Hi Analyn,

Great decision! Just to add a bit from personal experience, the hardest part of taking a vacation from this WOE is getting back to it when you return. I went to France last fall, and I didn't gain any weight, which is amazing considering that by Day 3 all my good intentions had flown out the window. The trouble was that when I returned I kept making excuses for a chicken pita here or a mouthful of potato there, because I wouldn't gain. I didn't--then--but by Christmas I was making excuses every day, and in January I realized that I was back to bingeing. I've lost the 10 lb I gained back, plus another 5, and I have a better appreciation of my relationship to food.

In the beginning of May I'm going to Malta for a couple of weeks. Apart from choosing sensibly there's not much I can do about the food I eat at restaurants, but we're renting a house, and two meals a day will be totally in my control. So no bread, no potatoes, no tastes of this or that. It will be interesting because we're going with a couple who are ultra-low fat--because of the husband's cholesterol .

Susan