The worst part of being a bartender is that in order to make the most income it makes the most sense to work on the weekend. I have worked at my current job long enough, (will be celebrating my 8 year anniversary on the 28 of this month!) and hard enough, to earn the privilege of writing the schedule for our small work group of 7 bartenders. Because of this I can take off a weekend if I need to, but realistically that is where you make your skills most useful and that is where you bring home the most bacon, in the form of hard, green cash. I get through the weekends I work by reminding myself that you have to work to earn your time off. So Friday Saturday and Sunday night I will be doing just that.
I don't really get in a work out session (training session) during these types of weekends because my job is pretty physically demanding. I'm not a roofer or construction worker by any means, but standing in one place making ohhhh say 750 drinks (??) and smiling and serving the entire time is hard work. Every night there is a 3 hour period where I literally do not get to have a sip of water, which is not the end of the world, because there is certainly no time to pee so it's probably better off. Then when everything calms down, the cleaning and stocking and lifting comes, and exhaustion sets in. The lights turn on and the eyes struggle to close and the hair gets messy. The shoes and socks are soaked because I've been standing in water the entire night and the shirt comes untucked. It's not pretty. Then we count and divide the money and decide whether it was worth it or not.
I traditionally haven't eaten very well on these days. The old 15 lb overweight me... I wake up not hungry. I drink a few cups of black coffee for breakfast. Then a few hours later I eat a filling lunch to sustain me through the 9 hour night shift. Normally this is something like a whole wheat wrap with roast beef and veggies with mustard. I skip the mayo and cheese because I think I was eating light, but I needed the crunchy chips to go with it, and a giant diet soda. Or I have Chinese food with white rice instead of friend rice, thinking that was a "good food choice". After that at work, once or twice I get a terrible hunger pang and run off to the back to stuff bread and butter in my mouth as fast as possible and chewchewchewswallow, so I could walk back through the dining room smiling instead of chewing, then I would get back to work. After the shift is over at 2 am I sometimes have 2 taco bell tacos because I was starving and justified it by thinking I didn't eat enough calories that day (oh and I chose grilled chicken instead of ground beef, that's so super healthy right?...blech!). This worked OK for me for a long time, but once I turned 30 it stopped working and started making me fat, bloated and tired.
New me! Today for breakfast I had 2 scrambled eggs, a quarter of a cantaloupe, an ounce of 1% fat jalapeno cheese and an ounce of turkey breast. And 32 ounces of water. The lean protein will give me the energy I needed to fuel me and hold back the pangs that caused me to crave the bread and butter. I will not have time to eat a good lunch and dinner proportionately because of my schedule, but I have some good protein bars to eat on the go instead of the bread. They provide 12 grams of protein, 12 grams of carbohydrates, 4 grams of sugar, 6 grams of fat, and 150 calories, and they taste just like a Snickers bar. Not a bad snack if you ask me! After work I will need to eat but it will be very late so I will have 4 ounces of chilled herbed salmon, 4 spears of steamed asparagus, plain mixed baby greens and as much water as I can possibly drink, in order to hydrate from my earlier period of slavery.
Once I lose a few more pounds and am at my goal weight I will be able to start adding more elements to my diet, and this blog will help me to stay honest. Also, I will consciously start to try and take more pictures in my daily life and then figure out how to put them here so it won't be so dreadfully boring. Now I have a few precious moments of sweeping dog hair and folding laundry before I put on the ole uniform and smile :)
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