The Neon Museum

Well! I am back from the Petty’s Vegas Vacation! My husband and I have gone to Las Vegas for the past two years in a row because we had Southwest Airline points and got some awesome hotel deals. This would be my first trip since I started my “hardcore” diet. I think that everyone does it a little differently, but I will share with you my approach for tackling the 4 days and staying on track with my health goals.

The first thing I did was decide before I ever left, what rules I was going to follow and what I was going to stick to. My whole approach to this thing, this time around is to incorporate changes that will be sustainable. Here are the main rules that I stick to on an everyday basis, and then how I adapted them for vacation.

Always                                        Vacation

1. No gluten                             1. No gluten (this was a big one, no compromises!!)
2. No dairy.                              2. Dairy ONLY if it was something of good quality
3. No sugar (except fruit)      3. Minimal sugar
4. No seed oils                         4. Seed oils are almost impossible to eliminate.
5. No legumes.                        5. Not going to be worried if peanuts were in my trail mix

How did I do?:

I stuck to all of my vacation rules!! The only time I ingested gluten (that I know of/can tell) is when I ate some honey roasted peanuts on the way home. I know I should’ve read the package, but I totally didn’t, and sure enough there was wheat starch in there. I did have a tiny bit of raw sugar and cream in my coffee each morning, but I missed it so much and I was on vacation after all!!

As far as meals, I always googled the gluten free menu of wherever we were going so I could find a few things ahead of time to make the restaurant choice. I won’t bore you with listing all of my meals, but I had a lot of burgers without the bun or a lettuce wrap for lunches and then dinners were pretty easy to navigate and only get meat/veggies. I did have Pad Thai once, but that has rice noodles, so still applies to the rules! I did however have a Thai iced tea there as well, which contains sweetened condensed milk, but it was SO GOOD. That was like my treat of the trip!

I didn’t notice really any ill effects from my variation in diet except for maybe the normal “I am off of my whole schedule” thing that happens. My husband was also sick for part of the trip, so there was also the added stress of that.

Tips:

1. Make choices based on pre-set rules before you ever leave.
2. Take some snacks that you know you can have so you won’t be tempted by the snickers bar that your husband buys at Hudson news (I took Lara Bars, cashews, and coconut chips).
3. Google your restaurant of choice’s gluten-free menu before you arrive.
4. Don’t stress about getting every little detail according to plan. That stress is worse than having some cream in your coffee!
5. Make educated choices if you are going to cheat. Ask yourself, “Is this really worth it?” “Will I feel like crap after?” If the answer to that is yes, then, “is it worth feeling like crap?” If you are ok with it, then enjoy yourself, you are on vacation!!

PS. I can’t believe it has been a whole month since I’ve posted! Let’s resume our regularly scheduled post per week eh? 😉