Rebuilding

If you've been with me long enough, you know the drill.  We went on the big vacation of the year and ate like they were putting a mid-month ban on sugar and big breakfasts and we were storing for a lifetime of "remember how GOOD that was?"  This one was particularly bad because after months and months of running myself into the ground mentally, lack of sleep and doing work that basically isn't going to get me crap...I was done.  I was done trying to find time to fit in one more thing and that included a 30 minute workout even when we had the time some days and the space to do it.  (Our rentals are not always conducive to formal exercise like our Vermont Christmas cabin where every square inch was taken.)  We brought our exercise bands and I brought my balance board for PT and the board saw the light of day once.  But it didn't matter because I was done micromanaging myself and frankly didn't care about the consequences.

Yep, we're paying for that 17 day break big time.  We both agreed stepping on the scale would be a mistake of epic proportions and we were not mentally ready for that number.  What a scale thinks of my sodium bloat and immediate weight gain is not my business...getting BACK to regular habits is.  I don't know that I've ever had my body change so rapidly but yeah, I take full responsibility for every pound I gained.  For every bite of penuche fudge, every lobster roll and just generally every time I said "eff it."  It can be hard to come out of that mindset but thankfully I recognized the urge to skip our first workout back as an addict's mind and we did two laps around the neighborhood.  We usually do three for a 3 1/3 mile walk but neither of our bodies were havin' it.  It was a start.  The next day we did our first strength and it was just a 30 minute WATP Firm session.   (affiliate link) Well, I forgot how many squats she does in that thing and I was pretty wobbly the rest of the week.  My inner thighs were on fire.  We had to, of course, scale back the amount of weight we were lifting and I'd just reached a personal best before we left.  I'll be back there soon.  When I approach the first week back food wise, basically anything I eat will be WAY less than on vacation days.  So I might sneak in a full PB&J on 2 slices of bread instead of open face.  (Scandalous!)  I know that coming off of full sugar basically every day means if I quit it altogether, I'll get headaches really bad and I did the first day so the next 2 days after we had some form of sugar like a candy bar or something and it staved off migraines and then we were fine.  I don't track my first two weeks back ever because I've eaten what I do for enough years to know what is normal.  It's about getting back into that habit of reaching for fruits and veggies at every meal and getting in a decent amount of liquids, etc.

By the following Sunday's workout, the soreness was almost gone and we had some PT sessions under our belts and had worked back up to our 3 laps even though the bods doth protest too much. We could feel our stamina returning as we did our 3+ mile walks a little easier and WATP 3 milers when it wasn't feasible to be outside.  Our goal the 2nd week was 80% on the workout front because trying to jump back in where you lead off is just asking for injury and I'd like to have a year without that, please.  Food wise, everything had turned back to a little more normal.  "Extras" were in the form of lite popcorn or hot tea when the urge to munch hit.  Though I admit we had some ice cream on Memorial Day because we just never do because we're always so friggin' militant.  So that was our one sweet last week.

This week, we're aiming for 95%-100% on all fronts.  Exercise has been about throwing in the harder stuff to get our bodies used to stuff like kettlebells and Turbo Fire and stuff like that.  I'm looking forward to getting back to my pre-vacation strength strides sooner than later but still need to carefully test my limits.  I've got paddling season upon us and pulling a shoulder or something isn't on my to do list.  I'm not going to sit here and say "we'll never do THAT again" because I used to say that and I know it's a promise I probably won't keep and I'd rather be real with myself.  Some vacations are worse than others on that front and I know if we're gonna play, we're gonna pay.  The tragedy would be gaining that weight and then going full lazy and never getting back to our routine.  Not happenin'. So we're in rebuilding phase and we've both agreed that we're not going to give a crap about the scale until/if we feel comfortable.  Honestly sometimes I wonder what the point is anyway.  I am one of those people whose moods are greatly affected by the scale and that's not good.  It sometimes makes me feel like all of the work I did was for nothing or I'll feel like it'll give me a license to go nuts because why bother?  I know, screwed up.  So yeah, we'll see.

Do you get right back to your routine if you take a break from it while on vacation?

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