I was on vacation for a total of nine days, returning this past Sunday.  Yeah, so sue me, I didn’t remember to post yesterday.  Bad me!  I think I was still in mental recovery.  Ever need a vacation to recover from vacation?  That’s how it is around here.

The end of my higher carb eating and laying off exercise was yesterday.  I’m back on strict low carb and calorie counting today, and got myself down to the gym and into the pool for a full water jogging workout.  I’d love to report that both were easy to do, but they weren’t.  I’m having a hungry day, but I’ll survive it.   While I missed exercise, getting through my time this morning was like an endurance contest.  It just seemed like the clock had stopped working.  Still, I made it, and that’s what’s important: getting back to the grind, and finding the groove again.

A good friend of mine and I have talked about how common it is for vacations and holidays to derail weight loss/health efforts.  She’s right on the money.  It’s been very tempting to just look at how I’m feeling at a given moment and think how nice it would be to not have to consider what I’m putting in my mouth or when I’ll be getting down to the gym.

What got me back on the ball, though, is how I feel.  It only took less than two weeks of taking a vacation from discipline for water weight to pile on, which makes my joints hurt and, frankly, makes me feel huge and bloated.  Physical pain made me really not want to go to the gym and exercise; who wants to add more pain to existing pain?  It’s one of those times, though, when you have to get your head in the right place and remember that the symptoms are temporary.  A couple days of dietary discipline will bring back the appetite suppressive effects of eating low carb, and a couple days of exercise, as well as drinking enough water, will help the water weight go away.  (And I admit I was horribly bad about getting enough water in when I was out of town.)

There are times when you have to choose to fake it until you feel better, and admittedly, this is one of those times, but it’s much better to take this path than to decide that life’s just easier when you don’t have to track what you do.  Throwing out accountability is a surefire way to throw out any progress.  What good does that do?   None.  It’s guaranteed to mentally derail you, and then the physical effects of that will soon follow.

I’m glad to be back to the grind.  Also, I’ll be back to trying on my goal jeans this Friday.