Five principles for moderate weight gain while on holiday!

I recently came back from a 3 week holiday in Europe. And my health goal for this holiday was to allow myself to gain up to 200 gram of weight / body fat! Yes, that’s right, I actually had a goal to allowing myself to gain some weight during this trip!

After all it’s a holiday and I love the change in food and had been looking forward to this, so my goal was not to be a fanatic and deprive myself of good things!

One of the keys to sustainable weight management and to health, is to stick to PRINCIPLES that are reasonable enough so we can stick to them long term. This is one reason why most diets simply do not work long term. Because self discipline is required. And self discipline is like a muscle that grows tired with usage and we can so easily fail. What works are sticking to principles of doing small things right on a daily basis.

So, I got back from my holiday pretty much same weight as I left but not having comprised at all eating wonderful foods, and even had quite a few “cheat meals”. So here I am sharing 5 principles I use while travelling or on holiday!

Step one: have a defined goal before you go on holiday. You may allow yourself to even gain more than I did, but have it clearly defined and we all know it’s a lot easier to put it on than putting it off… so the key is you check your weight in advance before your holiday or long business trip, and simply write down what is the maximum acceptable weight gain without you having to compromise on having fun.

Step two: deliberately stick to increasing vegetable and salads in each main meal, and getting enough protein, and being disciplined not to over do the carbs. From a practical point of view how I would do this is by having pretty much anything I want for breakfast, but ensure I focus on healthy complex carbs rather than refined ones, then at lunch start by having a large salad, or extra serving of vegetables, and then eat about 30% less rice / potato / pasta, than the people around me, or what I would ideally really want to put on the plate.

This strategy is fantastic for health as it adds important fibers and phyto nutritients and at same time reduces cravings for carbohydrates. And for dinner LOTS of vegetables and salads, and liberal amounts of good fat (olive oil in dressings etc) and reducing carbohydrates in my evening meal to probably 1/3rd of what the people around me eat. And this includes having less deserts. In 18 days of holiday, I had desert on five days, rest I skipped. Because you can do everything right but if you finish off with 3 slices of cake and a tub of icecream, you are going to wake up next morning with fat on your belly that will take one week of discipline to square off once back.

Step three: smart snacking in between meals to reduce hunger before main meals. Just a few nuts or a fruit in between meals, but chose RIGHT healthy snack options that are high in protein and good fats in between meals, and use very small quantity! I ensure I eat something every three hours.

Step four: deliberately focus on MOVING a little bit every day. That’s EASY when on holiday – simply walk !!!!!

Step five: allow yourself to enjoy good food – even deserts, but reduce the quantities. Eating twice as much ice cream does not give twice the pleasure! And putting three times more pasta on the plate than is good for us, does not give three times the pleasure.

Those are just 5 principles that works for me – hope it adds value!