Summer Body Project | How Not to Gain A Bunch of Weight on Your Vacation

In less than a month, I'll finally get to enjoy my first getaway of the year.  Typically, whenever a beach vacation is approaching, I'll ramp up the frequency of my workouts and watch what I eat.  Usually, if I'm disciplined enough, the results are pretty decent.

Getting down to my goal weight is not the problem. It's what happens after I return.  Vacations are sometimes a double-edged sword because it means lots of high-fat meals and added weight gain.  Normally, I don't mind it all that much but this year, I have two getaways planned months apart.  What I don't want is to slim down, come back heavier, then have to quickly drop pounds again before jetting off.

The plan is to enjoy all the fun and food without having to experience a weight loss set back.
To do this successfully, I'll focus on what's worked well in the past and what I'll choose to do differently this time around.

The biggest issue I always deal with whenever I vacay is bloat.  This is a result of overeating without giving proper time to fully digest.  Every meal is over portioned and loaded with calories.  I eat way more in a day than my stomach is used to.  Suddenly none of my special vacation clothes fit like they should.  I need to get over the idea that just because I'm not in my home town that I have to eat like a mad woman.  In a normal day, I wouldn't indulge in a breakfast buffet, head to a little-known restaurant for lunch and then eat a late dinner.

This go around, I'll have to change things up.  Proper digestion will be top of mind. This will include making sure I'm consistent with taking probiotics and digestive enzymes leading up to and during the entire trip.  Beyond that, I'll continue implementing digestion promoting habits that I carry out at home.  That includes drinking lemon water in the mornings and post-meal walking.

Walking and level of activity is probably the biggest factor that dictates whether I gain weight when I head home.  I've been on trips where I ate ungodly amounts of high fat/high sugar foods and came back home practically the same size.  But we did lots of walking.  The more we walked, the better.  But not every vacation is one where you'll be doing a ton of walking.  Since we already know that we're consuming a calorie surplus, we have to add the activity to counteract that.

This means a quick trip to the hotel gym in the a.m. before the day begins.  Nothing feels better than racking in several thousand steps and breaking a sweat before the sun has fully risen.  That, combined with the rest of the activity for the day, should be enough to counteract most, or all, of the crazy indulgences. Rule of thumb is that if I eat more than normal, I need to walk more than normal.  Many times we'll skip the Uber and just walk for most of the trip.   If I rented a car, hitting the gym is absolutely mandatory.

Another thing I'll do differently this time around is focus on strength training/toning prior to leaving.  Muscle burns more calories than fat so a few days of indulgent eating shouldn't throw everything off.  A toned body can better handle the calorie surplus.  If we simply cut calories to fit into our swimsuit,  we're setting ourselves up for immediate weight gain the minute we start eating normal meals again.

Nobody wants that.