Dieting While Traveling/Vacationing
Traveling vs. Vacationing
There is a difference between just traveling and being on vacation. Traveling may be just for work or visiting family while being on vacation is a time you are taking a step away from the stresses of your regular life. Whether it be from work or other responsibilities. So the approach will be different.
Traveling while staying on track
If you are looking to stay completely on track while traveling there are a few things that can make tracking your food easier. Firstly depending on your means of travel you can prep a meal and snacks. Assuming your traveling isn’t taking longer than a day, eating a meal before you begin your venture and one during and one after should suffice. If you are not wanting to or are unable to prep your food the best options are to find foods that are prepackaged and have macros on their nutrition label. Some restaurants have nutrition facts available online that you can find either on their website or even on the MyFitnessPal app. The alternative to this would be finding prepackaged snacks either at a gas station, grocery store or in the airport terminal if you are flying. Things like protein bars, beef/turkey jerky, greek yogurt cups can be great snacks to eat. Depending on the gas station, grocery store or airport store you can even find pre-made sandwiches, wraps and salads.
Dieting While Vacationing
Do not stress about your diet if you are on vacation. This is a time for you to relax and reduce your stress. Life is about much more than losing weight and fitness. Enjoy your time because if you’re stressing about your weightloss/fitness journey the whole time, you’re not going to really be present in the moment and more than likely you’ll end up eating the amazing food there but not enjoy it because you feel guilty. A lose-lose situation. If you are adamant about it and I didn’t just change your mind do these two things:
A) Look at this as a time to practice enjoying new foods in moderation. Eat the food, experience and enjoy it but don’t fall into the “I messed up my diet, may as well eat everything” and completely over indulge mindset.
B) Eat foods that take you to your goal or maintenance when there is no occasion, like you’re just in your hotel room (or where ever you are staying) and when you go out or see something you would like to try, go for it!
Understand that when you come back, you will more than likely be up in weight. But a large amount of that weight is probably just water weight. You may also be a little weaker depending on how long you weren’t in the gym but your strength will come back quickly. And lastly regardless of how lean and shredded your favorite fitness influencer is year round, it is not realistic to assume your will be too. Just a reminder that fitness influencers’/models’ job is to look the way they do. Going to the gym and eating stricter diets is their job and their income is influenced by it to some degree. More than likely it is not your job and you have other responsibilities in life like another job or caring for children. It is healthy for your body fat percentage to not be sub 10% all year.
My Current Experience
Currently I am visiting my sisters in New York City for about two and half weeks. My goal for myself, as I am a foodie and LOVE trying new foods, was to eat foods that are goal orientated while we aren’t trying new foods or doing anything special and try the foods I want to. It isn’t really a vacation for me as I am still working and what not so I am somewhere in between the vacation and work travel categories. I am also still going to the gym each day because my sisters still have work and school anyways during the days and I really enjoy working out not just for reaching goals, so it is something I still wanted to do rather than just sit at their places watching TV, waiting for my client calls or for them to finish their obligations before we can go do some exploring and eating!
Everything has been going very well, I have been having great workouts and have been eating some really great foods, which if you haven’t seen go look at my Instagram or Tik Tok! I have noticed that I have actually been thinking about food much less. Maybe it’s being in someone else’s home and not having my food available or being in a new place and am doing other things opposed to just being at home doing work. Either way it has been relatively easy to not over indulge but still eat and try the foods I want. Also helps that the food I go out to try is expensive here in New York City.
