How do you know it's a lifestyle? Go on Vacation!

I spent this last week in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina with my family (parents, two brothers, sister in law, sister, 9 month old nephew and three year old niece). I was very excited about the trip, but was also nervous about falling off the wagon for the week. My family is also trying to eat healthier and live an active lifestyle, so I was hopeful that it would be a healthy and active vacation.

In addition to the normal preparation for a road trip and week long vacation, I spent some time preparing to continue my lifestyle while on the trip. I told my family that I wasn't eating out for every meal. We were staying in a cottage with a full kitchen, so there was no need to eat out 3 times a day. We went grocery shopping before we left for healthy snacks in the car ride and then once we were there, we went shopping again. There was a mixture of healthy options and not so healthy options in the pantry...that would be the true test, as I do not normally keep poptarts, chips, etc in my house.

I also informed them that I would be working out and they could join me or not. I got some workouts that I could do in a hotel room or with very little equipment from my trainer. My nutritionist advised me to plan out when I would work out while on the trip, as it is easy to not have time once you are on vacation. So I packed two sets of dumb bells, a mat, and a list of exercises to do. Although they were stuck between the seats in the van, they still took up room, so I had to use them! My original plan was to go to the beach early in the morning and do my workout there, well that didn't go exactly as planned.We were a couple blocks away from the beach and it was COLD in the morning. However, I did still get three good, sweat through the shirt workouts in.

Throughout this journey I have been working on making this a lifestyle, (not a quick fix) and what was so cool was realizing on vacation that this is a lifestyle for me now. Don't get my wrong, it was vacation and I splurged a little, it was also my birthday (and my older brothers) on vacation, so that meant cake, ice cream, pecan pie and wine. I also brought Made to Crave and opened up to the section that vacation is not an excuse to eat whatever I want and completely fall off my plan. One week of eating like crap and not working out would not have taken me back to the start, that's true, but it would put a minor dent in my progress. I also know that when I eat like crap, I feel like crap. The other thing that was a surprise to me was I missed my workouts, I wanted to work out, and I wanted to eat veggies. Seriously...I'm a crazy person that asked to get some broccoli the night we ordered pizza because I was missing my veggies.

The other really awesome part of vacation was working out with my family. I walked/ran, did elevated pushups on the beach with my sister, went to the exercise room with my mom and dad, and did a bootcamp type workout in the living room with my sister. My older brother was like a trainer in the living room-"Push  yourself, twelve more seconds, do one more rep."

When I am out of my regular routine, eating out for every dinner, I still found time to work out and made (for the most part) healthy choices...that's when I knew that this is my life now. I am incredibly happy that this is my life!

Elevated pushups on the beach!