Anniversary Survival Plan

This coming Thursday (January 31) is my 16^th wedding anniversary.

 

My husband and I were an adorable bride and groom, don’t you think?

Sorry for the tiny pic, but it’s all I had on short notice.  What you can’t see there is that he is on crutches and sporting a cast on his leg from his toes to the top of his thigh. Yes, it was an exciting wedding. 😉 And an even more exciting honeymoon, ha ha!

For the first five or so years we were married, we turned our anniversary into our “big” annual vacation, where we’d travel somewhere fun for a week and celebrate our marriage. We visited places like Charlevoix (Michigan), Chicago, Savannah (Georgia) and even Naples, Italy!  We had a lot of fun together before we saddled ourselves with kids. 😛

When the first kid was born, we did go to New York City the next year, but after that, we stopped doing the annual anniversary trip, just because time and money were always an issue. When the second kid was born, we discovered that not all babies are happy and sweet like our firstborn.  Some are downright cranky. All. The. Time. After about 11 months of that, on one particularly trying day, I sat my husband down and told him (through gritted teeth), “We ARE going away for our anniversary this year. Or else I won’t be responsible for what happens to that second child.” I know I’m not the only mom who’s had those moments. 😉

We couldn’t afford a week away (there was no one stupid enough to want to watch that baby for a week, not even my sister, who is his godmother and loves him dearly). Somehow, my husband came up with the idea that he would plan the trip.  This is somewhat humorous and rather questionable, because my husband is not a planner by nature. (That’s why he married me.) But, I was really mentally taxed at that point in my life, and I just decided that I would let him figure it out as best he could.  My only request was a bed and breakfast (I majored in history, in case you didn’t know) and a nice (read: expensive) dinner.

To my surprise and delight, my husband hit it out of the park! We stayed a beautiful B&B in Auburn Hills, Michigan that was originally built in the 1830s (hey, that’s old for us Midwesterners!). We had a delicious dinner nearby at a fancy restaurant in Rochester Hills (where the waitress dropped my husband’s entire plate of food while she was attempting to put it in front of him, lol!).  It was amazing, and thus began the annual anniversary trip tradition.

Fast forward 7 years, and you’ll find us in January 2013, having done this annual trip 6 of the last 7 years (we took last year off because we knew we’d be dropping a ton of money at Disney in 2012), and ready to do it again.  Everything was as it should be with one exception: I was on Weight Watchers. Not only was I on the program, but I was absolutely committed to it.  Every previous year that we’d done this trip, I had always been in “weight loss” mode (always), but I had never been serious enough about it to think I was going to try to stay on plan while on vacation. Especially not when the vacation involved my favorite thing—a top-notch dinner! At a fancy restaurant! With dessert! All of those other times, I just chucked my “diet” out the window and ate like there was no tomorrow.

This year, however, was different.  Why?  Well, if you haven’t yet read my three-post series about Disneyworld, you may want to peruse them (post one, post two, post three). That trip was absolutely, positively the turning point in my weight loss/maintenance journey. After successfully navigating Disneyworld, on plan, I knew from that moment on that I could make this program work in any situation. It would just take took a little planning, a strong dose of commitment, and the help of my super-smart phone.

So how did I do it? Well, I started off with exercise.  Nine miles of running, to be exact. As I posted last week, I finished Katie’s Virtual 5k on Friday morning, which gave me 3 miles and 4 activity points. A good start!  I banked those points for Saturday night, but in addition, I had made a commitment to my friend Carrie that we would run together Saturday morning. Even though it snowed like crazy the night before, creating dicey roads with a pretty cold temperature (21 degrees), I had committed to it, and Carrie wouldn’t let me out of it. 😉  That’s one reason why I’m really sold on “social running.”  Running with friends is an amazing way to keep yourself committed.

We ran 6 miles in her neighborhood, along with another friend of ours, and though it was cold and occasionally slippery, we had a great time. Our friend was kind enough to take a shot of us when we were done:

Personally, I think we make adorable snow running bunnies. 😉  We ran for over an hour, and I earned 10 APs.  Added to the previous day’s 4, I felt like I was in good standing for my dinner out.

When it was over, my husband and I packed up the kids, dropped one at hockey practice and the other at my sister’s, and off we went—for a nearly 3-hour drive! As I mentioned before, my husband plans these things, so I just sit back and let him take me wherever we’re going.  It was a long drive, but beautiful after all the snow, and when we arrived, I could see that it was well worth it!

Stuff like this makes me all giddy. I *heart* historical architecture. It was stunning inside, too, with lots of period furniture and also a very spacious room. After we settled in, we got dressed for our dinner out.

I love that dress.  Did I mention it’s a size 4? No?  Oh, well then, just so you know…

It’s a size 4. 😉

After our pictures, we left for another mystery trip.  I don’t have a great shot of the restaurant, but here it is in blurry form.

It was another historical inn, and trust me when I say it was stunning! We enjoyed a delightful four-course meal, and I enjoyed every single course.  There was pâté (I love pâté!), salad, and one of my favorites, Chateau Briand, with the most amazing scalloped potatoes.  Yum!!!! During dinner, I sat with my phone and typed everything into a “note,” which I later logged into my Weight Watchers eTools app on the way back to the hotel.  It wasn’t hard, and didn’t interfere with dinner, but it was just what I need to help me feel—or rather, know—that I was in control of my food and not the other way around.  Simply typing out the portions sizes I was eating kept me “in check” and ensured I didn’t go overboard with things like bread and wine.

Here’s my husband and I in a really bad shot from my phone, taken by the waitress, as we enjoyed our anniversary dessert.

Don’t you love the candles, lol?  It was an apple tart (tartin? I don’t know…it was a French restaurant, so everything was hard to pronounce, lol!) and crème brulee.  I was not impressed with the apple tart (too much caramel for me, of which I am not a fan), but the crème brulee was delicious.  I was pretty full though, and only ate about half.  I was pleased with myself for having stayed on plan but not depriving myself.  Because I hadn’t had time to each much that day, when it came to dinner, I didn’t even have to dip into my APs!

Now of course, because this was a bed and breakfast, the next morning presented the challenge of staying on plan for breakfast.  I’m actually not a big breakfast eater. I like breakfast, don’t get me wrong, but I usually only eat it in small amounts.  This is one of the ways I am able to stay on plan, since I tend to be most hungry late in the day. Thus, a big breakfast could be tough for me.  I planned a little early-morning exercise to coincide with the sunrise so I could take some pictures. It was a fun walk, especially along the riverwalk, where there was a foot of unshoveled snow, lol! Still, the view was worth it.

I got about 30 minutes of brisk (ie, cold) walking in, and then went back for breakfast with my husband and two other couples. We started with fruit and coffee cake.

The coffee cake was quite good, and of course, fruit is always good because it has 0 points and fills you up! I enjoyed the whole slice of coffee cake and then…

Stuffed waffles with sausage.  Dude. That’s pretty tough.  (Sorry about the bad pic; I was chatting with fellow guests [about running, ha ha!] and forgot to get the shot before the whipped cream melted.) I chose to eat only 2/3 of the waffle concoction and 2 of the sausage links.  It was still a pretty high-point breakfast, though.  On the bright side, by the time we got home, I was so tired from a) running 9 miles in two days and b) a horrible night’s sleep due to not having my own special pillow, I ended up taking a 2-hour nap, ha ha!  So, I skipped lunch and made smart choices for dinner and this morning I saw this…

Ta-da! I lost 1.2 pounds this week, which gets me right back to my exact goal weight of 113. Woo hoo!!

And that is how I not only survived but actually enjoyed my anniversary trip. 🙂

Thanks for reading!