Vacation - We're Supposed to Have Fun, Right?

Last week I was on vacation, and that is dangerous territory for a girl like me. I am knee-deep in a major fat-loss effort, and between my birthday and my annual voyage to a family reunion, my progress is being thwarted right and left. It's frustrating, but being on vacation gave me a chance to stretch my creative muscles and test my will. I decided to do an experiment - the first vacation where I don't arrive home feeling like I need to detox because of all of the "vacation food."

You know what I mean...everyone relaxes the rules on vacation. The last time I engaged myself in vacation food, my husband and I went on a mission to sample every pint of Guinness and every cheeseburger in Boston. And one morning last week, I let my son eat cookies out of the box before breakfast. They were organic whole grain cookies, but cookies nonetheless. So vacation can be a bit of a landmine if I am not careful.

I put vacation in the same category as treats. If the whole point of going on vacation is to relax and unwind, why end up at home feeling like a big greaseball because you convinced yourself that indulging in high-calorie/high-fat food was something you were entitled to because you are on vacation? It depletes my relaxation, erases the vacation, and generally makes me more stressed than before I left.

Everyone knows that eating clean on a road trip is hard, because your schedule is all wacky, and also because my husband and I are total fast food snobs. As in, we don't eat it. Even the "healthy" stuff. And after this trip, Cracker Barrel is also off the list (it's a long and uninteresting story so I won't bore you with it here).

So I started my experiment on a Sunday, and by the following Sunday I had failed miserably. I still ended up at home feeling like I needed to detox my system to recover from vacation food. Do I regret it? Ummm.....not sure. I probably didn't need to go to the ice cream stand three times in one day (people kept inviting me! I was just being polite! And one time I got yogurt!) and there were some definite times when the healthy option was right in front of me and I reached beyond it. But all in all, I think I scored about a 75%. I could have done better, and I could have done worse.

Either way, I'm home now, revitalized, and ready to pick up where I left off. Going for a run and hitting the weights felt so great after a week away, and hearing a chorus of "welcome back!" and then my trainer's voice saying, "I'm out of town for the next three workouts," brought me back to reality. There is work to be done, and I need to show up.

I always think a week off is going to be so great, and it is. And then I come back and wish I hadn't taken it off because now I am behind. But it's not a big deal; on every road trip, there are rest stops. Now I'm refueled and back on the road.

Wait a second? Did I just say "it's not a big deal?" Did I just downplay a week of slothdom and trips to the ice cream stand? Did I just express contentment with a C-minus?

I must still be on vacation. :)