticeably colder here than London (big shock, duh) but I was surprised to see the actual temp is only a couple of degrees below zero – it felt a lot colder than that.

Having run on 3 days in Paris I took a break while in London and did not run at all.  I've planned out a 3.6 mile route for tomorrow morning (via the awesome Gmaps Pedometer) and I have every intention of getting out and having a nice chilly run to work off all the steak pasties, sausage rolls and chocolate bars I indulged on in London.

Nope, I wasn't good.

I didn't go bonkers with my eating, just didn't watch it is all.  And I'm not watching it tonight either having partaken in a beer both on the plane and in my room.  Breakfast comes with the price of the room tomorrow so I'll be interested to see what it is.  I'm in a local hotel, not an Americanized one, so I think it should have traditional Bavarian fare.  I'm guessing sausages.

It's been a long month and I am really looking forward now to getting home this weekend, seeing where I am at on Sunday and then plan out how I will be conquering December.  My travel should be light, which will help.  The weeks around Christmas will make it a challenge.

But for now I focus on Munich.  I haven't been to Munich before having only been to Frankfurt about 10 years ago, so this is new.  I'll just have Friday night to enjoy the city, then it's getting up early Saturday to start the trek home.

I am ready to be home.

I highly recommend you check out the definitive guide to guest posting, Chris Garrett's Guest Posting Workbook.

Post from: John Is Fit - Personal Weight Loss Blog

Safe and Sound in Munich

I lived in South Africa for a year when I was ten.  On the way home we first stopped in Australia for a month and I'll never forget the feeling I got seeing those big American cars driving around Melbourne after a year of not seeing them in South Africa.

I felt a little of the same feelings arriving in London yesterday.

In the six days I spent in Paris I saw a total of two people who were morbidly obese.  Now I am morbidly obese, so I am a good judge.  It isn't like I was looking, but I was if you know what I mean.  And I simply didn't see fat people.  And of course there is nothing saying the fat people I saw were even French.

I went to London on the Eurostar line to the new St. Pancras station, and then took the Tube from there.  I couldn't help but notice that on my first car on the Victoria Line I saw three people who were fatter than me.  I don't know that I normally would have noticed but after spending a week just not seeing it, it was immediately obvious to me.  And then of course I started looking some more and the more I looked the more I saw.

In Paris I saw two McDonald's, a Starbucks and a Quickie Burger in 6 days of walking around the city.  When I got to my destination in London the first 4 restaurants I saw were a Pizza Hut, a Subway, a McDonald's and a KFC. 

Coincidence?  I think not.

I highly recommend you check out the definitive guide to guest posting, Chris Garrett's Guest Posting Workbook.

Post from: John Is Fit - Personal Weight Loss Blog

London Observations

I leave Paris for London this afternoon. I leave Paris happy not only for some great memories of a fun vacation with my wife but also happy for some validation that I am indeed a changed man. I put in over 9 miles over 3 days of running here, something I simply could not have seen myself doing even 4 months ago. This outdoor running has also got me thinking that when I get home I may need to look into getting off of the treadmill and on to the pavement. Sure it's going to be a lot colder in Minnesota than it was in Paris, but I just enjoyed my outdoors running so much more than indoors.

I'm in London for a couple of days and then Munich for a couple of days. Between travel and work I won't have time to do much outside of the hotels so my plan going in is to find places to run outdoors, to stay away from the minibars and to moderate my eating as much as possible. I get home Saturday night and I have already told myself I am not going to step on that scale until Sunday morning's official weigh-in. It will also be time for another progress picture.

As of right now I feel pretty good about what the results should show. We'll see if I still feel the same in a few days.

I highly recommend you check out the definitive guide to guest posting, Chris Garrett's Guest Posting Workbook.

Post from: John Is Fit - Personal Weight Loss Blog

Adieu Paris

We spent most of the day yesterday exploring the Hotel Invalides which includes Napoleon's Tomb and an incredible Museum featuring Arms and Armor as well as World War I and II history.  It was very moving seeing old movies of Charles de Gaulle being welcomed as he strolled up the Champs-Élysées, talking the same walk that I've been running in the morning (which I did again today, my third time since I've been in Paris).

