“Just don’t fall off the wagon!”

That’s what everyone told me as I flaunted my 20-pound loss. Pshaw, I thought. I worked hard to ditch that weight. I wasn’t going to take detrimental steps backward.

And yet here I sit a couple months later with barely a 10-pound loss to my name.

It started with our trip home to Hawaii. Now that we’re living on the mainland, losing weight isn’t quite so hard. No offense to mainland restaurants, but they can’t hold a candle to our Pacific Rim cuisine.

But where it’s easy to say “no thanks” to fatty greasy spoon fare, it’s a little harder when you have a limited time to take in all the gastronomic wonder of the Islands.

While we were home, I enjoyed Leonard’s malasadas stuffed with cream, Tasty Korean BBQ, Big City Diner fried rice, Tamura’s poke, Tanioka’s bentos, Waiola shave ice and homemade Okinawan sweet potato pie with haupia. Oh boy, did I enjoy it.

During our stay, I worked out a whopping three times. I took Quinn for a walk around Mililani, ran on my mother-in-law’s treadmill and swam a little in the Ko Olina lagoons.

We were only in Hawaii for 12 days so maybe three times wasn’t quite enough to earn me a million calories worth of food.

When we finally returned to San Diego, I was back in bad habit mode. Chocolate candies, donuts and pie rejoined my regular meal routine. Even watching “The Biggest Loser” didn’t make me feel bad about shoving cookies into my happy mouth. “I’m not obese, right?” I’d ask Derek.

“No, babe, you look great,” he’d say, all the while staring at his computer screen.

“Yeah, I’m in good shape,” I said, pinching a little more than just an inch at my waist.

The worst part is I know better. I know that these processed foods and sweets are killer on a healthy diet. I’ve read books and watched movies on just how bad food can be. Yeah, even after taking in some online video clips on the evils of fast food, I find myself thinking, “Wow, I’d love a McDouble.”

Two years ago at this time, it was a very different story. In 2008, I was heading into my third trimester of pregnancy when I was diagnosed with gestational diabetes. I remember how unfair it felt to be diabetic during the holidays. Not only did Thanksgiving feel like just another day, but Christmas and New Year’s was less sparkly without dessert.

Unlike me today, though, I controlled my diet and weight, because it didn’t only hurt me to be consuming all that sugar. Suddenly I had someone else to think about, which is exactly what Kaiser’s nutritionists hammered home at my required gestational diabetes class.

Even as I craved strawberry ice cream, I turned to healthier options, such as sugar free chocolate fudge instant pudding. I also learned to read labels so that I would understand how many carbohydrates were in a serving.

Thanks to that commitment to a strict diet and a mere half hour of daily exercise, I didn’t gain an enormous amount during pregnancy nor was my blood sugar above recommended levels.

So where is that woman today? How could I have gone from a stickler for sugar free snacks to a diet mostly composed of carbs and sweets? Why couldn’t I care about myself as much as I cared for the baby growing inside me? And why can’t I get back into my daily exercise routine?

The second knock on my routine might explain that. After we came back from San Diego, I stepped into a stay-at-home mom’s shoes. Actually, there are stay-at-home moms and then there’s me.

Some full-time moms can work out at 5 a.m. before devoting their undivided attention to their children. I, on the other hand, could barely rouse myself before Elmo’s World to give Quinn breakfast.

Meanwhile, the Gen in the back of my mind kept whispering, “Get back into it. Take out the Wii and start stepping!” I usually shut her up by turning Yo Gabba Gabba! up louder while munching sea salt and vinegar chips.

I just couldn’t do it. Not only did I crave sleep, I also didn’t want to see my Mii get pudgier than she was and hear about my weight gain.

There’s something about procrastination that just makes everything that much worse. The more I put off exercise and eating right, the easier it became to make unwise choices for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Factor in Halloween, fast approaching Thanksgiving and endless Christmas get-togethers and you have an unforgiving schedule of yum.

The problem is I remember the Gen who lost 20 pounds. I miss her. She was tossing the fat clothes aside in favor of fitted tees. She didn’t envy the skinny chick in the grocery line next to her.

So here I am – again – setting goals and trying to recall that gumption that helped me drop sizes and weight. The good thing about falling off the wagon is you can always get back on it when it comes around again.

This time I think I’ll wait until I’ve lost 50 pounds before returning to ono Hawaii food.

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