Going on Vacation

47.8 pounds to go

Maybe two of everything.

Going on vacation is a wonderful thing - I love to travel so I start my countdowns to vacation days far, far in advance.  In the past I would get even more excited because this was the time that I could eat everything in sight without guilt!  Meals out all the time!  The food!  The fun!  Back then I wasn't doing any sort of tracking with my food intake or my weight, so who gives a shit anyway?  I got to extra-indulge in something that gave me great pleasure.

The last time I went on vacation in August, I was a little more nervous.  How was I going to make it through all those restaurants?  Resist dessert?  The extra drinks?  Around every corner there seemed to be another gourmet hamburger that I had to put in my face.  Stat.  Plus all the "free" drinks while playing penny slots and poker?  Nervous rose to a new level: "oh shit, I am going to gain weight."

Now that I have more healthy days under my belt (239 days as of today) I've had about 5 more months of practice since Vegas to pick better foods that make me feel full.  I didn't feel nervous on the days before we departed for Sedona two weeks ago (hence the mini break from my blog), I felt even more excited than usual -- the fear was gone.  I had a plan.  Now, let me share my plan with you to take the food stigma off vacation days.

Here's it is at a glance:

1) First thing's first.  Don't stop counting calories.  Myfitnesspal will travel!   Knowledge is power.

2) Try and keep your regular eating schedule going.  Eat when you normally eat.  Eat the caloric chunks you normally eat.

2) Stock up on breakfast.  

3) Buy healthy snacks to keep in the car / at the hotel. 

4) Research the restaurants in the area before you depart.  Remember that it is not mandatory to eat out every meal.

5) Plan adventures.

Now let's break it down.

Calories.  

(Groan.  Just get it out there now.  Someday you'll get over it.)  I don't have stigma attached to calorie-counting anymore, it's just part of my daily routine.  I have previous blogs that go into more detail on how to use the MyFitnessPal app, so I won't do it now.  It is vitally important to keep tracking, and keep tracking honestly.  It is very easy to have a gorge day and say "well, I ate the cheesecake, but I'm not gonna tell anyone about it so technically, it's not on the record.  No one will ever know… except the scale.  Better to fess up and put it in there, because the only person you can hurt is yourself by keeping secrets.  Plus, you'll probably forget about the cheesecake and say "wow, I still have 500 calories left, what else can I eat?  Mmm, strawberry lemonade champagne cocktail.  Two please."  I've recently discovered there is a function in MyFitnessPal that says "quick add calories" which is dangerous.  It's like shopping for hotels on hot-wire.  I'm pretty sure this 2 star hotel I'm getting for $15 a night won't have murderers lurking in the parking lot.  Then you arrive and it's not murders, but an army of angry teenagers popping wheelies right next to your window.  Or you're next to a bomb-testing site.  Or you're 50 miles away from the area you thought you would be staying in.  You get my drift, you get what you pay for.  If you quick add 1500 calories and label it "unnaturally large monkey-pig-out session" it was probably more like 2500 calories.  It's better to line-item your food.  Think of it as confessional, once you get it off your chest, you can look at the real damage and asses how good / bad it was.  Most of the time it's not as bad as you think, and as an added bonus you don't have to keep feeling endlessly guilty for something you won't admit the whole truth about.

Stick with your schedule.

I am a die-hard advocate for being a creature of habit with food.  You could set a clock to when I eat during the work week.  In the morning I get up and have a cup of coffee on my patio.  Then on my drive to work I eat a banana and sting cheese.  I have another cup of coffee at work.  I walk to lunch between 11:30AM - 12:30 PM and keep Rubio's in business.  (Lots of good salad choices.  90 calories burned with walking) Then I get home and have 600-750 calories left for a decent dinner.  On the weekends it's a little different.  I sleep in.  I have two cups of coffee on my patio.  I have breakfast late and eat something more substantial, like eggs in a basket and potatoes (495 calories).  Then I exercise and have a bigger meal for dinner followed by snacking (hello Trader Joes espresso pillows and carmel wedges) because I have a substantial bank left.  When I go on vacation, I'm on the weekend schedule everyday.

Breakfast

Any nutritionist will tell you "never skip breakfast!" And I concur.  If you don't eat it, your'e going to be starving later and set yourself up for a gorge-sabotage at lunch.  Whenever I go on vacation, my first stop is at the grocery store and I stock up on what I normally eat for breakfast.  Plus real coffee because hotel coffee tastes like an elbow.  As Mike would say, "well, it's hot.  That's all it has going."  It's also convenient for when we're sleeping in and lazy to have something to nibble on in the morning, that way I'm don't become a raging tiger that roars "take me to lunch, I'm ready to eat your arm!"  I can truly enjoy the lazy mornings on the patio.

Healthy snacks.

