Karen's "End of Story"

I knew it would be a challenge to stay with the program since we would be gone for 3 weeks in the middle.  But I figured any pound lost was a good thing to lose, so I joined anyway.  I came back from our trip weighing exactly what I did when we left, which I was happy about.  We were on buses, planes, and a ship for many hours, which eliminated any regular exercise.  But we did lots of stair climbing, walking on uneven roads, and getting luggage around.  We were warned not to eat anything fresh or unpeeled while in Egypt and Jordan.  So the control I had for food was to not eat too much at the two meals provided, which, unfortunately, consisted of a lot of carbohydrates.  I thought eggs would be a good choice, but found the eggs were quite nasty (don't know what those chickens were fed, but it wasn't Purina!)  Our third meal was snacks brought with us to eat as we traveled, so I ate a lot of 100 calorie packets of nuts and a plethora of KIND bars.  Happily, I did not go up a pant size, still wearing the 14's.  A small success I can cheer about!

Who would have guessed that a jury duty assignment the week after we got home would turn into a five day marathon.  On jury selection day, I reported to the courthouse at 8 am and we sat until 8:30 that night.  My luck seated me in the jury box for the next 5 days.  I was too brain dead to do anything more than walk 2 blocks for lunch and to and from my parking space.  Ugly!  So I finish the challenge still in my size 14 pants, down a total of 7 pounds, very grateful for that much.  I'm ready for another challenge after Christmas!  It has been fun to read about success others are having, it gives you motivation to try and try again.  Thanks everyone.