Weekly weigh-in: home from my travels

The numbers:

• Today's weight: 209.5 lb
• Change since last week: -0.5 lb
• Cumulative weight loss: 124.5 lb
• Average weekly weight change: -1.89 lb

Especially given that I spent last week traveling and staying out-of-town, I am more than pleased with this half-pound weight loss. Usually when people go on vacation, they behave as if their "diets" went on vacation too--Goddess knows I've fallen afoul of that mindset in the past myself. But as I've said innumerable times already, what I'm doing now I don't consider a (temporary) diet but a (permanent) lifestyle change, and it's great to see that mindset pay off. I did allow myself a couple of nice dining experiences, but I didn't go all obsessive over them the way I might have done in years past. And that felt totally okay.

To be sure, there were many situations I was in that were not particularly temptation-generating. The time I spent in airports or on planes, for instance. The air travel food boondoggle was indeed as bad as I had anticipated. On all but one flight I took, they didn't even have real food for sale--just snacks. And none of those snacks were particularly health-conscious, either (I'm sorry, but trail mix is not health food, but a disaster of fat and sugar). I was at least able to find fruit and salads in airport concession shops, but man, what sad-ass excuses for salads and fruit they were! The one time I found a smoothie shop I was overjoyed. That may have been the healthiest meal I had while in transit. But I did at least come up with one coping strategy: selecting tomato juice as my free in-flight beverage. If I can't get decent solid vegetables to eat, I could at least drink some.

Certain parts of my visit were kind of food-challenged too--mainly because this was a trip to visit with my sister's two young sons, and when your hanging with a rambunctious nine-year-old and five-year-old, the food choices don't tend to be very haute. In fact, I had the dubious honor of being taken on my very first visit to Chuck E. Cheese--all I can say is: oy. Let's just say that little boys care little about the quality of the pizza they inhale; and Chuck E. Cheese seems to care even less about the salad bar they make the parents suffer through.

Meanwhile, I was delighted to find that I could make it all around the airports on my own, without having to resort to a wheelchair ride; and I fit into the airline seats with no problems, even while I heard passengers all around me comment that the American Airlines seats seemed to have gotten even narrower than those on Southwest Airlines planes. Didn't seem to miss my CPAP machine either. This trip is clearly a win on all of those fronts.

But totally aside from the food issues, this trip reminded me all over again why I dislike air travel--I've just seen a couple too many made-for-cable-TV documentaries about airline disasters, so that now I can't seem to get through a takeoff or landing without running an entire disaster movie scenario in my head. Plus even my newer slimmer bod still finds airline seats a major pain in the ass (literally). So for various reasons I expect not to be flying again any time soon. But still, it's nice to know that my ability to cope with air travel has improved dramatically.

Comments

[Kathy]

Welcome back! I'm about to fly for the first time since all the gell/liquid restrictions, and am busy planning what the heck I can actually take on the plane food wise. I am *not* buying their stuff, thank you very much!

[mizducky]

Good for you! I confess I read the TSA guidelines a bazillion times and couldn't quite figure out what foods were okay and what verboten, and finally gave up trying to figure it out. Let me know how you make out with that!

[chemprof]

Hi Ellen!

I read your blog back when you first started your journey last March, and I want to congratulate you on your success! At that time I was also trying to start my own weightloss program, but got side-tracked. I'm re-committed now, and your success does nothing but inspire me, and others I'm sure!

Take care,
Anne

ps not to seem like a stalker or anything, but I have nephews in Charlotte too! ;-) Though I'm a bit closer to them geographically that you are. I hope you enjoyed your trip.

[Ellen Brenner]

Thanks, Anne! And good luck with your new commitment to the weight loss adventure!