Well I did it. I went on vacation for 11 days and gained 6.5 pounds and in under 5 days I am under my pre-vacay weight by a 1/2 pound! First of all, I'm so pleased that my "all or nothing " mentality may in fact be changeable. Secondly, I think that the theory of jolting your metabolism to get things going again must be a valid one. The month before we left on vacation, I only lost 2 lbs where as before that I was enjoying an average 8-10 lb loss/month.

My baggy clothes are annoying the **** out of my co-workers so I told them and myself that I wasn't going shopping until I got back from vacation, and when I did get back, I told myself no shopping until I was at my pre-vacay weight!

Happy to report that today I shopped at EXPRESS: woo hoo! I bought a black pencil skirt, size 10 and this adorable short-sleeved blouse (L), and a cardigan (M!). I can't believe my body fits through the doors of that store, never-mind that their clothes actually fit me!!! The salesgirl there was just great too-she high-fivered me when I told her I'd just lost some weight and said she was trying to do the same It just helps so much to have a good salesperson when you have no faith in your vision of yourself or of how clothes will look on you. To top it all off, I found the perfect shoes!

I think that is what I will start doing for every 5 or 10 pound loss-it was so much fun I want to do it again!

Good job on getting off those post vacay lbs. My coach told me that it would probably be mostly water but I will be watching what I eat to a certain extent.
We are going to Punta Cana, Feb 5 for 7 days, any tips on what you ate and drank and what you didn't?

Isn't it wonderful buying clothes in stores you thought you never would fit into... I love it and 30 more lbs to go.

I love this post

Congrats on having a wonderful vacation - and enjoying yourself! Be even more congrats on getting right back to it!

Great job!!

Thank you for the kind words, and as for advice--the one thing I really did stick to was making my splurges primarily on food that wasn't "ordinary." In other words, I didn't eat of lot of stuff like fried eggs, home-fries, breads, pizza-that sort of thing-I almost always ordered poached eggs for b'fast and piled my plate with fresh fruit. And I always tried new things; we went to to Ecuador and the Galapagos Islands, so there was lots of new and exotic types of fruit to try and also a lot of fresh fish, which I love. I even liked ceviche (raw fish marinated n citrus juices) and had it for breakfast a couple of times.

For a few days, I was able to fill a plate with desserts, take a bite of each and then unload the rest on my husband Sweets are my weakness. But he caught on to me, and since they cleared the tables pretty quickly, I just had to learn to hold on until they took my plate of hardly eaten desserts away.

I tried to not to stuff myself. I did that a couple of times and it was a gross feeling and I regretted it. I almost never cleaned my plate. I did drink a lot of booze (it was free!) so I think that's where the weight came from. I tried a lot of drinks I don't normally have, like cosmos, pina coladas, margaritas, mohitos....yah baby!

Have a ball, and if you go overboard, know that it's possible to get back on the wagon whenever you want to, either while you're still on vacay or when you get home!