Heat Wave, Pedometers, and Sweet Tomato’s

 

Wesley Chapel, Florida (high 75, low 58)

 

This week we may be having some record high (for the date) temperatures in the Tampa area.  Wednesday’s predicted high is supposed to be 84. 

Yesterday was an errand day. 

First stop was Sweet Tomato’s for lunch.  If you haven’t ever been there, you’re missing something.  It’s like a big salad bar on steroids.

While we were in line a younger couple ahead of us really needed to read the book The China Study.

We couldn’t believe what the man put on his plate.  He started with lettuce.  He would have been so much better off with spinach or at least romaine.

Next, he must have put 1 1/2 cups of shredded cheese on the lettuce!  He piled it so high that he had to take his hand and mash it down.

Next was at least a cup of thick ranch dressing.  Then he must have decided he didn’t have enough dressing, so he went back for some more!

We wondered if he thought he was eating healthy….after all he did eat a salad.  :)

As we were leaving, we happened to walk by his table and had to check out what he had on his plate.  This time it was a baked potato (healthy right), piled high with sour cream, shredded cheese, and bacon bits.  This went way beyond what most people eat on their baked potatoes.  He was fairly young and not extremely overweight yet.  Later in day, we saw a man who was probably in the condition this guy will be in a few years from now.

 

Next step was to Wal-Mart to pick up the pedometers we had ordered online.

Sherry and David got these pedometers last year and we’ve been wanting one since then.

The goal is to get 10,000 steps a day.  I hope this helps.

They are Omron brand pedometers.  They measure your calories, distance, regular steps, aerobic steps, and will keep this info automatically for 7 days.  It has a nice holder with a clip, and also a lanyard to prevent losing it if it should come out of the holder.

They were easy to set up with good directions. 

 

Our third stop of the day was to our new fitness center we had joined a few weeks ago.  It was the first time we got to tour the facility, and we had been looking forward to it. We joined by just looking at the proposed facility, as it was still under construction.  It is part of the Wesley Chapel of the Florida Hospital. It’s a 55,000 square foot building.

Our first clue there was a problem was when we drove up. Traffic was backed up and moving very slowly.   We had to wait in traffic for about 30 minutes just to get to a field where we could park.

We were hoping all these people weren’t there for the fitness center.  Certainly there must have been something else going on???

Once we walked over to the fitness center, we saw a line that made me think I was in Disney World during the winter!   It was very long and winding! 

I don’t know why, but we  waited out in the hot sun in that stupid line.  We are normally not ones to wait in line, and I don’t know why we did it yesterday.  After all, the fitness center would officially be opening the next day.

There was a lady in front of us in the line.  Her husband was extremely, extremely overweight and couldn’t stand for more than a few minutes at a time.  He was the guy who I said the man at Sweet Tomato’s was going to look like in a few years.  He must have been about 50.

This guy really had a struggle even standing up.  We must have stood in that line for an hour and  a half and he couldn’t stand up long enough to wait with his wife. He would find a place to sit, come back and check her progress and then go find another place to sit.  He did this the whole time we were outside.  Once we got inside and actually touring the facility, he even had to find a chair when the guide was telling us about the different sections.  He couldn’t walk up the flight of stairs.  I hope the fitness center can help him.

So, that was our exciting day.

We’re on the countdown until we head south to the prairie!  Can’t wait!