Vacation and weight accountability

Yay, I am on vacation. Boo, no scale. The scale is one of the key tools that helps me keep on track, as I weigh each morning. I find myself hungrier on holiday, maybe due to more activity? But also, I have less control over my diet, since we are cooking and eating as a group. I'm scared that I may have gained here. I'm trying to be super cognizant, weighing etc, but it's tricky. I'm also afraid because my loss after one year has stopped, and I have read that people often have a small regain after that point. Guess this is a good experiment for me, to see how it is to live in maintenance but it is really scary!

It's good to be cognizant but don't drive yourself so crazy you don't enjoy your vacation. There are many factors to weight gain over vacation and it doesn't mean it's permanent.

I went to Hawaii last year and was up 8 lbs on the scale when I got home. It was gone in 3 days. Travel, eating different food than normal, lots of things can make you retain water not fat and throw the scale off.

When I eat different foods, I hold onto that food a bit longer I am finding out. Particularly carbs. I'm not as low carb as others, but if one day I'm 25 carbs and the next like today I'm at 50 it looks like my body greedily hangs on to them a day, or two and lets me go into a full blown anxiety attack before letting them go and then some. Don't worry about eating different on vacation, as long as you're ready to get back on track when you get home it should all even out. It's amazing that you're trying to even weigh food on vacation though! That's great :)

this is true water weight. When we eat carbs our body has to hold on to water to process the carbs.

When it is done processing, we drop the water weight.

Min your case, eating extra carbs one day makes you hold more water than usual and you see the results on the scale. It takes about a week for the body to process the carbs, then it releases the water.

It is taking some fixing in my head to not let those fluctuations really ruin my day!

This stuff is all day by day, but it is also long term. Most days I am at or below my calorie allotment. So if I have a day or two where I am above, and I gain a pound or two, I don't sweat it. I know I'll get back to my usual plan soon enough. So far, so good. Today I am at my lowest weight ever - 19+ months out, and coasting along in maintenance.

I try to eat wisely when I'm on vacation, but I also tend to walk a LOT, so I figure that these things will even out. I've also learned that vacation weight isn't "real" weight and it comes off quickly. It tends to be from weird travel swelling and eating foods with more sodium than I tend to eat at home.

After 10 days of ice cream, chocolate, marzipan, and laks while in Scandinavia, I gained 3.5 pounds.

I'm being careful-ish, and still skipping most bread, pasta, rice etc. and anything using white flour. I made a berry pie, but didn't try it. Still, I had a breakfast tortilla which was a wheat wrap, and sautéed vegetables and eggs, and a little cheese and meat. More than I would usually eat tho.....

i am walking a lot so that is good!

On vacation, I normally try to go from eating 5-6 meals to eating 2-3 so that when I inevitably eat higher calorie foods or different foods than I normally would I'm not compounding that by also eating the snacks I normally do.

Focusing on Lean & Green at most meals helps keep me focused. Or being conscious about the portion sizes. Water & walking also!