Going on holiday is always exciting! Change of environment and routine, seeing new places, tasting new food. But the more excited you get, the easier it can be to go off track and pile on extra pounds.
Then when you are back home, it can be hard to get rid of the stubborn pounds so your favourite jeans fit like a glove again.
As they say prevention is always the best protection.
So what to do in this case?
Planning is everything when it comes to healthy eating and maintaining your weight, even on holiday. If you fail to plan, you plan to fail. You start reacting to your hunger instead of making conscious decisions. And that triggers a chain of indulgent behaviour which is hard to break.
Let’s see what you can do to stay in control and avoid going down the spiral while having fun!
Prepack
When you go self-catering or B&B it’s handy to have 2 – 3 recipes on your phone you can fix very quickly yourself. This will give you a break from rich restaurant meals. Once you picked the recipes, make sure you pack the spices (pre-measure them in advance) so you don’t need to go looking for them.
Also having a few simple ingredients like dried oats, small cartons of plant milks and flax seeds packed, will help you get over the first morning until you manage to get some groceries. I can’t tell you how many times this helped me even when we stayed in a hotel and their breakfast just let me down.
Plan your journey
Your staycation starts the minute you leave the house. Whether in the car or on the plane, it’s worth having something in your handbag to nibble on. Some carrot sticks, sugar snap peas or cherry tomatoes will help you stay off the crisps or pastries.
If you travel way beyond a mealtime, packing a home-made bean burger, a nori sheet wrap or air fried spring rolls filled with rice and veg will save you from quick fixes the petrol stations and airports offer.
Accommodation matters
It’s worth picking a hotel room or B & B with a small fridge or even a microwave. This comes in handy if you need to fix something quickly yourself. Perhaps you are longing for a giant salad free from oily restaurant dressings or the hotel breakfast wasn’t good enough. Maybe you need your favourite porridge or you’re missing a simple plain potato, which tastes almost as good from the microwave as it does from your own oven.
Eating out
Restaurants don’t care about your waist line. They want you to go crazy for their food, so you come back for more. They do it simply by creating meals which are hard to resist by combining oil, sugar and salt in such quantities which hijack the pleasure centres in your brain.
To stay in control start your meal with vegetable based soup or a salad (leave the dressing aside). In this way you start filling yourself up with foods really low in calories leaving less space for the main to come.
Then, for the main ask for plain rice on the side (make sure they haven’t added any oil) and a tofu veg curry, for example.
This way you can enjoy all the rice to fill your belly up and flavour it with little bit of curry sauce. Another good choice would be tomato based sauces or vegetable sushi rolls as they generally are lower in calories.
Keep moving
Even though you are on holidays, it shouldn’t stop you from moving your body. Whether it’s a walk before your breakfast, running up the stairs instead of using the lift or a loooong walk after dinner. The extra movement not only helps you burn some of the calories but more importantly it’ll make you feel good about yourself. Naturally, you’ll want to keep the ball rolling and won’t be as inclined to overdo it at the table.
The truth is, sometimes it’s difficult to stay in control. Well, almost impossible really 🙂
And that’s ok. Don’t forget it’s your time off and you deserve to relax.
It’s more about finding healthy boundaries which work for you. Because there is no point in indulging in every single meal just because you “deserve” it and then struggle with your weight for months after.
Perhaps shifting your focus on being with those you love, doing things you enjoy and trying your best not to lose weight but keep it steady, could be a good goal.
I have no doubt you can do it.
Cheers to you and a delicious way of living!
Lenka
