No Gym??? No Problem!!!

So much to say really. I just got back from vacation, and I want to talk about so much. I'll try to be as organized as possible (for me).

My eating was pretty good for being on vacation. I had one semi-major slip-up, a couple not so great choices, but several good choices too. As far as exercise goes, I think I did quite well. I didn't have access to a gym, so I improvised.

• Day 1 - Ludington: swimming and sprints on the beach of Lake Michigan, lots of walking.
• Day 2 - Sleeping Bear Dunes: miles of walking trails, climbed up and down the dunes (quite a workout).
• Day 3 - Old Mission Point (Traverse City): miles of walking trails, climbing rocks.
• Day 4 - Tahquamenon Falls: miles of walking trails, walking the sandbars of Whitefish Bay (Lake Huron I think), lots of steps, swimming in hotel pool.
• Day 5 - Pictured Rocks (Lake Superior) & more waterfalls: miles of hiking trails, lots of steps.
• Day 6 - St. Ignace & Mackinaw City: Not too much exercise to report here. Just normal walking.

Before I left, I had a nice weigh-in of 137. That was only one day though. I would say that I was averaging about 140 before that. I weighed 139 when I got home last night and 138 this morning. I expect that number to go down now that I've returned to normal eating too.

I really stayed on track nicely the first couple of days. We had a cabin with a kitchen, so I was the one that was choosing the meals for everyone. Once we started travelling more and eating at restaurants, it got a little bad. Not awful, but not great. I was kind of justifying it because of all the physical activity. One thing that really kept me from completely caving in was this question I kept asking myself: Will it be worth it once I've returned home? The answer was almost always "no" of course.

What I really wanted to talk about today is the physical activity. It was a lot of stuff considering we had 4 kids with us (ages 4 - 9). What troopers...miles and miles of hiking at a time. There really was very little complaining...considering.

I'm so happy that I had the desire to be very active on this trip. In years past, I just wanted to sit around and relax. Relaxing is nice, but this year I wanted to move move move. I'm also happy that I had no trouble with the activity. All of my hard work over the past year really prepared me for it. I remember getting winded climbing up some stairs on our vacation last year. I told my younger brother and sister then that I would be flying up them by our next vacation. We didn't have the same stairs this year, but I ran up many flights of stairs when visiting all of the waterfalls this week with little or no difficulty.

I'm very happy to report that I wore less clothes this year than in years past...tank tops, sundresses, swimsuit... This definitely made vacation more fun and easier for me to want to be active. I went swimming on the beach and in the hotel pool...with OTHER people there. I wasn't embarrassed in the least bit. I know that I would ultimately like to lose another 20 pounds, but I still think I looked fine or maybe even good...which is fine with me.

Above everything else, I think I was fun this year. I wanted to get out and do things and not just sit around. What a great time. We got to see and do so much. Michigan really has so many beautiful things to see if you've never been here. We never get sick of it.

One last thing to note. I have bruises. They feel like little badges of honor...evidence of an active vacation.