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How To Stay Healthy While On Holiday

How To Stay Healthy While On Holiday
Carly Jacobs
A

few weeks ago I wrote a post about how to bounce back after a holiday and I got heaps of emails from people saying that they’re currently on holiday (lucky ducks!) and they need tips to stop them from packing on piles of holiday weight while they’re away.

how to stay healthy while on holiday

I’m not saying you HAVE to be careful when you’re on holiday (how boring would a treat free holiday be?) but if you’re the type of person who’s able to undo years of regular gym visits and daily salad eating with one week’s worth of fried food at a beach side resort, here are a few tips on how to stay healthy while on holiday.

Eat healthily for two out of every three meals

If you’re in New York you can’t not experience eating a slice of pizza the size of your head, if you’re in Italy and you avoid pasta the whole time, that’s a wasted trip as far as I’m concerned. It’s totally fine to try everything your travel destination has to offer but try to stick to the 2:3 rule. Make sensible choices for 2 meals, say breakfast and lunch and splurge a little on dinner. Make good choices when you can and really own your splurges.

Move

It can be very tempting to loll about in your hotel room or permanently plant yourself on a sun-lounger for a week but it won’t be doing your health any favours. Try to walk as much as possible and hit up the hotel or resort gym if there’s one available to you. Although it’s unlikely that exercise will help you lose weight, it’s bloody good for maintenance so you should be doing extra exercise rather than skipping it when you’re on holiday.

Schedule in a few alcohol free days

Just because you don’t have to work when you’re on holiday doesn’t mean you should get trolleyed every weeknight. Alcohol is full of empty calories, it slows down your digestion and hangovers can make you seriously over-indulged the next day. Obviously a holiday wouldn’t be a holiday with out a cocktail at a fancy bar or a beer on the beach but you don’t need to totally pickle your liver every single day while you’re on a break.

Prioritise your treat foods

If I’m on a holiday in a country I’ve never been to before, I’m not going to waste calories and wonderful food experiences on things I’ve already tried. For example if I’m in Thailand I’m not going to eat a Mars Bar for dessert because I already know what they taste like. I’d much rather spend those calories on mango and sticky rice or some other traditional dessert. Make sure you save your calories for something awesome. Tip: Order lots of food and share things. My partner and I tend to snack our way around the world when we travel so we get to try little, harmless bites of everything so we don’t have to sacrifice our holiday or our health.

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Do you struggle to keep healthy on holidays? Or do you not care just go hell for leather on the delicious stuff?

 

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P.S If you’re a blogger from Adelaide, and you’re stuck in your blogging journey I’d love to help you! 

25 Comments

  1. Christine 9 years ago

    I try to be really strict in the weeks leading up to a holiday – maybe lose a kilo or two. Then I have a little “cushion” to indulge without guilt. It’s all a bit mind games really! xx

    • Anna Buckley 9 years ago

      Me too…kilo’s in the bank!

      • Author
        Carly Jacobs 9 years ago

        Oh I do that too! I’m currently doing it because I’m away for in Adelaide next week! 🙂

    • Author
      Carly Jacobs 9 years ago

      Ha! Totally! And I’ll often get straight back in to 5:2 fasting when I get back.

  2. KezUnprepared 9 years ago

    I think the thing that usually saves me (or at least helps me break even) is walking!! I love exploring on foot when I travel! It’s great! Last year we went to Korea. It was SO easy to eat healthily! I lost 3kg after eating quite well and walking up to 30km a day sometimes!! Pity we had too many tempting things in Japan right after – I broke even when we got home haha. No harm done! I consider it a good thing if I at least break even!

    • Author
      Carly Jacobs 9 years ago

      Oh my god me too! I walk EVERYWHERE! Mr Smaggle and I would walk like 8 hours every day in New York. It was the only way to work off all those tacos and pizza slices!

  3. Veggie Mama 9 years ago

    I ate so much in NYC, but I also walked more than I’ve ever walked in my life, haha. Could eat pizza and french fries allllll daaaayyyyy longgggg

    • Author
      Carly Jacobs 9 years ago

      Oh my god me too. they do the best worst food in New York.

  4. It really does make a difference if you can walk as much as possible and even sneak in a run or workout of some kind (not every single day, but often). Love your tip about not wasting calories on food you already know the taste of or can eat readily at home. Save it for the good stuff!

    • Author
      Carly Jacobs 9 years ago

      I used to work in an English school in Canberra and my work mate and I were fastidious about our diets and we only allowed to eat things on the snack table that we’d never tried before. It stopped us getting all chubby because we weren’t ever allowed to just grab a Tim Tam.

  5. Cheekie 9 years ago

    Another advocate for walking, everywhere, never put weight on travelling and eat as I please but that doesn’t mean fatty foods and lots of alcohol.
    All your suggestions are spot on.

