I took off work, my husband, my baby and I rented a car and went on a road trip.

I was very nervous about calorie count but now I realize that as long as I keep healthy snacks available and eat often I can tame the eating monster inside of me.
I couldn't count my calories, and I may have exceeded my daily dose, but the monster was tamed and I experienced much less food related anxiety ( omg I am going to be starving later if I don't fill myself now!" We even went to a nice steakhouse and had a gigantic steak that I ate happily since we hiked for 1 hr before that :-)

During the trip I realized a couple of things:

1- When I am on vacation somehow I think that after lunch and dinner a must have ice cream cone is normal, I am in vacation, isn't that what people do anyway? Get ice cream while strolling on the boardwalk? > Wrong of course! I didn't even sip a drink of soda or a cup of juice the whole time! Why spoil my calories on something that I am not necessarily enjoying but just eating because I think that "that is what must happen".
2- Vacation is an amazing opportunity to exercise! How else would you discover a new place without getting off your tush and walking, walking and walking some more?
3- Boardwalks at night are scary, have you seen all the cotton candy, pop corn, ice cream and fresh juice stands? Pick your battles! To me this was a challenge I didn't want to deal with, instead of walking by ice cream stand after ice cream stand we went to the beach and we relaxed while watching the waves.

I

I DO!