Maintaining a Healthy Diet While on Vacation
It’s normal to indulge in a few extra treats when you’re on vacation, but keeping the balance is always a good idea. If you’re trying to eat healthy, eating out can jeopardize even the best of intentions. As soon as you leave your kitchen, the world seems to be full of culinary temptations. Hungry or not, resisting a piece of pizza or a good ice cream on hot summer days can be really difficult. And it is even more so during the holidays.
Eating well even on vacation is essential to enjoy the trip to the fullest. Paige Macauley, dietary director of the CoreLife Novant Health suggests that it is necessary to totally change perspective: from “I have to eat healthily” to “I can eat healthily”. “Healthy eating doesn’t have to be perfect to be successful. Most of us won’t lose weight while traveling”, admits the expert. “But we can at least try to keep a balance.” Feeling good about yourself and your body is even more useful when you’re traveling because it allows you to enjoy your holiday to the fullest.
Always Look for Healthier Options
The ready-to-eat foods that we find around seem to offer all the characteristics necessary for those on vacation: they are quick and easy to eat, cheap, and tasty. So it’s easy to forget more nutritious options when we travel. Lately, however, most shops, even in airports, are starting to offer a wider range of healthy snacks, such as yogurt with granola, cheese platters, or ready-made salads. While it might seem like a waste to spend money on a salad on vacation, if it can help you feel more in balance with your body, it’s a good option.
Fill the Plate Without Exaggerating
As important as it is to continue to feel good about yourself, missing out on the culinary specialties of the place where you go on vacation is always a sin. In these cases, Macauley emphasizes the importance of paying attention to portion sizes. Tasting is permitted and indeed encouraged, but exaggerating is not. If you suffer from digestive difficulties, it is also good to avoid typical dishes with too heavy sauces, especially when faced with extensive buffets. Cruise ships, for example, offer plenty of opportunities to cut corners, but they also usually offer healthier options, such as lean protein meats, fruits, vegetables, and whole grains.
Pack Plenty of Snacks High in Fiber and Protein
If you take a long road trip, bringing along a cooler bag with something healthy prepared at home is a good idea. You can bring the bare minimum, such as boiled eggs, yogurt, and fresh produce. Eating balanced snacks and avoiding roadside fast-food restaurants can help reduce your sodium intake. According to Dr. Macauley, “this can keep your blood pressure in check and keep your heart healthy”. Clearly, when traveling by plane, train, or ship, it is not possible to bring too much food from home. Once you arrive at your destination, however, you can spend an hour shopping and stock up on healthy snacks at the supermarket, so as to avoid vending machines and other temptations around the streets.
Keep Yourself Hydrated
Drinking water not only replenishes fluids in our body, but also keeps the skin hydrated, reduces cravings for junk food, and helps fight that bloated feeling due to water retention. For those traveling in July and August, a water bottle is now an indispensable tool. Always having fresh water with you is important to avoid the damage of the crazy summer heat.
Eat Carefully and Savor Your Food
“One of the best things people can do for themselves is take time to eat, sit, and enjoy meals instead of skipping them or eating on the go”, says Dr. Macauley. Slowing down and eating carefully allows us to fully enjoy new dishes and local flavors. “Eating slowly is also a way to understand what and how much we really need to feel full” says Macauley.
Treat Yourself to One Treat a Day
Eating local specialties and finger food is an exception for many food-conscious people, but when you travel, it becomes a daily occasion. To maintain balance, instead of letting yourself go with every meal, you can try to eat healthy for most meals and then indulge in a whim on certain occasions. By eating high-fiber, nutrient-dense vegetables and lean proteins with your meals, the negative effects of some less healthy foods will be mitigated and you will be able to enjoy all the food without feeling guilty about your body.
Fight Travel Fatigue by Eating Sleep-Friendly Foods
To combat the fatigue of travel and visits, experts recommend hiring foods that contain tryptophan, magnesium, melatonin, and other nutrients that may help improve sleep. These include poultry meat, fatty fish such as salmon or tuna, almonds, cashews, oatmeal, whole grain cereals, bananas, and kiwis. In the end, the recommendation about processed or sugary foods is always the same: avoid them as much as possible. Reducing your caffeine and alcohol consumption can also help you rest well and wake up feeling refreshed.
The Most Important Rule: Be Kind to Yourself
According to Dr. Macauley, if you don’t want to give up on your lifestyle, success lies in creating a sense of balance instead of having an all-or-nothing attitude. A vacation can last a week or two. Calmly, you can indulge in some whims and then return to your normal healthy routine as soon as possible. If balance is maintained, you won’t experience any ill effects of holiday slip-ups.