How to Stay on Track with Your Weight Loss During Vacation
You finally get to go on that vacation you rightly deserve after months and years of working hard, but you have big summer goals to hit.
You’ve worked hard, lost a couple pounds, and your goal is to look sexy, stay healthy, and keep that stubborn belly fat off.
But now it’s time to enjoy your vacation.
Do you let go and lose your progress or stay on track?
The truth is you can do both by:
Preparing for your trip correctly
Leaning on boosting your metabolism while on your trip
Maintaining a guilt-free mindset.
Your vacation is YOUR time to enjoy yourself.
Saving your calories for your trip
The truth is you can enjoy your vacation and stay on track with your fat loss goals.
And the best way to stay on track with your weight loss during vacation starts with avoiding airport food.
As you know by now, airport food is not the healthiest cuisine for you or your wallet.
At first glance, it can seem daunting to stay on track when traveling, as everywhere you look is a fast food chain, new restaurant, and processed food that costs you 3 kidneys, an arm and a leg, and your first child.
However, with a little bit of guidance, eating healthy and staying on track doesn’t have to be so challenging.
The airport can have some great alternatives for helping you stay healthy, full, and on track with your progress.
Here’s what to do.
Look for the freezers
Staying in or near the frozen section will provide you with the best opportunity to grab a healthy snack.
Look for real food that you can find in nature—such as tuna, chicken, turkey, fruits, veggies, and dairy.
These will make your body feel better and will usually be lined up on the edges of the store or kiosk.
Remember: “If you are not hungry enough to eat real food, then you are not hungry.”
Craving often leads us to empty calories—such as cookies, chips, and cakes, all of which are designed to cause us to keep feeding, and eventually, we over indulge.
Now, a lot of the healthier options will be more expensive in the short term but worth it in the long run.
The healthier snacks are usually foods that will rot first if not well kept, whereas the processed foods are usually found in the middle aisles.
Instead, take a walk and make the healthier choice. Your mind and body will thank you.
Avoid marketing health claims. If it doesn’t grow in nature, avoid it; if it does, enjoy it. Think about it: when was the last time you saw a tree grow Twinkie’s? Save those calories for your trip!
Prioritize the proteins
Protein helps you stay full longer and curve craving.
The key is to make the healthiest option and keep yourself full.
Great options for high protein foods and snacks include:
chicken sandwich
tuna wrap
greek yogurt
hard boiled egg
core power fairlife milk
These all can be great sources of protein, while keeping the calories at a minimum.
The key is to look at the label and see if it has at least 10 grams of protein for every 100 calories.
If it comes close to it, then it will be a good protein source to eat.
BYOS— Bring your own snacks
We know eating real food is as simple as staying away from fast food chains, avoiding the middle aisles, and choosing foods that are found in nature.
But something that can make a big difference to your wallet and what you put in your body is bringing your own food snacks, whenever possible.
Bringing your own snacks can help control how many calories you eat, ensures fresher snacks, and helps reduce the cost.
Snacking options such as:
grapes and cheese
apple and peanuts
hummus and veggies
peanut butter and bananas
Are all great options to keep you full when hunger strikes.
The best part is that even if you couldn’t pack your snacks, all these options will be found near the frozen section, so always get yourself a snack for hunger emergencies.
A lot of our unhealthy eating is due to convenience, so the more convenient you make having healthy options near by, the better.
This will be a hunger investment you will not regret.
Drink low calorie alcohol or save the alcohol for your destination
It is best to avoid drinking before getting to your destination.
But if you choose to drink, stick to low-calorie alcoholic drinks, such as:
wine spritzers
light beers
vodka soda
prosecco
hard seltzers
Most of these allow you to still go out and celebrate while keeping the calories to a minimum.
A good rule of thumb is that for every alcoholic drink, have one water with it. But be warned: if you are on the plane, you WILL need to pee.
Another option is to avoid alcohol altogether and choose water, real coffee, tea, or 0 calorie drinks.
Regardless of what you choose, prioritize and stick primarily to water to help with hydration.
If you need coffee, have it; take your cream and splenda too if you want; that’s ok. Your creamer is not what will ruin your progress.
But also be honest with yourself and make sure you are having coffee and not desert.
If it’s a frapelategrandecarmelvanillachocomocaha with 700-1000 calories, that’s dessert—NOT coffee.
That frappe latte at Starbucks is not worth it compared to all the desserts you can have at your destination. So save those calories for your trip!
Boost your metabolism
Here’s what you need to know to keep your progress while on vacation.
Eat that which boosts your metabolism.
Protein is the main macronutrient driving this metabolism boost.
Proteins have a much higher thermic effect (20-30%) compared to carbs (5-10%) and fat (0-3%), meaning you burn more calories when digesting proteins.
Proteins require more calories to break down.
So, eating foods with high amounts of protein helps to
1) increase your metabolism
2) stay full longer
3) keep the muscle that you’ve worked hard to get.
Foods high in protein are those from your animal proteins, such as steak, chicken, and fish.
Maybe you get a filet mignon you really like, or chicken cordon bleu. The trick is to stick to your heavy protein items mentioned above.
Another great option is to add in high protein plant-based foods, such as edamame, lentils, beans, tempeh, and tofu,
The goal is to choose meals based around what you enjoy or adding them into your meal.
Enjoy your dessert, but have your veggies first
The best part of travel by far has to be dessert. So, enjoy it, but have your veggies first.
Yes, it’s that age old parenting trick you once heard and maybe forgot. Veggies should be another staple to your food, along with protein.
Not just because they are good for you but because you can eat more per the amount of food while while consuming less calories.
