My answer to the question in the headline above is yes. I’m just back from four amazing vacation days in New York and my first weigh-in this morning since I left home last Thursday told me I’d gained 6.2 pounds.
That’s a lot, granted, it will likely take me several weeks, if not longer, to lose those pounds again. But I think it was worth it. I can’t eat like a monk all the time. Keeping breaks like this weekend to a minimum is important but having one or two times a year to enjoy eating again is important too.
The good news is there wasn’t a lot of junk food involved — until Sunday when chips, butter cookies and snack cakes were the foods of choice as we flew home. Other than that, we feasted on wonderful foods, from sushi to seafood, and didn’t go wild with buttery sauces or other empty-calorie choices.
Some lessons from this mini-getaway for when you vacation:
1. Walking alone isn’t enough to counter increased calorie intake. We walked four and more hours a day all over New York, but ate more. I got out of my usual exercise routine of at least an hour per day on an exercise bike, even though there was a workout room in my hotel. Shame on me for that. Try, try, try to maintain some regular exercise even when on vacation.
2. Use a scale. I didn’t feel heavier, especially on mornings after days when we’d done a lot of walking. But obviously I was gaining weight. Trusting how you feel doesn’t work in my experience, use a scale to keep track.
3. Plan to recover. I expected to gain weight while away and have a plan for getting back into my routine this week.
4. Don’t give up. A gain here and there isn’t the end of the world as long as you don’t give up and go back to old, bad eating habits because of it. Stay with it.
John
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