I Have an Excuse

Okay, so there's no real need for me to excuse myself from my...er, one reader. But still, it's worth noting for posterity the reason why I haven't posted in over two weeks. After all, the entry right above this one clearly states that I will post a new entry at least once a week. So what's the reason for this almost immediate breakage of my ground rules? A European vacation...

Which brings me to my point for today. How do you work out/eat right while you're on vacation? The answer? You don't. I just spent the past 10 days in Rome and London. And on the first morning, I woke up at 8am, went to the hotel gym, and started doing ab exercises for a good 15 minutes. When I got back to the room, I was tired, my stomach hurt, and I promptly had to get up and do "touristy" stuff for the rest of the day. It was after this first painful day of trying to work out and vacation that I realized an important lesson. Vacations are not simply vacations from work. They should be vacations from all aspects of drudgery and routine in your life. We don't check our e-mail or answer work phone calls while on vacation (or at least, most of us don't). So why should we kill ourselves with workouts and exercise while trying to relax? Does that mean that if you think it'd be cool to jog through the streets of Rome that you shouldn't? No. But it does mean that you shouldn't spend 30 minutes on a treadmill when you can spend an extra 30 minutes seeing St. Peter's Basilica instead.

And as far as food goes, why not take a vacation from your diet as well. Here I was, in one of the meccas of European cuisine. The city that has a first pasta course and a second meat course with every meal. Was I going to order the garden salad with dressing on the side? Instead, I was going to order what I wanted. That's not to say that vacations are a license to overindulge. For me, it was all about portion control. I'd order what I'd want to eat, and eat about half of what they gave me. Okay, the starving kids in Africa my mom always talked about might not appreciate my wanton wastefulness, but this was the best way for me to enjoy what Italy had to offer.

Ultimately, I probably packed on more daily calories during my vacation than I usually do at home. But I can accept this. Just as long as this vacation does not cause me to slip into old bad habits of diet and exercise after I'm back home. Vacations should allow you to break from routines that you follow on a day-to-day basis, whether that means PowerPoint presentations or abdominal crunches. Use the time away as a reward for months of dilligent diet and exercise. Just as long as you understand that all vacations eventually to come to an end...