Eating fresh veggies brings flavor to the meals.
It adds color and helps you feel full while eating your meal, and you can eat as much as you want without a single worry of getting “fat.”
This is your guilt-free hack to eat more and weigh less.
And when it comes to dessert time—add fruits.
Fruits on your dessert is another great way to improve your health, make you feel better about yourself, and reduce the “mental guilt.”
There is nothing like adding fruits to your dessert.
The combination between eating vegetables first and adding fruits to your dessert will help the enjoyment of the dessert last longer and bring you peace of mind and enjoyment as you eat.
Stay active and enjoy movement
Your trip is not just about the food; it’s about exploring, trying something new, and seeing new sights.
Many times, we miss out on incredible opportunities to explore and challenge ourselves.
Take a hike, swim to a water fall, or walk through a museum. Get moving and enjoy the views.
Getting active could include going snorkeling, going on a fishing trip, cycling through the city, finding local hiking trails, or climbing the mountain.
You never know what your body can acheive.
One of our online coaching clients went on a trip to Machu Picchu, and the highlight of the trip was being able to climb the stairs.
It can be tempting to choose the convenient route, but choosing to challenge yourself can bring an experience of a life time.
So, we encourage you to move often and enjoy the movement.
Keep one aspect of your exercise routine
Now, we did promise you can enjoy your trip, but there are also goals and responsibilities you want to reach, so proper balance is key.
We are not suggesting you spend 3 hours at the gym. Instead, it’s quite the opposite.
The goal is to keep the habit, feel better, while still doing the minimum.
So, choose one aspect of your exercise routine that makes you feel better, and stick to it.
It could be stretching in the morning, or working out at the your hotel gym.
It’s not about spending hours at the gym, but see if you can commit to 20 minutes.
Twenty minutes is enough to make you feel good, sexy, and confident about the day you are about to have.
Eat—guilt-free
Your thoughts, beliefs, and the culture around us can create a lot of anxiety around food, the scale, and weight loss.
Therefore, in order to get the most out of your vacation and have a guilt-free mindset, you must learn to embrace enjoyment and expel two main mental barriers (myths) that society often feeds.
Enjoyment is about taste, experience, savoring, presence, smells. It’s about our senses indulging in their preferences.
This is important because, many times, we can think enjoyment is abundance. When, in reality, it’s about having the right things at the right amount. Think of your favorite perfume.
Now, imagine being soaked in it. You might like your favorite perfume a lot, but if you are lathered in it, your enjoyment for the smell will go down. The same is true with food and your experiences.
The goal is to enjoy the food and the environment without stuffing yourself to the point where you can no longer enjoy it.
Often, your best work out is after the perfect evening with your favorite desert and a great meal.
It’s a good beer with a delicious pizza. Enjoyment is about taste, not over-indulgence.
So, in order to make the most out of your trip, you will need to let go of two myths to enjoy your trip.
Carbs don’t make you fat
You can eat the bread. It’s okay.
Carbs don’t make you fat.
Here’s why this is important to know:
You may be traveling to France or Italy—places with delicious food, tasty baguettes, incredible croissants, delicious crepes, and some of the best pastas you’ve ever had in your life.
IF YOU ARE WHAT YOU EAT, THEN I ONLY WANT TO EAT THE GOOD STUFF—Ratatouille
Carbs will not make you fat, but it will increase your water retention.
Many people think carbs make you fat, when in reality carbs are stored in the body in the form of glycogen.
Your body is 60% water, meaning the majority of your weight is water, and depending on what you eat, this can cause water retention or water loss.
This does not mean you’ve “gained weight” in terms of fat; it means that overall, you’ve gained more weight, but it’s not necesarily fat.
One day of eating too many calories will not make you fat
Calories do not make you fat, but too many of them could.
Calories are essential for life.
Your fat-loss journey will require a calorie deficit.
But a calorie deficit is a long-term commitment and requires many days of consistency to pay off.
Alternatively, one “off day” of a calorie surplus will not ruin the progress you’ve worked so hard to make.
So, on your trip don’t worry about the calories. Worry about the taste. What I mean by this is nothing tastes better than the first bite.
Savor your food, take time to really enjoy it, and eat it slowly.
When you eat food for its taste, you will stop over-indulging because you will know there is a point where you are eating out of habit or forcefulness rather than taste.
If you enjoyed it and are full, save some for tomorrow, take it to go, and enjoy it later.
It’s better to have a meal and split it up throughout the day than to over indulge and have it all in one setting.
This will keep away any sluggish feeling and help you visit new places, keep you alert, and active.
Plus, you get to enjoy that same meal again and again.
Going on vacation doesn’t have to mean pigging out, and there are three parts to be aware of when traveling to make sure you stay on track with your weight loss goals during your vacation.
Lastly, the most important thing to know is that your peace of mind, rest from work, and enjoyment of vacation is more important than the number on the scale when you come back.
The scale is a number that measures more than just fat. A two-week vacation is not enough time to gain tremendous amounts of fat.
You don’t gain fat in two weeks, but you can feel out of shape in two weeks.
So, keep your habits, enjoy your vacation, and destroy limiting beliefs that can ruin your mental peace and vacation.
When you get back home, it’s time to go back at the grind, at your routine, but whatever happens, just know you didn’t fail,
It was not a set back; it was a refresher to push YOU further in your career, habits, and life.
Enjoy your vacation, keep one exercise habit going throughout, and let go of limiting social media beliefs that ruin your relationship with food.
Stay happy and healthy 🐢 Slow and steady wins the race 😉
If you need assistance with your fat-loss journey or would like to start an exercise routine, but don’t know how, check out our free fat-loss guide below.
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