Vacation Weight, Relate?

As most of you know, John and I went on a vacation last week to Florida. This was going to be a big test for us being gone that long since eating this way. We were committed heading into the vacation and set expectations that we would enjoy ourselves and partake in some great seafood. We knew that sometimes it may be challenging, but we have never claimed to be “Vegan” and not eat what we want.

It started out no different than other trips by getting a couple of cokes at airport for the plane ride to Orlando. Once we arrived at the airport, we got our rental car and headed for my cousin, Frank and his wife Carrie’s house who we were going to stay with for a few days.

Once we got there, they ordered us a wonderful veggie pizza from a place they like a lot. It was fantastic. We ate the whole thing, plus had a few beers and drinks. The next day for breakfast, they made us scrambled eggs, which were very good as well. I think we had toast too.

Throughout the day, while relaxing and talking by their pool, I enjoyed a few bags of those little chips, like Cheezits and drank Coke and water most of the day. In the evening they made us a fantastic steak dinner. She was very accommodating and had zucchini, baked potatoes, salad, corn on the cob and cheesecake for dessert. It was all so good. Especially the cheesecake!

On our second day, I made John a Black Bean Breakfast Burrito, very similar to the ones I make here with the ingredients they had on hand for us. That was enough to fill him up for another day of golf. I spent the day again by the pool talking to his wife and snacking on those delicious little bag of chips and Coke. For dinner, we had decided to drive up to another cousin of mine (Meghan) who manages a new Brewery. We ordered Mexican from a local place near there that, at first seemed questionable, but actually turned out to be pretty good. Also, had a few beers of course, since we were at a Brewery.

On our third day, we started out with a Breakfast Burrito again and then didn’t eat until we got to the hotel. I had a spinach salad that I should have held the dressing on, as well as the goat cheese because it was way too much, but it was still pretty good with the strawberries. Had quite a few Rum and Cokes by the pool throughout the day. For dinner, we went to Frenchy’s and both had the Grouper sandwich and chips. It was very tasty and we both loved it.

Over the next several days John enjoyed potato and veggie hash from a cute little restaurant that we found for breakfast and I ate mostly salads and blueberry pancakes. One of our lunches consisted of a “Drag it through the Garden” Pizza with artichokes and broccoli, which is something we haven’t tried before. Something different and very tasty that I might start adding to our veggie pizzas when I make them for lunch next time. A late night dinner included Seafood Chowder, Roasted Zucchini and Squash and Lightly Breaded Cauliflower Bites. 

We closed out our trip with a wonderful seafood meal at a nice restaurant and had some drinks. Before leaving for home we had our third breakfast at the same little cafe and then headed for the airport. We missed an opportunity to grab a bite somewhere before boarding and we were starved so we shared a bag of chips and Cokes. We could have gotten Chick Fil’A, but the line was way too long and that would have been so full of sodium.

Once we arrived in Indy, we made a fast trip to the Meijer and gathered up staple items that we needed to make Black Bean Tostadas that we ate at 11:00 pm.

The big question on both our minds was, “How much weight did I gain over the trip?” I don’t think either of us got on the scale for a day or two. I guess we wanted to settle back into our eating pattern again before letting the scale know we had been gone a while.

Both of us were pleasantly surprised to see that neither of us actually gained any weight. This was the first time that we came home without feeling like we brought all the restaurants we visited home with us.

I’ll call it a success because we have definitely changed the way we think about food and are very mindful of how to stay away from the really bad stuff and make better decisions when ordering off a menu. That being said, we have another vacation coming up and it will be a totally different environment.