Small Victories

Ah gentle readers, you may have wondered if I had given up on my fitness quest.  Fear not, good friends, I am still fighting the good fight, I just haven’t had the energy to blog, so I must regain some discipline.

When last we spoke, I was vacationing in North Carolina with my daughter, granddaughter and son-in-law.  I had hoped to get  a couple of good walks in, but the combination of my daughter’s first trimester fatigue and the miserable North Carolina heat and humidity put the kibosh on my grand plans.  Still, watching my three year old granddaughter run, jump, bounce, climb, slide and then run jump and bounce some more during a visit to Monkey Joe’s made me tired just watching her, so I figured that counts, right?  Well maybe not, but it sure was fun!  To have that kind of incandescent energy would be mind blowing at my age.  We did some walking at the aquarium and played in the sand and surf at Myrtle Beach on another day.  I did not count calories or try very hard to eat the perfect, healthy diet that I have been striving for.  I did not really exercise.  Instead I enjoyed the stress free pleasure of being with my family, of letting my vivacious granddaughter entertain me for hours on end and shopping with my daughter, watching Tangled and Toy Story 3 (while trying not to sob uncontrollably at the end) and just generally being lazy.  And I did not gain once single, solitary, jiggly ounce.

 

This, my friends, is a small victory.  In the past, a week of vacation eating would add five to seven pounds to my fishy white underbelly and I would have to starve myself miserably for weeks to lose that vacation weight, or worse yet, it would stay with me forever as a constant reminder of what a fun vacation I had.  Not exactly the type of souvenir that I like to bring home. I would much prefer a cheesy snow globe or a refrigerator magnet than a permanently attached addition to my wobbly bits.   So, it seems that I may have actually put on some muscle, boys and girls - the kind of muscle that helps to boost the metabolism ever so slightly and helped me maintain my weight, in spite of my lack of exercise and less than stellar eating habits for six days.

I have only been home for five days now and have gotten right back into my diet and exercise regime. The scales have yet to move in the downward fashion that I dream about, so they are still the enemy, mostly.   But - I actually maintained my weight on vacation without gaining and I was able to get right back in the saddle and start exercising after my short respite.  I walked three miles on Monday, did 45 minutes on the elliptical on Tuesday and again today.  Wednesday was housecleaning day and I still maintain that anything that makes me sweat and makes my back ache constitutes exercise, so I’m counting it.  It’s going to be a glorious weekend for long beach walks, so that’s the plan.  Even if my scales refuse to budge, I can see real, actual muscle definition in my thighs, more than I have seen in a while, so I know that I am doing something right.  Small victories are better than no victories….