You Have To Do More Than Just Pack the Right Clothes...

This past week I was in Atlanta for work. Most of my team is there and the rest is in South Florida so I go visit them about every six or so weeks. When I travel I have to eat every meal out.

Some times I will stay in a hotel where I have a full kitchen but since I am required to pick hotels within a certain price range sometimes the ones with full kitchens are not available to me.

However, I always have access to a fitness center because the office in Atlanta has a decent fitness center in the basement. When I travel and am forced to eat out all week I do my best to at least burn what I eat every day.

With the help of my bodybugg I carefully track what I have eaten and then watch my calorie burn. This helps me come home maintaining my weight.

In the years prior to my actively trying to lose weight I would gain at least two pounds every time I went on a work trip. I would pack my workout clothes but to be honest they never made it out of the suitcase.

Okay, that's not true. I unpack everything. So they would make it into the drawer but they would go right back into the suit case, clean as can be, then make the trip to the wash with the rest of the emptied suitcase when I got home. Those workout clothes were washed very often, but they were never actually worn.

On this weeks trip I was not able to stay in a place with a kitchen so I opted for the Embassy Suites instead. This hotel has a larger refrigerator in the room, a bigger pool, and a nice fitness center.

While I still had to eat out every meal, this hotel serves a hot breakfast every day so I was able to make choices such as Oatmeal and a banana or yogurt and a pile of fresh fruit instead of McDonald's drive thru.

I made sure I got to the fitness center every day for at least 20 minutes on the treadmill.

This week I took advantage of the pool for the first time. I swam some laps! I really enjoyed this very much and ended up swimming laps each day. I was shocked to see how difficult this was for me. There was a time in my life when I could swim across the lake, no problem. And then we would have to swim back again! We swim at the community pool often as well but I do some water exercises I learned from watching my dad, I tread water and try to not let my feet touch bottom (ever), and I make sure I am always moving, but I haven't been swimming laps.

Now I am pretty excited to start swimming so I want to get that worked into my life in the near future.

The best part is my friend had the same revolution this week as well so maybe I can swim with her. I was please to come home and find I had maintained. I may have lost a few ounces even.

I have come a long way from the days of thinking that packing for the fitness center would be enough!