The Great Road Trip of ’09 has come to an end. I had a fabulous time with my friends, but I’m glad to be home. All told, we drove over 2300 miles – through 10 states – in 6 days. It was a wonderful experience that I won’t soon forget.
Ok, enough of the touchy-feely stuff. Time to get down to business: How successful was I at following my plan? Overall, I’d give myself a B+.
First for the food:
Breakfast each day was pretty good, though not perfect. I did the best I could with the options available to me at hotels. Nothing crazy, and anytime I had something that wasn’t particularly healthy, like a bagel, I split it with one of my friends rather than eating the whole thing myself. I also had a ton of light yogurt – much more than usual – but it was nice to have something cold in all those hot Southern states!
I was REALLY good at every lunch break on the road, too. I had salads with minimal dressing, fruit & yogurt parfaits (love those), good choices at Subway, etc. Since I knew I was going to have delicious dinners, it was easy to make smart choices for lunch.
I was also exceptionally good while we were actually in the car: Before we left El Paso, we went to the grocery store and filled a cooler with healthy snacks – apples, nectarines, baby carrots, bottles of water, and some 100-calorie snacks like cocoa roast almonds. This was KEY and I highly recommend it. It would have been so easy to buy junk food at gas stations on the way if we didn’t have healthy food at hand.
And then there was dinner. Oh boy, was there dinner!
As planned, I enjoyed the local cuisine for dinner in each of the places we visited and didn’t feel guilty about it. We went to a fabulous Mexican restaurant in El Paso, had some delicious Italian in Austin (though I don’t think Austin is really known for their Italian, this place had the best lasagna I’ve ever had), all sorts of tasty creole dishes in New Orleans, and some awesome greek salad and spinach pizza in Nashville. I didn’t go overboard on any of my portions – in fact, we usually ordered a few dishes and shared.
I did more drinking than I had planned on, but even that wasn’t out of hand. A margarita in Texas, a hand grenade in New Orleans, and then a few rum & diet cokes here and there. Nothing crazy.
Now, the exercise:
I’m sorry to say that I never made it outside to run. It just never worked out, for one reason or another. I’m a little disappointed about that, but what can you do, right? That’s certainly not to say that I didn’t work out, though. We made a point to go to the hotel fitness center a few times and get in a real good workout. I love doing a treadmill workout next to someone – I always push myself harder and further than when I’m alone, so that was really cool. I don’t get that at home very often.
Unfortunately, the push ups and sit-ups have fallen to the way-side. I’ll pick that back up this week. I may even repeat the week I completed last since it’s getting really challenging. Did you guys stick to the program while I was away, I hope? If not, start back up with me now!
In addition to the explicit workouts, there was a TON of walking. We walked for miles in each of the cities we visited, and I loved that, especially since there was so much time spent on our butts in the car.
I knew that the real judge of of my efforts would be the scale, so this morning I broke it out, even though I traditionally weigh myself on Fridays. Ready for this?
175!
I find that incredible. Not only did I not gain weight while on a week-long vacation, I actually managed to lose a pound. That just goes to show that if you make a plan and stick to it, you can enjoy your vacation – and your life! – and still meet your weight-loss/health goals.
I just proved it.
