Does this sound familiar? You go on vacation and decide to eat whatever you want. When you get home, you find you've gained 10 pounds. How do you get back on track?

This happened to me recently, and it really does illustrate just how important a low carb diet is. I went to England for a week to research the Da Vinci Code locations. I did a TON of walking. I walked all over London, all over Paris, and then did a ton of walking around Stonehenge and other locations as well. I thought that my high exercise level meant I could eat "native" while I was there. I ended up eating a ton of mashed potatoes, boiled potatoes, mashed turnips, etc.

When I got home, I had literally gained over 10 pounds from that one week of eating high carb food. Think of what it does to people who eat that way constantly!

They key here is not to panic. You gained the weight quickly, you can therefore lose the weight again. It is all a matter of getting back to a healthy lifestyle. Note I am not saying to DIET. I am saying that being healthy is about eating healthy - and that this is a long term choice you make.

Get back into the rhythm of healthy eating. It's likely that a portion of the weight you gained is because you weren't drinking water adequately, so your body started to "hoard" water as a response. Drink a ton of water to get your body to release the bloat. Take your vitamins twice a day, to help your body metabolise the fat it has. For a full list of advice, read through my 'recovery' article below!

Update: Within a week, I'd lost 5 pounds of that gain, simply by eating my "normal way".

Losing Weight Again after Cheating on your Diet