Yesterday's Fitbit dashboard is why I don't worry about backsliding on vacation. We parked our car at the bottom of a veritable mountain (when you live in the swampy suburbs of Florida, everything is hilly) and trucked it uphill to the Space Needle, over to a couple of museums, over and downhill to Pike Place and up and downhill back to the car.

The hotel's free breakfast is kind of limited, so my brekkie of choice for the next couple days will be instant oatmeal with a tablespoon of peanut butter melted in. But really, it's yummy and filling so I'm not complaining. 

And alongside my oatmeal bowl and spoon is my phone, so I can log it all into My Fitness Pad, because even though we're vacationing, there is no vacation for the weight loss goal. 

The Fitbit and MFP app keep me aware of the calories out and in and I'm not taking a vacation from that. It's sooooooo easy to go off the rails -- I don't feel like coming back with a surprise on the scale.

I try and make sure one of my meals is a big salad, and I found a blackened chicken salad with baby spinach last night that fit the bill. I also seek out what I call "vacation vegetables," and I pilfered some steamed broccoli and carrots from the teenager's plate (he was more concerned with his order of garlic mac and cheese topped with barbecued pork but I made him eat a couple of stalks of broccoli).

Vacation Vegetables can be had to come by but I even found some at McDonald's. I got one of their McWraps for lunch -- the sweet chili chicken -- and it had a fair amount of cucumbers and assorted greenery among the grilled chicken. It was a decent size and 360 calories. The cashier asked me if I wanted it as a meal and I offhandedly said "no, I don't need the fries" and I swear the person next to me nearly had his head explode. He looked at me like I was nuts! 

But I keep in mind a little tip from Diet Free Life's Robert Ferguson: If you want fries, you skip the bun/tortilla/bready thing. If you want the bun, then no fries. And if I was jonesin' for fries I would have ordered a salad.

Simple as that.