    • Author
      Carly Jacobs 9 years ago

      Exactly! You need to be moderate with consumption. I tend to not snack as much on holidays because i’m busy walking around all the time!

  6. Cheney 9 years ago

    These are great tips! I try not buy shiny goods, eat decadent stuff, or do fun things in the lead-up to going away, so I can go a bit loopy when I get there and it’s no big deal. I’m going to Melbourne in a few weeks, so I’m basically eating gruel and wearing a hessian sack til then.

    • Author
      Carly Jacobs 9 years ago

      HA! Gruel and a hessain sack. Hilarious. You could almost wear a hessian sack in my suburb and people would think it’s super cool and modern. 🙂

  7. Angela (@Angelayang) 9 years ago

    Such a great post and love the tips! I just got back from a month in the states and I’m proud to say I’m one of the few lucky ones to have lost weight while stateside. In LA staying healthy was easy, all the endless hikes up Runyon Canyon and Griffith Park undid all the In&Out we ate, and the wonderful salads, microbiotic bowls and juices were so easy to find and relatively cheap. At Palm Springs & Coachella was a bit iffy, some days I’d have a nice yoghurt breakfast and just walk around all day from tent to tent, and dancing in the Drake moshpit until early am (my fitbit would go off around noon), other days I’d just laze around the pool eating curly fries and drinking starbucks frapps… BALANCE! In New York it was definitely harder, with all the weird street food, bagles and pastrami sandwiches. But we tried to walk as much as we could, getting Ubers only when it’s over 10 blocks or we’re carrying stuff. The 2:3 trick is definitely useful, we would go to Union Street Market or Wholefoods and buy salads, yoghurts healthy snacks, water and fresh fruit few nights a week so we don’t turn to iHop or Dunkin Doughnuts for lazy hungover breakfasts….. or goodness forbid the bottomless mimosa brunches that have us woozy by 1pm. For me it’s definitely about the experience, kimchi burritos and fries from a cart at Coachella or a street hotdog from NY is just as memorable as the macrobiotic, organic, vegan, fermented brown rice bowl from Sqirl in LA. When it comes down to it it’s about the memories (and instagrams) not the sneaky extra calories.

    • Author
      Carly Jacobs 9 years ago

      Wholefoods is my place of worship. If I lived in the states I would eat there ALL THE TIME! You’re so lucky, I don’t think I’ve ever lost weight on holiday except for Bali but that wasn’t fun…

  8. Cilla 9 years ago

    timely; I am off to Barcelona on Sunday.

  9. I kid you not – when we went to Italy a few years ago (I was 6 months pregnant) – I put on 5 kilos in 10 days. Serious. Be careful about Italy – pizza, breads, pastas, wine. (Clearly I have no self control whatsoever!!) I am too scared to go back!! My tip though these days – when it comes to the buffet breakfast is to steer clear of the bread/muffins/hashbrowns etc and stick to the proteins and veggies (toms, mushrooms etc) etc. Fills you up for ages and you really don’t feel like overindulging.

    • Author
      Carly Jacobs 9 years ago

      Oh yes I’m EXACTLY the same. I put on 5 kilos in Thailand and Mr Smaggle lost 5 kilos and we ate, moved and drank in IDENTICAL QUANTITIES! The next doctor who tries to tell me that my weight problems aren’t genetic is getting a punch in the junk.

  10. Paul 9 years ago

    Great post Carly. Your tip about scheduling a few alcohol free days is so true. With all the relaxation on a nice holiday its easy to get in the bad habit of drinking too much.

    • Author
      Carly Jacobs 9 years ago

      I’m a shocker on holiday but I do need to remind myself that it’s not healthy to have beer every single afternoon for 10 day straight.

  11. Nicole (@dorkabrain) 9 years ago

    I’m one of those people that doesn’t restrict at all on holidays; I’m stressed enough in my day to day life that I really don’t want to be doing some sort of food thought balancing act while I’m on vacation. Sure if something I desire happens to be healthy and light, than that’s a bonus, but I think going without during that short burst of time is a bit of a bummer. We do pretty much walk everywhere while we’re away though. While we were in London (for almost three weeks), I ate whatever my heart desired, but averaged about 15,000 steps daily and didn’t put on a pound, maintaining my 15 pound weight loss that I had achieved in the months before.

    • Author
      Carly Jacobs 9 years ago

      Oh well done! I have a super shite metabolism and when Mr Smags and I were in Thailand I gained 5 kilos and he lost 5 kilos literally doing and eating the same shit an averaging 20,000 steps a day. I HAVE to be at least a little bit careful… I’m lucky though because I don’t have a lot of thoughts about food. I like it, but it’s not a main priority for me.

  12. I just got back from eating my way through Paris, Barcelona and Hong Kong. And I have not put on any weight – at all. The secret? We walked everywhere, everyday. Ot’s a great way to see the place as well as keep your weight under control. Great post Carly 🙂

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