Sorry for the late post today. We spent the day doing exciting things like getting me new tires (I’m  HORRIBLE at maintaining my tires), grocery shopping and celebrating the teenager’s birthday (15! How’d that happen so soon?).

But I did get on the scale this morning, gleefully, I might add, because I knew this would happen:

I nearly always lose weight on vacation. I think it has to do with lots of walking, lack of boredom, no late-night kitchen to call to me, and a laserlike focus on balancing healthy choices with little indulgences here and there.

That means if a restaurant has excellent fried calamari, we split an appetizer three ways and I order a veggie-egg white omelet. Or if we want to check out a boutique ice cream parlor we go there FOR dinner instead of AFTER dinner.

I also seek out what I call “vacation vegetables.”

No, these are not tourists on lounge chairs. 

I make sure that every chance I can, I find some vegetables or fruit to cram into a meal. It's very easy to go an entire day with nary a bit of greenery when traveling. Salads, veggie-packed omelets, extra vegetables on subs, fresh fruit -- I look for them all. It greatly helps balance out the carby, meaty, saucy stuff. 

This may seem a bit food-obsessive, but what follows are some culinary stops along the way of our trip to the Pacific Northwest with my reasoning behind my choices. Maybe it'll help you find that happy balance between egg whites and ice cream.

A DIY nori roll with edamame, sticky rice and nori sheets at Cafe Yumm in Portland. I skipped the sauce and kept it clean.

A banh mi from a Vietnamese food cart in Portland. I got extra cilantro, which didn't add a load of veg but it's high in micronutrients, and I love the stuff.

A few of us popped into a sushi place in Portland. I had already eaten dinner, but there's always room for a seaweed nightcap! (I kinda have a thing for seaweed.)

Road tripping to the mountains, we stopped at a Quiznos and I loaded up a small turkey sub with every vegetable they offered.

The cool thing about this pulled pork and slaw sandwich at the Urban Farmer restaurant in the Nines Hotel was that it was "happy hour" sized. Perfect little, toddler-sized gem of a sandwich, which I paired with a chilled white gazpacho-type soup.

The Portland Penny Diner has a really creative selection of breakfast sandwiches. This one is the Hipster, which features egg, pepperjack cheese, tomato and hazelnut romesco sauce. The sandwiches were so good that I was pleasantly full before I could finish it, so I didn't. That's the great thing about eating real food; a little goes a long way.

Across from Pike Place Market in Seattle, we found Tom Douglas' Rub With Love Shack, where I ordered a barbecued chicken sandwich topped with a vinegary slaw.

Nope -- no vegetables to be found here. But I really wanted to try Portland's Salt & Straw ice cream shop, so we went there for dinner. I got a scoop of Stumptown Coffee and Burnside Bourbon, and a scoop of Sea Salt Ice Cream With Caramel Ribbon. Indulgent? Sure, but I figured we saved hundreds of calories by skipping the meal and cutting right to dessert.

Yes, we did more than eat our way through Washington and Oregon. We walked a lot, even getting in a 2-hour hike, which seemed like it was uphill all the way. 

The centerpiece of the trip, for me at least, was the fourth annual Fitbloggin' conference, which involved daily workouts, sometimes more than a couple. I walked, Zumbaed, danced, got my butt kicked by a Total Gym, and pounded the pavement in nearly 100-degree heat (Portland? What was up with that?).

What I'm trying to say is it's all about balance, balance, balance. The celery and the ice cream. The gin and tonics and the ice water. The doughnut samples and the 5K's. The bacon and the ... bacon. (Oh, hell, that hotel bacon was good.)

But I had two slices of bacon, not a plateful. I didn't beat myself up about anything; I made sure I logged everything in My Fitness Pal and checked my Fitbit throughout the day. 

And it all worked out splendidly.