There are a few times each year when it seems almost impossible to ‘go easy’ on food and alcohol. When you are in control of your weekly shopping, what you choose to eat, and how you prepare your foods, you feel pretty good about maintaining your healthy lifestyle. Throw in a few weeks vacation, along with specific holidays such as Christmas and Easter and getting back on track seems a little more difficult.
Fresh back from an overseas holiday, today seemed like the perfect time to write about how you can avoid holiday weight gain and still enjoy yourself. Before I left for Fiji I was told the food on Malolo Island was that good I would put on a mandatory 5kg. Don’t even bother thinking I could avoid it! I found this quite amusing and wasn’t sure how I would tackle the challenge.
Firstly, they were right. The food on Malolo was absolutely amazing. Combined with an island that had no TV’s, roads, cars, gym or commercialism it was going to be 10 days of eating, lazing around in a bure on the beach and a hammock between the coconut palms. My exercise (if you could call it that) was some snorkeling, paddling and walking. My goal was to keep my heart rate to that of a crocodile.
Back to avoiding holiday weight gain….
When we are on holidays it is quite common to overeat at every meal. However, a temporary break in your daily habits isn’t necessarily all doom and gloom. It is possible to maintain your weight or even keep up your fat-loss diet when on holidays. There are also many positive psychological benefits to a full break from dieting. However, the reality is that over feeding still has it’s physiological consequences, so being mindful of your food selection and having some sort of structure always helps.
Something I would like to address early is that if you have eaten a little bit of junk food, this isn’t such a bad thing. Often when this occurs, especially on holidays, many people have the belief they have ruined their weight loss efforts and they might as well keep eating. This is also often accompanied by feelings of guilt and more eating. The truth is that one piece of cake or a bowl of ice cream might contain around 500 calories. In the context of a balanced diet, combined with a weekly exercise program this is not panic stations. However, if you continue to eat and turn that into 5000 calories then things start to change. Don’t be your own worst enemy.
My favourite strategy to help combat this is to reduce the number of meals you eat each day. This allows you to still enjoy all the foods you love without breaking the calorie bank. The digestion of a regular meal takes around 5 – 6 hours, so you don’t need to be eating 6 times a day. If you would like to keep the weight off while on holidays consider eating 2 larger meals a day, and if needed a small snack in between to tide you over.
The two most common methods my clients use when reducing their main meals are:
- Breakfast and Dinner
- Lunch and Dinner
My preferred method is to eat lunch and dinner. This also starts to move into the realms of intermittent fasting (IF) that has some scientific research to support the benefits and improved health markers of this recent dietary approach. To really simplify it, I start and stop eating at different intervals of time. I find that a feeding window of 12 – 8pm (8 hours) works best for me. Instead of eating breakfast, I enjoy a freshly brewed espresso, drink some water and start my days food at lunch time.
However, for all the breakfast lovers, I have seen clients maintain successful healthy weight management while on holidays using both approaches. A study published in the Journal of Nutrition looked at 1o women who lost weight on a ‘not too strict’ diet eating 2 meals a day (Breakfast and Dinner). The results suggest that if weight loss alone was the main goal, a good breakfast and a light dinner is worth considering while on holidays. However, if you want to lose weight but not too much muscle mass, you are better off with a light breakfast and consuming most of your calories in the evening or possibly consider trying the lunch and dinner meal pattern.
What did I eat?
-Most meals were 2-3 courses.
-This included different days of both a buffet eating and a set menu.
-I always start with protein and vegetables. Mainly because I like them, and also because they help send a signal of fullness before hitting the desserts.
-An all you can eat buffet doesn’t mean you have to overeat in order to get your money’s worth. Having multiple food choices seems to increase the desire to eat and experience more food than a set menu. Having said that, some of the themed buffet nights were pretty amazing!
-Carbohydrate intake often increases when eating out. My choices though weren’t too far off what I would usually enjoy at home. Rice, potatoes, fruit and some small desserts.
-Still consider better ‘bad’ choices. Just because most of the food choices are deep fried, loaded with fat and come with a serving of refined carbs doesn’t mean you have to order them!
-Finishing off your kids pizza, chocolate brownie or ice cream also counts!
-I pretty much drank the islands supply of Fiji water. I also enjoyed a double shot espresso each morning.
-Don’t be afraid to try some cultural cuisine. If your in Fiji, you cant go past lovo cooked meats, raw mahi mahi, taro, spinach cooked in coconut milk, and some kava.
I didn’t count calories while on holidays. However, I did still follow the foundation principles of my book.
The results
After a 2 course lunch on day 10, I think I’d survived the 5kg hoodoo. No exercise, just total enjoyment of my food and a psychological break from structured eating. I didn’t weigh myself before or after the holiday (mainly because I had just moved house and everything was still boxed), however because of an increase in carbohydrate and sodium intake I have no doubt that there would have been a natural spike in scale weight as well as some bloating. But it is mostly water and returns to normal after a few days (unless you completely let loose and go OTT on your holiday).
Well done Damo.