Went on vacation during recovery, ate what I wanted and didn’t gain

Y’all better enjoy your family holidays / vacations because I used to be terrified that I’d gain so much weight if I couldn’t track / over exercise for a few weeks. I literally went on holiday around France and Belgium for two weeks, no restriction, ate lots of bread and dairy and did chocolate tours and pastries, and I didn’t binge or restrict. Just walked around the city and ate snacks and meals.

When I came back home I was terrified to step on my scale but then it showed that I… actually maintained??

I don’t know whether to cry of joy because I used to think more than an exact number of berries / nuts would make me gain weight and I was shocked to see that I can actually eat and enjoy myself without going full crazy binge mode bc that’s the only thing that would cause my weight to bounce back up 😭

Besides, even if you do gain “vacation weight” it’s literally food and water because in order to gain a pound a day you’d need 3500 on TOP of your TDEE, and if you did eat that in a day you still wouldn’t gain fat. You’d have to pretty much consistently do it.
I realised that every time I tried to eat “normally” and recover on my own I’d literally binge more than my body weight on a daily basis until sickness and then rapidly gain weight. Soooo I’m late to the train of this realisation that I can maintain a healthy body without obsessively tracking and eating “clean” 😭😭😭