Preparing for Italia!

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In preparation for this trip, I have not really done anything differently physically, I feel like I really have not had the time to honestly. I've been trying to mentally prepare myself for my departure just because I've never traveled over seas or been away from my family and friends for 3 weeks. I've been trying to imagine the people and culture and the different things I'll experience while I'm there. I feel like everything is happening so fast I can't believe our departure is finally here. I feel like I am just now getting used to the fact that I will be going to Italy for three weeks. Initially, I was feeling more nervous and less of excitement. Now, I am beginning to not feel as nervous and it is more of a excited energy. I feel like I really haven't been doing anything different physically or with my diet to prepare for Italy. I have been trying to be a lot more conscious of my water intake. I know drinking plenty water is going to help tremendously while we are there due to the amount of the walking and just the different things my body may experience just because of the new surroundings. I am so ready and interested to try the new foods and to eat authentic Italian food. I am dreading trying to get my sleeping schedule on Italy time. I'm hoping that I will not have a hard time and can just fall asleep with ease. My main stressor that I noticed I've been dealing with, and I'm sure others have been dealing with this as well, but is making sure I have everything that I need and want to take with me. I keep getting worried that I'm going to leave something important behind or forget something in Italy. But other than that I am completely excited to be apart of the Italian lifestyle and culture for three weeks.

For the steps study, I chose the week of December 17th-December 24th. I chose this because I knew with the weeks following, I would probably forget to record my steps because of the holidays and preparing more closely for So my total steps for the week of the 17th-24th was 44,369 steps. I'm actually surprised that this is how many steps I had this week because I know I probably don't normally walk 44,000 steps. But with the amount of walking we will be doing in Italy I'm sure my steps will be double that or more.

For my meals, I am honestly not too good with eating three meals a day especially when I am not in school or if I have to be up early for work just because I wake up later in the day and then by the time I eat, I'm really only eating lunch and dinner. But the day I chose for calculating my time for meals was Christmas. The reason I chose Christmas Day is because I knew I would be eating three meals that day because I would be up early enough. So for breakfast, we had breakfast casserole, sausage, bacon, grits and I had some of the breakfast casserole, sausage and grits which probably took me about 20 minutes to eat. We usually don't have a big lunch on Christmas just because we have such big breakfast. So for lunch, I had just picked around at whatever food was finished for dinner. I spent 10 minutes eating that. For dinner, we had ham, roast and potatoes, greens, macaroni and cheese and cornbread. I ate the ham, collard greens, macaroni and cheese and cornbread. I spent 25 minutes eating dinner. In total, I spent 55 minutes eating meals all day in total. Thinking about it, I feel like this is not much time at all to have eaten three meals. I feel like in Europe, they spend more than an hour eating each meal. I'm actually not surprised that the amount of time I've spent eating was only 55 minutes just because of the fast paced and on the go lifestyle we live as Americans. I chose Christmas day as well just because I knew I'd have the most down time that day, and I still only spent 55 minutes eating out of the entire day. I feel like this is honestly low and I could possibly be eating my food to fast. I'm interested to see the different eating and dining habits in Italy. I'm also interested to see if I will adopt those same habits and if they'll carry over even after I return to the U.S.

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