A personal training & food journal. Read about our weight loss progress at Train With Ron in Chicago, our nutritional habits and the life changes we're making to get in shape and stay healthy!

Well, I became an uncle for the first time last week – my little brother had a baby… and Monika and I decided to drive back to New York and see the little tyke first hand.  Going back was a great decision… not packing some food for the drive was not.  One of the first things I noted on the highways and byways of the United States Interstate System is that the healthful food offerings are nearly non existent.  What IS offered is food that no human in their right mind would eat if they hadn’t been conditioned to eat crappy food their entire lives.  Fast food is bad, but rest stop fast food sinks to a low that no one should be subjected to.  The best you could hope for was a fruit cup at Starbucks… if they were open when you happened to stop (we did a lot of driving in the wee hours to avoid traffic).

Anyhow, my new nephew was amazing (Anthony Jason “A. J.” Arturi, 8lbs, 4oz.).  All he did while I was there was eat, sleep, poop, and cry… and all of it was fantastic.  What a beautiful thing to see… it really affected me in a good way – to see that amid all the chaos, war, and hatred in the world, something so innocent can still exist and survive if love and care are given to it.

All totaled, we had 5 days off from the gym… Monika was really having some withdrawal symptoms… I did too, the entire time I was there I was feeling ‘I should be working out today’, but I was so busy running around that I didn’t make time for it.  We ate better on the nights we were at my brother’s house (we BBQ’d chicken, dogs, burgers, and vegetables) but I still ate too much on those nights. Plus, we snacked on gummy bears, chocolate covered pretzels, and licorice in the car (all of which I grew tired of after a few hours… but kept eating it because I was hungry and didn’t want to stop for a “meal”).  Today we went back… Monika in the early morning and me at 6pm.  I did some “Pure Steel” type lifting mixed in with a little cardio and handled it OK… I was surprised that I struggled with bench pressing 5 sets of 10 reps @ 145 lbs… I was tossing that weight around like a Q-Tip two weeks ago.

I’m glad to be back home eating healthfully and back at Train with Ron.  Next time we have to leave town in a car, we’ll be doing it with a cooler fully stocked with fruits, vegetables, and other healthful treats.