Because we've been so busy exploring it has left little time for proper sit-down meals.  Yesterday was a couple of slices of bread and cheese with a couple of Clementines in our room for breakfast, a ham and baguette sandwich for lunch and for dinner another sandwich from a walk-by sandwich shop.  A few bottles of water and a little chocolate and that was about it.  Not balanced, not healthy but not really terrible either.  Just a lot more bread than I have become used to.

Off to work – this trip changes from this point on.  Hoping I can keep it going.

I highly recommend you check out the definitive guide to guest posting, Chris Garrett's Guest Posting Workbook.

Post from: John Is Fit - Personal Weight Loss Blog

I'm Eating A Lot Of Bread

Paris only made #13 on the list of the World's Most Expensive Cities (with London at #2, great – I'll be there a couple of days this week), but with the declining dollar everything is 50% more expensive, which is really brutal.  Ordinarily we'd do a lot of Christmas shopping on a trip like this but not this year.  European vacations are not good for Americans right now.

So far everything has been going great – we've spent so much time walking around that I haven't had much of a chance to eat poorly, and in fact I have gone out running the last two mornings – a loop of about 3 miles, with a portion of it running up the Champs-Élysées towards the Arc de Triomphe.  So far in my morning runs I have only seen one other guy running, and he also looked American.  I don't think the French have any fat to burn off.

On Thanksgiving Thursday I had breakfast on the plane, which was an egg biscuit, fruit and yogurt.  Then we didn't eat again until around 7:00pm where for Thanksgiving Dinner 2007 my wife and I shared an appetizer of smoked ham and slices of a baguette, then I had a Niçoise salad and a Steak au poivre.  Portion sizes were smaller than American standard.  Quality was superb.

Yesterday we skipped breakfast at the hotel (turns out there is a charge for just the simple breakfast) and ate at a local cafe where I had a 3 egg omelette with ham, which came with a very small salad and a few slices of baguette.  For lunch I had a ham and cheese crepe at a stand overlooking the Eiffel Tower, and for dinner I shopped at a Mono Prix and picked up a loaf of bread, some ham and some cheese, and some fruit (and OK, a little chocolate, but I haven't had any yet).

Enough about me, more observations.  Very few fat people here.  Portions sizes much smaller than American.  Food excellent.  Have found everyone very friendly.  Everything expensive, it's cost me EUR 12.75 so far just to write this post!  I forgot my European adapter and my laptop ran out of juice so I need to use the hotel's business center computer.  Hotel rooms very small.

2 more fun days in Paris before I start work on Monday, then I leave on Tuesday afternoon for London after seeing my wife off to the airport.  It will be harder to keep up on my fitness plan while alone but I'll be working hard to do it.  Running every morning will help.

I highly recommend you check out the definitive guide to guest posting, Chris Garrett's Guest Posting Workbook.

Post from: John Is Fit - Personal Weight Loss Blog

Paris Is Expensive And Other Brilliant Observations

We are staying at the Hotel Concortel on rue Pasquier in Paris. Breakfast at the hotel is a standard continental, which means lots of bread, which I am trying to stay away from.

This is what comes with breakfast:

Freshly squeezed orange juice
Hot drinks
Basket of baked goods (croissants, bread, cake, Danish pastries, etc.)
Possible supplement: free-range eggs, fruit salad, yogurt, breakfast cereals, etc.

Of course the eggs, fruit and yogurt costs extra.

I'm going to do my best to minimize my consumption of "croissants, bread, cake, Danish pastries, etc." which is going to be really tough. And then you've got the quick sandwiches for lunch and all that fresh baked bread for dinner. And the cream, and the fat. Oh my.

Strength.

I highly recommend you check out the definitive guide to guest posting, Chris Garrett's Guest Posting Workbook.

Post from: John Is Fit - Personal Weight Loss Blog

French Breakfast