Full Day of Food.....Unbanded

So for this entry its going to be all about food. I am currently in Houston for a tourney at Rice University. So one of the reason why I was so disappointed with being banded for an extra week was that I wanted to have a week of practice eating under my belt before heading off on this trip. This left me less than 8 hours to see what I could do. Things so far is a lot better than I expected with a few roadblocks.

Breakfast:
We headed for breakfast in the hotel at 9am where we ordered from the menu. At home I do not go for a huge meal and on the road I typically go for the oatmeal or a small breakfast that would sustain me till lunch. I took a gander at the menu and noticed that I would struggle eating half of it until I saw a few items that I do like. I ended up ordering a small bowl of oatmeal and brown sugar, 2 soft scrambled eggs, coffee and a yogurt. Two things to note. This was the first time since surgery that I have had coffee and my stomach isn't used to eating so much foods that I became full fairly quickly. I didn't even touch the yogurt let alone finish the oatmeal. I devoured the eggs. It felt like this was the best meal ever.

Lunch:

We headed to the mall as with most female teams, they want to shop. I went along with the staff and we went to jamba juice. I originally thought that I would grow sick of smoothies since I had at least one every day for 5 weeks. Surprisingly it was ok. I ordered an aloha pineapple with a shot of whey protein and a cranberry orange mini loaf. The task was to see if I could handle the loaf (which was pretty much a muffin in the shape of a loaf). To my surprise, I was able to eat it with minor to no issues. Granted it took about 20min to eat since I had to pinch of small pieces but again it was pretty good.

Dinner:

Since we are in texas, we opted for a good Steakhouse. I knew I wouldn't be able to eat a steak but good thing there is fish. Looking at the menu, I pretty much ruled out 80% of the items. Knowing I wouldn't be able to eat much I had to find things that I would be able to eat and sustain me till bedtime. We were served monkey bread which was very delicious. I noticed that the soft inside portions was very easy to eat and did not require much chewing. I would typically have a salad but veggies would be a nightmare to chew since they aren't cooked so I thought soup would be a great idea. On the menu there was one soup that caught my eye which is the split pea soup. This soup never really appealed to me before so since it said "our famous soup" I thought I would give it a try. I was glad I did. I do like peas and this split pea soup was very flavorful. It came with 4 croutons and I knew I wouldn't be able to take on those so I made sure to soak them in the soup to soften for consumption later. When looking at the menu for the main course, I noticed two types of fish that I was interested in: the mahi mahi and the wild salmon. We asked the server for a recommendation of the two and he opted for the salmon. So salmon it was and it was great. I was shocked at how easy it was to eat. It melted in my mouth along with the side of whipped potatoes. I was in heaven.

An Aside:

During dinner, we had a visit by 3 time olympian (Walton) Glenn Eller. He won a gold medal in Beijing and wanted to meet the team. He actually had the medal with him. The girls weren't impressed with he came to the table as no one knew who he was. When it was announced by the manager that he was an olympian and that he had won a gold medal, the girls went nuts. He had the medal with him and he actually left the medal with them so they could take pics of it and what not. I was surprised that he actually left so the girls could play around with it. After seeing the medal on tv through out the olympics, I must admit it was cool to see it close up.