Whew I made it! The husband wanted to spend his last week of post-surgical recovery someplace with a hot tub. The surgeon gave us the go ahead on swimming and hot tub. So.... Thanks to our timeshare company, I found a nice little resort in the mountains of Massachusetts. In addition, it was a short hop to visit his son in Schenectady. We had never visited them before. It was out second week of pureed foods and we would move up to phase 3 before coming home.

The trip was beautiful fall colors, gorgeous rolling mountains and awesome scenery. My concern was ...... how do we manage food when these young folks eat out most of the time? I packed some protein shakes for the day long visit; but the question did arise. The son did not want to eat "real food" in front of us. After some consultation, we agreed on some Chinese take out. The husband and I got a lemon grass soup that was mostly broth. Broth is good.We left the crunchy vegetables. Then we got shrimp fried rice. While the food was listed in our papers as being allowed , I worried that a heavy carbohydrate meal would interfere with my weight loss.

The second trip over to see the son was better diet wise. He cooked us some chicken rice soup, from scratch, by himself. His girlfriend does not like soup. I have to say, he did a really great job. Still lots of broth, heavy on the chicken breasts, and a bit of rice. Great dinner. On target!

The third visit, they came to our resort, and we all went out to eat. This was the first day of phase 3. The menu was really difficult to sort through. My husband and I eventually agreed to split an order of Chorizo Mac and Cheese. Again I fretted the carbs. However, the food was excellent and tasted divine. The son ordered grilled meatloaf and next trip up we are going to give that a try it also looked incredible.

ON the way home we stopped in Rochester area to visit a friend who relocated there. Again we were at a loss for food as he does not even cook unless on a grill and it is a steak. LOL. WE are NOT ready for steak. So again it was order Chinese. Wonton soup and fried rice.

Other than those visits my husband and I stuck to our protein shakes, and meals with plan approved foods. The days we visited, we did lose one protein shake a day as time just did not workout in our favor to consume them. We even managed to only eat two meals those days. Visiting away seems to need more planning to stick to the approved food lists.

Today, I dreaded to step on the scale, it was over a week since my last weight in. I was sure that all the high carb meals would have interfered and I would be at a plateau or put weight on. Thankfully, I managed to lose 1.2 lbs. Not a record weight loss week but enough to keep me on the right direction.

I think being on phase 3 is more forgiving than the pureed phase and might be easier to manage when traveling and eating out while visiting. We do not tend to eat out a lot at home. Prior to surgery our biggest eat out spot was to have wings once a week at a local pub. So it won't be difficult to to maintain our plan at home.

This was our first post surgical outing and while we are fine with our cottage cheese, mashed potatoes, and soups and fruit cups, it seems to make us somewhat of an oddity to our hosts. I think they were more uncomfortable than we were as they could not give us food, or even offer us alcohol. It was good to know we raised the son to be a good host ! Yea! We did something right! LOL.