Weight Watcher's Diaries Sixteen
By Carol Daelemans

Vacation + Ice Cream = Hello Again My Friend Plateau

Aren't you getting tired of hearing me go on and on about "the plateau?" I know I am. I thought I had this thing licked. I had two weeks of 3 pounds below the "hated number" on the scale and darned if I've not shot right back up to visit it once more.

This time I deserve to be back in plateau-ville. Heck they should have a welcome back parade for me complete with a "We knew you could do it!" banner. I agreed to go on vacation to a resort area with a certified ice cream-aholic and a child. What was I thinking?!

My much older and (for the moment) skinnier sister (Chef whats-her-name) wanted a break. "Let's go somewhere. I need to get away," she begged. Well who doesn't? Since she's also my only sister with any sort of disposable income, I thought this could be a nice trip. Editor's (Chef what's-her-name) Note: I haven't the faintest idea where she got this idea. I shovel my own driveway and clean my own house (including but not limited to the toilets) just like everyone else!

Her plan originally included bringing along both of my girls. Oh no, no! What kind of vacation includes young children stuck in a hotel room with their mother, their Auntie and a mere small fraction of their electronic distractions? Not one that I want to be on, thank you very much! Hollywood has produced blockbuster comedies with just such story lines.

I know, I know. Better people than me have taken more children than that to far less entertaining destinations than a luxury hotel suite on the beach in a resort area. Big deal. I wasn't signing up for this one.
My sister kept bringing up the idea of bringing both girls even after Daddy said he'd have a home vacation with the littlest one while we took off. She has no idea that two adults are completely out numbered by two children. She thinks we could have "worked together" and been some sort of Super mom/Super Auntie team. I know better. And I know it wouldn't have lasted through the four hour car ride to get there.

We're no super heroes. Luckily, she finally came to her senses when the oldest one expressed her sincere wish that we leave the youngest one behind "just for this trip." Yeah, right. Some days she would like to leave her little sister behind permanently.

Ultimately, we settled on a trip Up North in northern Michigan at a lovely resort on the beach. We imagined long bicycle rides along the shore and antique shopping in the various little towns. I imagine some of the people up there that weekend did those things. We were not among them.

It turned out we'd arrived Up North just in time for an unprecedented cold snap. Naturally, they'd been having 90° days right up until the day we arrived. As the valet was whisking away our car, the summertime temperatures dropped to the high sixties.

Despite the frigid temperatures and hurricane force winds, the first day, Auntie Kathy tried the long bike ride idea. My oldest daughter and I agreed to drive to town in the car and pick her up so we could all enjoy dinner together. When we got to town, Auntie Kathy was collapsed on a park bench doing her best shivering-like-a-soaking-wet-cat act.

We threw her bike in the car and she didn't look at it for the whole rest of the trip. We did enjoy a lovely dinner out but we had not packed enough jackets to get us very far into the evening.

Even though it was a chilly out we were sure we had room for dessert. After all, we were on vacation, right? Right. We decided that if we walked fast, we could stay warm enough. Anyone who tells you about any vacation spot will also tell you where all the best food is. These include not just the bars and restaurants but the ice-cream and bake shops as well. Some friends of my sister's have a vacation home in the area and clued us in on all the must-eat hot spots. That first night we headed out to find an old fashioned soda counter in a drug store. Bad news, it was out of business. Not to worry. Two handmade ice cream and candy shops had opened up in its place. Hurray! Dessert was saved. This was the beginning of the end of my diet.

My sister and my daughter conspired together to hit every single ice cream maker within 30 miles of our hotel. They felt they needed ice cream at least twice a day and could easily substitute meals for just ice cream. The hotel actually had an ice cream social every single evening.

How convenient! How easy they had made it for me to bring home not just Petoskey stones but 20 pounds of fudge and ice cream on my rear. I have to admit I didn't put up much of a fight. I was on vacation too. Or at least I wanted to feel like I was. I went along with the mutiny. The plans to eat well at the spa restaurants and ride multiple miles on bikes went straight out the window. We hauled the bikes Up North so they could get a vacation as well. Lucky bikes. They had a good, well deserved rest. So did we. I earned every ounce of the extra weight I put back on.

The vacation turned out to consist of us looking for stones on the beach, escorting my oldest daughter to the pool every day, remembering to look up and say, "uh huh" every time she yelled out, "Look at this!" and eating poorly. With a few cocktails thrown in for good measure, we were happy and getting fat. Maybe this isn't what we set out to do but since we also set out to relax and break out of our day-to-day grind I'd have to call the trip a success.

So what if the treadmill has to be my new best friend. None of us fought, we didn't lose anyone, we watched sunsets, slept past dawn, saw a mink in the wild and spent countless hours doing what we would have called "nothing" last week at home but that now seemed to fill entire days. It was nice. Maybe next year we can try it again and just leave the bikes at home.