I recently took a trip to visit my folks and sister in Arizona. It was a great trip and offered some much needed time to decompress.

But when you're trying to lose weight, routine can be your biggest ally and when you're on vacation, all that routine typically goes right out the window.

On this particular vacation, I didn't get to exercise as much as I would have liked, and all my attempts at tracking my calories failed miserably as we changed our plans on the fly multiple times.

But despite the chaos, I was able to log a half pound loss for the week.

That was probably the worst outcome possible.

I know what you're probably thinking. Hey, it's a loss! Celebrate the small victories.

But in reality, logging a loss after throwing my discipline and routine to the wind caused me to enter the weekend feeling a little cocky. I wasn't as careful with my intake or exercise over the weekend, and when I finally got back to a scale on Monday, my fears were confirmed.

I had gained 2.5 pounds!

I knew I had to scramble if I was going to be ready to post a loss for you guys on weigh in Wednesday.

Long story short, I stepped on the scale this morning and I was 367.8 which is a half pound lost from last week.

I'm celebrating the fact that this is the sixth or seventh week of sustained weight loss for me, though I know I could have posted a larger loss if I had just been a little more disciplined.

Looking ahead, I'm going to Manila, Philippines next week for work. I'm worried about the trip because I won't have any of my secret weight loss weapons as my disposal throughout the week. I won't have my green juice, my scale, or my routine to keep me on track.

Plus, if you know my people like I do, you know that it's pretty much considered rude if you don't stuff your face at every meal.

Wish me luck!