In which I attempt to shed vacation weight

Going into vacation I decided: "Eat what you want, we'll get it off after."

Eating what you want when you're close to or at goal is a magical time. You look great and you can eat anything - a dream come true.

It's like, Wow, if I was a naturally skinny person with a nuclear metabolism, this is what life would be like.

But as I've found in the past, since I'm not that person, if I don't put a stop to that magical time, pretty soon I don't look great and my clothes are tight. And that causes me to continue to eat whatever I want, landing me right back where I started.

We flew home on a Wednesday and when I woke up Thursday, the larder was bare - on purpose. We needed a major shopping trip. You can see my fruit and veg haul above. I ate very little fruit or veg on vacation, and I was surprisingly jonesing for them when we got back.

I did have one moment of temptation in the grocery store. I was going by the ice cream aisle and for a split-second I thought: What if I extended my eating vacation for another day? Started tomorrow? Enjoyed today. With, you know, some ice cream. A lot of it.

But I wised up quickly. I've done this before and I'll start tomorrow turns into I'll start after the long weekend is over. That turns into panic on Monday night because I have weigh-in on Tuesday and that inevitably leads to me skipping weigh-in on Tuesday, which leads to a longer eating vacation, which leads to 282 lbs. No, thanks.

Since I ate so enthusiastically off-plan while away, I decided to work out every day when I returned. Normally, I'd work out Friday-Sunday-Monday, but since I had to jump start my body after 7 days off, I'd throw in a workout on Thursday and Saturday, too.

On Thursday, by the time I could work out I didn't have enough time for the gym, but I did have time for a run. So I went running. At 3 pm. It was sunny, 85 and I don't know, 128% humidity. Not a wise idea on my part, but I wanted to get a workout in.

Due to the weather, layoff and course I picked, it was very grueling. I didn't do myself any favors, that's for sure, but I got that run in.

Friday morning it was back to bootcamp and that 5 am alarm was tough. I snoozed it until 5:30 am, which means I had to jam to get dressed and over to the gym by 6 am. I had been thinking about weighing Friday, but since I overslept I had no time. Bootcamp was as challenging as ever, but like running I'm glad I got right back on the horse.

Saturday morning I woke up and decided to weigh myself. This is a cardinal rule I rarely break. But since I'd been away I needed a gauge of where I was at.

On my last WW weigh-in before we left, I put on my WI clothes and weighed in at home before the meeting so I would know the difference between the two scales. It turns out the WW scale weighs in .4 higher than my home scale.

So Saturday I put on my WI clothes after waking up and stepped on: 192.6, which would be 193 on the WW scale - a 2.2 gain. Not great, but not the worst. At least I knew where I stood. Later Saturday I went to the gym and did the elliptical for 50 minutes.

Sunday morning, I again put on my WI clothes and step on the scale: 192.6. Hmmm.

Now every day since Thursday I'm following all my best weigh-loss guidelines: staying within Points, more lean protein, fewer carbs, at least 5 fruits & veg, 100 oz of water a day and exercise. I'm a little perturbed there is no drop, but I've got 2 more days until weigh in.

After weighing Sunday, I went for my regular run, this time and nice and early so the weather wasn't so difficult.

Monday morning, WI clothes, step on scale. 193.4. WTF? +.8? Now I'm mad. I'm doing everything I can (and extra exercise?!?) and the scale's not only not moving, it's going up? Seriously, this is my No. 1 weight-loss nightmare: I do everything I can and nothing works.

This, by the way, is why I never weigh at home. I mentally can't handle the daily weight fluctuations. This got my day off to a not-great start.

Despite my disappointment, I head off to the gym for 45 minutes on the elliptical and continue to follow my eating plan for the day.

Weigh-in is tomorrow and I have no idea what will happen - not a great feeling.