Balance in life: not exercising on vacation is ok

The reason why I refer to myself as a normie is because I am somewhat dedicated to fitness but it isn't really the center of my life. I am NOT in fantastic shape, I have a bit of a gut, I'm not totally focused on diet, and I drink beer almost every day. Fitness to me is something that I do regularly, almost every day in fact. However, it isn't the center of my life and I try to find balance to make life enjoyable, but also exercise enough that I don't end up in the situation that I ended up in when I was really irresponsible in my 30's and gained a ton of weight and was basically incapable of exercise at all - those were dark times and it took me a long time to get out of that rut.

When I hear about people that build fitness into their vacations I kind of roll my eyes a little bit. This isn't because I am being judgemental about what people decide to do with their lives, I say do whatever you want. For me though, life is about balance and when I go on vacation all the dedication I have to diet and exercise goes out the window for the most part.

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This isn't to say that I go out of my way to AVOID health and fitness while on vacation. If there is a hike or some kayaking to be done I'm all for it and if there is some sort of healthy option on a breakfast buffet I might dabble with it a bit, but to me vacation is supposed to be a break, a relief of sorts, from regular life routines and they should be enjoyed as much as possible. If there is a wide variety of exotic foods that I would normally avoid in my day-to-day life back home, I'm going to take advantage of it without any regard to how bad it is for me.

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For example: On a recent vacation I was at a buffet of sorts and they had a pastry table with all sorts of cakes, pies, cream-filled things and stuff like creme brûlée and these are all things that I would avoid if I was back at home. I absolutely went to town on this portion of the buffet and probably consumed as much desserts in that one sitting that I would in a month if I was back at home.

Is this ideal? Of course not and yes, I had about 4 times as many calories in a day that I would back home but here's the thing in my mind: Life should be about enjoyment but not over-indulgence. The trick here is to have this bit of gluttony for a little while and have the discipline to not take these bad habits back home with you.

Also, it has been my experience that when I do over-indulge on a short vacation that I return home totally refreshed and also feeling a bit guilty. This makes me jump right back into my exercise and diet routine when I get back to my house in Chicago. I hit the weights hard and normally will even step up my game to a more intense level at least for a week or so. In the past, some of these increases in intensity have resulted in permanent gains on my personal bests or I made 5 to 10 second improvements on my per kilometer times in running. It's almost as though the guilt makes me step it up to a higher gear.

So if you want to diet on vacation I think that is stupid. Vacation should be about having a break from life and really enjoying yourself as much as you can. I think that most people don't get to have these breaks very often. I know that I don't and it is important to get as much out of life as you can. We only get one go round in this game and abstaining from things that make you happy entirely well, that isn't much of a life now, is it?

So for a few weeks a year I go nuts on food and for me, this is one of the main reasons why I really look forward to my breaks from regular life. I think this is fine if you have what it takes to not take these bad habits back with you when you return home. This is easy for me to do because it isn't often that I have access to a pastry buffet table anyway.

Life is about balance for me and ever since I adapted this way of living everything in my life has become more enjoyable.

_{From athlete in my 20's to fat-ass in my 30's to the strongest I have ever been in my 40's. I lost over 50 lbs and kept it off by making gradual and sustainable changes to my overall lifestyle. If I can do it, I believe other people can as well}