Saturday, June 28, 2014

Lessons from gaining and losing vacation weight

Three weeks after returning from a gluttonous week with my family in Poland, I'm back down to my pre-vacation weight!

It was an incredibly frustrating time because even though I stuffed myself to the point of extreme discomfort several times, I didn't expect two weeks of vacation (and really only one week of gluttony) to cause that much damage weight-wise. When I got back, my pants no longer fit, I felt flabby, and I was generally grumpy about the state of my body. But in less than a month, I am back to where I started, and it feels awesome!

All in all, it was a big learning experience for me. The fantastic thing is that I know (and am willing to) lose weight when I have a brief relapse. This is even true when I am so mentally done with restricting my calories to ~1500 a day and feeling guilty for indulging in things. I can still go back to that mindset for as long as it takes me to lose those 1 or 2 or 5 pounds, because it's important to me.

Having that skill and will-power is amazing because I'm not so worried about regaining everything I've lost, which was the case for a while. I still haven't figured out the whole maintenance thing (see the next post), so my weight will continue to fluctuate. But as long as I know that I can buckle down when I need to, I'll be okay.

After-all, the fear of gaining back everything that I worked so hard to lose is more overpowering than the desire to eat an ice cream cone every day. That's motivation enough, at least for right now.

Now some wedding reception photos from my trip to Poland:

My cousin, the groom.

I caught the veil, so I won a bottle of vodka. Naturally.

A Polish wedding wouldn't be complete without a self-service kielbasa bar.

The appetizer spread. This does not depict the courses served every couple of hours.

This is why I gained so much weight while in Poland. Meals from 6:45 pm until 3 am.
It set the tone for the rest of my week there.

Pyrotechnics during wedding-cake cutting. The bride and groom look beautiful.

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