A little maintenance trick

After ten weeks of maintenance I'm still finding it a bit annoying that my weight bobs up and down such a lot. I know that weight does not stay absolutely the same, but I gave myself a 3kg band where it was OK to be, but I have gone above the top of the band quite a few times, and once nearly 2kg above it. It doesn't help at all that I stay away from home fairly often, which breaks my usual eating routine - in the last year I have been away for 102 days, and managed to put on 13.2kg in that time. Big weight gains are always worrying, even though I have always managed to lose it on my return. But on the last trip Ann had a nice idea to help things.

The usual routine has been to go away, gain some weight, be fed up about it, then lose it. Ann's idea is simple - I more or less know that on the road and not self-catering I'm going to put weight on, so why not prepare for it by losing the weight before I go? On average I put on about 2kg a week away from home when we're not self-catering, so I need to 'deserve' this freestyle eating by losing the weight first. Then when I return everything should be OK. If I return and I haven't gained all that weight, then I will need to put some weight on, but that's a nice problem to have.

With any luck, this little trick will help my maintenance, and stop me getting so fed up. It will also stop me fretting so much about the eight-day cruise we have just booked for next year. The lady at the travel agent told me that, for her, the whole idea of a cruise was to eat as much as possible, because it was all included - not something I was keen on. But if I lose 3kg before I go, I would feel OK to go slightly over the top if the mood took me.