Truth & Vacations

If you hadn’t picked up on it on one of a billion previous posts saying how excited I was about it… I went on vacation!! My man and I went to Mexico for seven days, six nights, and it was glorious. The reason why I’m gloating, other than just to gloat, is because pretty much everything I did there contradicted how I usually live my life in most ways. You know what? I don’t take a second of it back, and you know what else? The next time you go on vacation, neither should you.

Like some of you may have read, I did do some special prep (read: cardio, which I try to avoid at most costs), but for the most part, I just stayed in shape over the holidays. I didn’t go crazy and crash diet or stop eating the week before or something crazy like I’ve heard some people do. But, more importantly, I wanted to share what kinds of things I did do while I was there and how exactly they affected me in the gym when I got home.

To make a seven-day story short, the two of us essentially got straight to it at our all-inclusive resort just about as soon as we put our bags down and changed into our suits. We checked out the resort, and, naturally, went straight to the bar. Followed by the buffet. Followed by the bar, etc. Nice dinners and daily/evening entertainment broke things up, but the whole stretch was pretty much an all-you-can-eat-and-drink lazy fest, and we wouldn’t have wanted it any other way. We didn’t bring sneakers, we didn’t hit the “state-of-the-art” gym, and we definitely didn’t run around the resort like some of the crazy people we saw. In fact, I’m pretty sure the only exercise I got was walking to and from the room in our giant resort, walking on the beach (with added difficulty after you’ve had a few) and dancing!

Me four days after vacay

The reason I’m telling you all this is because when I got back, yes, I was tired, didn’t feel great and was ready for my own bed, but I pretty much looked the same. And maybe two days later I felt entirely the same. There is a big BUT looming, though:

When I got back into the gym on Monday, my strength and cardio had seriously taken a nosedive. I started with legs, because the muscle there is always the first to go for me, and I was shocked at how hard my squats were. I did the math, and I was able to lift literally 28 percent less weight than I normally can do. All from seven days of slacking. Now, like I said, would I take any of it back? Heck no.

The reason why (other than it was amazing) is because of muscle memory and the power of healthy eating. Yeah, on day one back to the gym I felt weak and not myself, but today, on day four, I feel awesome. I’m sure when I do legs next week, I’ll be either close to or at where I was before I left.

So, like I said, the reason I’m blogging about my vacation is to try to emphasize that you should be able to show off all of the hard work you put into the gym and eating healthy.  You should be able to flaunt it! You worked hard for it! And trust me, when you get back home and feel crappy and sad that your bench press went down 28 percent, you can just remember that it’s temporary and relive your favorite moment of the vacation. No one can take that away from you. Like my Mom says, “Life is short; Have as much fun as you can.”