At that first trip to the grocery store, buy the snacks you normally indulge in.  Since I'm gluten free I have to get creative.  I like veggie stix, veggie chips, kettle corn and cheesy poofs.  Also chocolate -- you have to be selective and find the low calorie portioned ones instead of a wonking 5 pound hershey bar.  My favorite choices are trader joe's espresso pillows, carmel wedges and powerberries.  They come in small portions so I can eat a few and be satisfied while only spending 60-100 calories.  This time around I didn't realize how much chocolate I eat during the week because by day 3 I was super-craving it and took a desperate trip to the vending machine in the ice-room.  I got a hershey chocolate bar that was probably aged 16 years.  Not good.  The other thing I like to buy at the store are "emergency protein bars."  I keep them in the car or my purse for when we've been roaming around all day, and maybe it hasn't been a good stick-to-the-schedule day.  That way I can bust open the wrapper in case of emergency.  Discovered Odwalla's chocolate peanut butter ones.  Divine.  Had to eat it mid-hike when the travel guide lied and said "5 miles round trip" when really it was 5 miles each way.  As a side note, I typically stay away from calorie-packed snacks like full fat potato chips, crackers and any sort of dip.  Even the healthy ones like hummus because once I start it's hard to stop and 1500 calories later I feel beyond guilty.  I also enjoy a bubbly and flavorful beverages.  I could write an embarrassing love letter to the makers of Fresca.

It's named for its awesome caloric properties.

Research Restaurants

This is something I did for the first time this last vacation  Typically I get there and just hope for the best.  This time around I took a look in the guidebooks and it was full of restaurants labeled "bistro!" and "fresh!"  Even a pizzeria that served gluten free which I got totally excited about.  I figured it would be easier than usual to find choices that adhered to my calorie count.  It's always good to check in advance - when we went to Zion for the first time a few winters ago the choices were staggeringly limited.  Half the restaurants were "closed for winter" the other half were greasy spoons and sports bars, so I ate my fair share of monster hamburgers (delicious, I'll admit) and dripping hash browns.  If your destination is podunk USA, you may need to shop in your hometown and bring a cooler filled with healthier options.  Once you get there and have to pick the items off the menu remember the standard tips: make sure there's vegetables in your meal.  If you get a salad, get the dressing on the side so you can control the calories.  If it's a major splurge just eat half of what's on your plate.  Once you're done eating half put your napkin on it.  Force the waiter to take it away.  A chunk of meat plus a side of vegetables is surprisingly low-calorie, so you can go to a fancy restaurant and get the steak dinner sans guilt.  However, if you eat a starter salad, 20 ounce steak, bread, dessert and two glasses of wine with it there will be trouble.

Brunch is also easier to pick healthier choices.  Omelets are good.  Ask how many eggs are in it so you can get an accurate count.  I love eggs over-easy with potatoes which I eat all the time, and could get at restaurants easily.  Then there's eggs benedict which isn't so hot, but I had a few times.  (I just didn't eat the muffin and only half the potatoes) Hollandaise sauce should be illegal.  I think I'll bathe in it.  

The other thing with restaurants - not every trip will be well behaved.  I've over-indulged and that's ok.  Back to article A, just fess up so you won't be surprised later.  On our road trip out there, I had Jack-n-the-Box for the first time in a year.  When I started gaining weight again about 8 years ago he was one of the major culprits to my demise.  I couldn't get enough of the french fries dipped in the ranch sauce.  And you can bet it tasted just as good as I remembered it.  It felt like I was eating crack.  The minute I finished I had the urge to order 3 more sides of fries or just drink the sauce.  Get me away!  The next day I was rewarded with the inability to shit, apologized to my body and promised to eat a vegetable.  That night I had the most amazing spinach salad with roasted salmon with chipotle ranch dressing and it tasted SO much better than the fast food.  Plus it didn't trigger the dangerous "keep eating or else" button.

Plan Adventures

This is a guise for exercise.  Tricked you!  (you bitch.)  I'm not an over-scheduler before I go on vacation.  Some people have long, complicated itineraries when they get away which takes away from the real purpose of vacation: relaxation.  I typically like to go places where there are lots of hiking options or activities.  I'm also known for over-spending on guide books.  That way each morning I can drink my coffee, peruse the guidebook and say "look Mike, Bell Rock is supposed to be a vortex.  Let's go there and get woo-woo'ed."   Then we go.  Each day is an adventure and I can do whatever I want.  Even if I'm walking around leisurely for an hour or two, I'm banking up 200-400 calories I can use later. (Hello champagne cocktail.)  Then if it's serious, we're talking about a 1200-1700 calorie bank range.  The great thing about huge adventures is that you get to see something you'd never typically get to see, and then later you can have that one massive gorge session (if you want) completely guilt-free.  After the trip to bell-rock which turned out to be an 8 mile hike plus spelunking, we ordered a pizza to go and pear gorgonzola salad with raspberry dressing from the gluten-free pizzeria.  Then we picked up our favorite Kona beer (Pipeline porter.  Coffee + beer.  Amazing) turned on The Dark Knight Rises and dug in.  Fucking delicious feast.  Plus, who doesn't like to yell at the TV while eating cheesy pizza?

As you can see, I still have a love affair going with food.  I think the big change is that I pick the things that I like and just really enjoy what I get to have instead of worrying about the massive quantities I can squish in my face.  Feasts taste better when I've earned them, and in the end I don't feel deprived because I choose the full fat dressing - I just use half of it instead of eating a salad that tastes like it's been wrapped in plastic sauce.  When I'm on vacation I'm still making an effort to care about my food choices and it gets easier with practice.  This vacation was beautiful, plus I lost two pounds which made it a stunning victory in my eyes.  And I got the best birthday present ever - the man I love asked me to marry him.  Life is good.