this week’s goal: lose weight on vacation

Vacations for me have always meant eating in excess, indulging in every food that is not part of the Canada Food Guide’s 4 food groups, and packing tons of workout clothes only to wear them once (or not at all).  Tomorrow I head across the country to visit family for 8 days.  I’ve worked way too hard on both eating clean and exercising 6 days a week to let it all go. I want to step on that scale when I return home and see brand new numbers I’ve not seen for over a year.  So to try to set myself up for success, I have already asked my sister to find me a 14K route in Toronto to run this weekend as part of my half marathon training.  I also asked my bootcamp trainer to send me a list of things I can do in a hotel gym every day and I committed to running the hotel stairs on one of my days.  I also told my friend I would email her every day after my workouts and to expect news from me daily about what I’ve done.  I’ve never done this much thinking ahead about how to stay in shape on vacation so this will be a little experiment.

I have to say, this week I have felt amazing.  Finally, 3 weeks of working out 6 days a week, drinking 3L of water a day and some serious carbohydrate cutting are paying off.  I’m down 4 pounds in 3 weeks which is an indicator of things heading in the right direction, but what is even better is feeling so much more energetic.  Usually at bootcamp or run clinic when I hear, “let’s run up the side of this mountain…for the 6^th time!” I think, “Oh God, I can’t, I’m about to pass out.”  I don’t know if any of you have run or worked out to the point of tears where all the voices in your head that tell you you’re tired, you can’t do this, etc. come out and you feel like you are losing this whole battle to be in great shape. It’s happened to me twice this past month where I was surprised to find myself crying at the same time I was gasping for air.  This week, oddly enough, I’ve been thinking, “Ok, I can do this, I am totally going to kill it.” And I feel as though I have. Something is changing in my head about what I’m capable of doing and I feel awesome. So interesting how a person’s mindset, combined with good nutrition, being well hydrated and in a pattern of regular exercise contributes to success. 

new mindset!