The Zip Code Rule, and How it Ruined My Life (or at least my week)

Lately I feel as if I’ve got one wheel off the track. Every once in a while it touches down enough to keep me from careening wildly off into space, but mostly it’s bumping on and off making everything unsteady. I’m having trouble getting back into the completely steady and comfortable routine that I had before I went on vacation. Admittedly, things are only now starting to get back to normal. I came back sick and went immediately on a NYC pub crawl, then I got mostly better and the boyfriend got really sick, and then we had a weekend off but the following weekend his friend came up from NY and of course that means all three of us were on a mini vacation together. We all know how you behave when you’re on vacation. Maybe it’s just me? Am I the only one that believes vacation is a magical place where calories simply don’t exist? It’s like the zip code rule in dating (if you’re in a different zip code than it’s not cheating), well if you say you’re on vacation calories don’t matter.

Sounds right, doesn’t it?

Well my scale (and my ass) would beg to differ.

After the mini vacation my weight had gone up six pounds. That sounds crazy but in the scale’s defense I was weighing myself at like 6pm when I usually weigh at 7am, also I had all my clothes on as well as my shoes. Obviously that makes a difference, but six pounds? I think not. I had drank, and ate (but mostly drank) myself up a few pounds. So that was Monday, and now it’s Thursday and luckily I’m only about 3 ounces heavier than I was at last weigh in, so I will not be owing the pot any money tomorrow, but that also means I will most likely not be seeing any loss for this week’s weigh in. This is disappointing to me, but I also know I’m doing better than I should be at this point. I haven’t been eating well this week. I went to a show in Boston Tuesday night with C-Muscle and of course ended up eating pizza for dinner, and then again on the ride home, and of course there were beers to be had.

And yesterday…. Oh Jesus…yesterday! I was so tired from getting to bed around 2 or 3 and then getting up at 8 for work that I didn’t pack a lunch. I stopped and got a bagel on the way to work and that was all I ate all day aside from a piece of chocolate and like 8 sunflower seeds, so when I got home I was ready for bed immediately, not ready for making a healthy dinner. What did I do? You ask. I ate the rest of the spinach artichoke dip that I’d brought home from the night before, and the last piece of pizza.

So yeah… like I said before, I’ve still got one wheel off the track.

Today I woke up determined to get that wobbly little bugger weighted down so I made myself breakfast (brown sugar instant farina, 130 calories), as well as lunch (three small sliced tomatoes, 5 or 6 pieces of asparagus with a fresh lemon wedge, and a half a chicken breast with lemon pepper seasoning). The thing is that I prefer to eat this way, it’s just that I don’t always have time in the morning to boil water for asparagus, or to pan fry a piece of chicken.

My only option is to make time. Right? Either make time or make excuses. No one ever said this would be easy, only that it would be worth it. Someone said that before I think, although I can't remember who.