lake weekend

After a weekend during which my diet consisted entirely of fried or deep fried meat, fried or deep fried non-meat products, coffee, beer and a high fructose corn syrup containing pop I most definitely needed a recovery afternoon. Since arriving home three hours ago, I have drunk about a gallon of water, heated up some veggies, went for a short run and ate a salad. I almost feel human again.

My grandparents have a cabin on a lake up in Washington. Since my mom was a little kid, it's been the site of numerous family reunions, swim fests and 4th of July parties. Some of them have had upwards of 100 people attend, with a core group of us staying the night, cramming our sleeping bags next to one another's on the basement floor and taking up all the couch and tent space available. One year there was even a live band! These days things are more mellow. The adults go to bed at ten, leaving us cousins to drink beer around the fire for a few more hours.

This weekend, Memorial Day, was really laid back, due to the continued atrocious weather. Above all, this family is known for cooking and bringing massive amounts of food. If it's hot out, we all get a little swimming or water-skiing in (not me for the latter), but since it was cold and rainy, we just ate. Don't get me wrong, it was delicious and I enjoyed catching up with everyone and seeing the little kids, but since I've been more careful about eating only real foods recently, this change of diet and lack of exercise was pretty killer.

Seeing my grandpa carry around his oxygen tank and hearing my uncle talk about having to starve himself into order to make the weight limit for a horse-riding trip he'd planned with his kids made me realize that I need to work on staying healthy, because my genes aren't going to do it for me. I'm better off that most in that side of the family, but in all honesty, I could be in better shape.