Travel Gain

I was nervous about a lot of things to do with my weight when travelling for 3 months around North America. Just before I left Australia I had reached my lowest adult weight and was thinner than I had been since I was about 8 years old. I was terrified that I would eat my way back over 100 kilos and repeat the dieting pattern I have had  for 20 years and it was enough to make me question whether I should even go. I knew having the lap band would help me because I just wouldn't be able to eat as much as I used to eat, but anyone with a lap band knows that having a lap band doesn't stop weight gain!

I have been travelling for about 6 weeks so far now and I literally had no idea how much I weighed. I knew I had gained some weight because of the way my jeans were digging in, but I didn't know how much. I was somewhat enjoying not knowing how much I weigh and being a slave to the scales, but I was kind of curious too. Then the other day I was in the bathroom in a service station and there were scales that you could pay a quarter to get your weight (and your lucky lottery numbers...) and I couldn't help myself. I was sweating bullets while I waited for the numbers to come up and also praying no one would walk in too! I got my weight and raced to car to convert it to kilos on my phone calculator because pounds don't mean much to me.

The weight on the scale was 201.6 lbs, which converts to 91.6 kilos and is a 1.8 kilo gain since I left Australia. I was beyond thrilled with this number because I have been known to gain 5 kilos on a long weekend away, let along 6 weeks travelling! Obviously it would be ideal if I didn't gain any weight or if I even lost weight, but I knew that was never going to happen with me. I came here to enjoy the food and I didn't want to feel deprived and like I had to diet. I do make a little effort to try and keep the weight down, I rarely finish a meal, I try not to snack, I try to keep it to 2 small meals a day, drink diet soft drink and I try to keep active as much as possible, but I'm not too strict on myself!

AJ decided to go to the men's room and weigh himself as well and the poor guy has gained almost 8 kilos while we have been away. I know I have my lap band to thank for keeping my weight somewhat steady and he can probably blame me for his weight gain because I keep giving him all my food to eat! We have been eating whatever we want and I am a sucker for a local specialty, if a town is famous for their pecan pie, than I have to try it, it would be rude not to! Same with the red velvet cupcakes, key lime pie, fudge, pralines, funnel cake, pancakes, milkshakes, twizzlers, ice box pie, almond joys, donuts, taffy, moon pie, anything with peanut butter and that's just the sweets!

Just to prove that I am enjoying the food here in the USA...

Funnel cake, I had powdered sugar in the strangest places after eating that!

New York hot dog from the Shake Shack, the shake I had with it was the best I have ever had.

Chili cheese fries, what a fucking mess! Once was enough with these things.

Macaroni and cheese, look how excited I am! Best mac n cheese I have had here, and I've tried a lot!

Peanut butter frozen hot chocolate from Serendipity 3. Worth the hype.

Shrimp and grits in Savannah. What you don;t see here is the plate of biscuits I also ate.

Choc chip pancakes at IHOP. I want to go back and get more!

Looking caught out with my New York knish. It was better than the look on my face makes it seem.