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Confession and accountability: In mid-October, I had a bad week. I went on a business trip (!!!) , my first for the company I work for, and it was quite the doozy. I went to Dublin, Ireland, and it was so crazy busy and amazing. If you were following along with my Instagram stories, you saw it live (albeit 8 hours apart). Emotionally, it was a solidly awesome week. Work-wise, a solidly awesome week. Sleep and eating wise? A bad week.
Oh my goodness, I haven’t traveled internationally in almost a decade, I forgot what it does to your body! We (thank you, company I work for) got to fly business class there (and I about died at the thought of it, so exciting and something I’d never pay for!) so there was at least a thought of better sleep, but steel tubes and 5,000 miles is a lot on a body.
Can I just say: business class flying has been an long, seemingly improbable dream for me. I remember when my dad used to go on big business trips to Asia or Europe and tell us about the food and the blankets and pillows and bring us back the little ditty bags they provide you – honestly, 9 year old Sam was ecstatic over a plastic shoe horn because “they GAVE this to you? For FREE???” We’d also marvel over his comments of “my plane takes off at 5 pm. I land at pm. That means I could call home from this place and answer it when I got home.” (I’m embarrassed to say how long i believed this, but it wasn’t higher than double digits..I think). Anyways, it was marvelous to hear about. Then to hear I got to DO it?! 9 year old Sam would have passed out.
I think I sent my parents and husband a combined 30 pictures before takeoff like the classless business traveler I am. I was in awe of the seats, the layout, the champagne I was handed upon boarding the plane – all of it. If that was a once in a lifetime experience, I’m OK, because that was awesome.
OK – done with that..sort of. That experience just really kicks off the whole “I had a bad week” vibe. OBVIOUSLY when I say I had a bad week, it has nothing to do with my week actually being bad. I just want to show you, particularly the you who are working so hard at losing weight, one big thing:
A bad week does not a successful weight loss break.
There were a few big factors in my bad week: food, sleep/time change, and indulgence (shall we call it YOLO?). Combined, they made it an interesting week, but separate, they’re fine to mess with a little bit!
Food – the big one.
Have you ever had Irish food? Like, real Irish food? It’s the truest form of “meat and potatoes” you can find! You will get FULL meals there – especially if you go for a breakfast. And by full, I don’t just mean you get a full plate – the hotel provides an entire bread basket full of breakfast breads and pastries for your consumption. Who eats an entire basket of bread AND breakfast!? Phew!
I had some pretty delicious food, both on the plane (never thought I’d type THAT!) and in Dublin. I had some solid bar food and went to one AMAZING steakhouse (unlike a certain coworker who went to T.G.I. Fridays, you know who you are).
Our post-plane, pre-hotel room snack was Afternoon Tea – because how could I NOT?! I wasn’t fully in the mood for all the treats, but I could resist? It’s one of my sisters favorite things, and I think it would have been a disservice to her had I not had it….especially since she has recreated the baguette/Eiffel Tower scene from Passport to Paris for me, to her own humiliation. (If you don’t know, I can’t explain it and I can’t find a YouTube link to just that scene, sorry!)
One night, I got to have a dinner by myself that was a true delight. For the parents of toddlers or former toddlers, you know what I mean when I say that I got to have a meal, at my own pace, without talking to another soul, and just….be. It was so glorious that I splurged added a half a lobster tail because it was SO inexpensive (comparatively to my area) that I couldn’t resist. It was incredible, a perhaps once in a lifetime thing, and I just had to sit back and bask in the grace of God that led me to the experience. It was certainly not a salad evening.
Sleep – the fickle one.
Sleeping on a plane, even one that has a seat that lays flat, is a tough thing to do. On our 9 hour flight to Ireland, I think I maybe slept 4 hours? Time is a weird thing to track when you’re in a dark metal tube hurtling through the sky, passing through various time zones and continents. We took off at 7 pm, but landed at 12:30 pm, so it wasn’t like we could get off the plane and sleep. It was go time!
Random travel tip: don’t ever tease yourself into thinking that a nap will help you deal with the jet lag. It won’t, it actually will extend it. Power through til normal sleep time and enjoy that precious sleep!
We got off the plane, to the hotel, ate a snack, checked into our rooms, showered and became human again, then went off to explore! We only had a few breaks in our schedule for some fun, and this was one of them, so it was a necessity to get out and use our time wisely!
Over the week, I mostly slept ok, but I am the kind of person who needs regular and full nights sleep, or I am so off I get sick. Of course, this is what happened to me. Not like flu, but you just feel a little funky for a time. The flight and messed up times on the way over got me most of the week. Then the final night, I woke up for about 3 hours in the middle of the night wide awake, just for fun. (And I SWEAR it had nothing to do with reading The Stranger Beside Me before bed!!!) So, I used that time wisely and FaceTime’d my hubby and kiddo, who were conveniently sitting down to dinner when I called.
The flight back, I knew we’d land around 6 pm after chasing the sun all day, so I didn’t want to sleep a ton, but really, there’s only so much self entertainment you can do in a single seat for 9 hours, so I think I again slept about 3 hours. Then when I got home, I think I slept 10 straight!
Indulgence – the kind of necessary one.
Imagine this. You’re in Dublin. You tour the Guinness factory and the Jameson storehouse, and you don’t have a SINGLE sip of either, because “you’re on a diet.” Puh-lease. You may only be in this city once in your life, don’t you dare set yourself up for regret. You only get one life to live (told you it was YOLO) and you will not lie on your deathbed and think, “ahh it was so smart of me not to try the Guinness in the place it was made. I’m so glad I avoided those calories.” Now, you may not think of Guinness at all, but why set yourself up for wishes and coulda, shoulda, wouldas?
So I didn’t. Even though I felt punky all week from lack of sleep and jet lag, I indulged. I ate the steak with the funky butter I had never heard of that tasted delicious. I drank some Guinness, I sipped the Jameson. The goal of the week was not to gain 50 pounds back, but it certainly wasn’t to skip it all and only eat salads either.
Anyway, it all added up to a bad week. I wasn’t eating clean, I was allowing indulgence. I wasn’t on a normal sleep pattern so I was more tired than usual. And the gym? Forget about it. I wasn’t working out at all, even if I did bring clothes to work out, “just in case”. (Does anyone EVER use their “just in case” gym clothes? I don’t think I have.) I didn’t even get my 10,000 steps a day! (Oh, sweet Treaddesk, how missed you were)
So there you have it. A bad week.
But that’s ALL it was. A bad WEEK. Not a bad life, not a bad month, not a complete breakdown of my healthy habits. A bad week. I didn’t ruin my weight loss maintenance through this week. I didn’t even gain more than maybe a pound.
That is what YOU, lovely humans, have to remember. If I can preach anything too much, it is going to be this:
Life is meant to be lived.
It’s meant to be lived well, indulged in, given balance to. Life is meant to be adventurous and chaotic and sometimes include too much Guinness and too little sleep. Because one day that won’t be an option, and I for one never want to look back and say, “Man, I wish I had eaten that chocolate the one time I went to Ireland, instead of just looking at it.” You will never likely regret the amount of wine you can consume on an Italian vacation, but you will certainly regret missing out because you were too nervous about a number on a scale.
Go forth and live your life, live it well. Bad weeks and all.
