Facing the Music

As I set off on my vacation, three weeks ago, I felt a little trepidation. Was I going to gain weight, would I manage to keep my weight steady, was there a chance I could actually lose some weight? I got home yesterday afternoon, vaguely wondering when I would step on the scale and get the answer. I decided to take the bull by the horns and do the dastardly deed this morning.

Drum roll......

I gained about 4 pounds.

I am not happy, but I'm not throwing up my hands in disgust. In fact, I feel even more determined to stay on the road I began travelling at the beginning of this year.

So what happened?

First, I'm not terribly disappointed in the way I ate. I still think the attitude shift is slowly taking root. There's a lot less stuffing going on and the "you've had enough" signal is getting louder.

I do think that there was a bit of boredom snacking going on and certainly in that department, I have to be very conscious of how much is finding its way from the trail mix container to the mouth. I don't regret eating trail mix. I do think it would have been wiser to take the handful, put it in a bowl and before eating it, put away the container. A simple lesson learnt.

Then there was exercise--or just plain moving around. This was something I was concerned about before the trip and it did come to pass. My "thing" is walking and it's just a hard thing to do in my cottage country. As I explained before, the roads are narrow and twisty and although traffic is light, I personally felt walking was dangerous. So there was a LOT less walking than I would normally do. Just as an aside: during the two days we spent in Montreal, I walked respectively over 20,ooo and over 18,000 steps--probably a record for me.

I go on a lot about the beauty of the lake and it's all true, but the water was damn cold. I probably missed out on at least three swimming days--days when the weather was good, but I just was too damn lazy to make the effort to jump in the water. Another aside: yesterday morning at 8:15 a.m., while my family was still asleep in our room at the Holiday Inn, I did 20 circuits in the small hotel pool. The water temperature was lovely.

And speaking of things watery, I didn't drink half the water that I consume at home. Why? I don't know. I was just out of my normal environment for a bit too long. This morning, I've already had two large glasses and I haven't even had my coffee or breakfast yet.

So the bottom line is: that's life. I'm glad I weighed myself, despite the results. I'm picking myself up, dusting myself off and getting back on the horse.