Helping Women Live Longer, Healthier, Happier Lives! |
 Staying On Your Diet While On Vacation by Geralyn Coopersmith, MA, CSCS Being away from home got me thinking about how many times I've heard my clients say that they couldn't "stay on their diet" -- or that they fell off the wagon with their exercise program because they were away. I thought I would blog about it today, because I have some pretty strong thoughts on the subject that have worked for me -- and that I thought might be useful for everybody, particularly as we head into a holiday week. For me personally, staying with "the program" while I'm away really isn't a problem, because I'm a firm believer that you really should never go "off" of your diet in the first place. Let me clarify that. I hate the phrase "going on a diet". To my mind, you should live on your "diet" all the time. Diet by definition means, "the usual food and drink of a person or animal". It means the food that you eat every single day. The way that I live (and that I suggest my clients live) is to save myself the pain and suffering of having to go on a diet, by eating right MOST of the time. Here is my recipe for success...
The sad truth is that although it takes a while to lose weight and get into shape, it takes surprisingly little to gain weight or get out of shape. Slow and steady really does win the race here... and the little things that you do day-to-day are what stacks up. The idea is to look for the smartest choice for your health (and for weight control) in a given situation and go with that choice whenever you can. I thought it might be useful if I gave you some ideas of the things that came up for me in the last 24-hours and the concious choices that I made. I'm not doing this to show how virtuous and clean-living I am, but rather to give you an idea of what you will come up against when you travel and help you make some better choices. On the plane: They passed out cookies, bags of nuts, chips -- you name it, but I opted out of eating them. I avoid junk food as much as possible. Because it doesn't do anything good for your body. It is simply that -- junk food. Just because they are passing out free junky snacks doesn't mean that you have to eat them. You are not a human garbage can. The same goes for tossing back alcoholic drinks. Just because you can drink at 30,000 feet doesn't mean that you should. Stick with water or (if you need some flavor) diet soda. Bring along some fruit or some energy bars -- anything healthy and lower-cal that travels well. Hanging out at the pool: Like most people, I want to be social and hang out with people. But being near a pool is also a perfect time to sneak in some exercise in between all of your chit chat. You don't need to be rude to your hosts or get into a formal exercise session, but you can do a variation of interval training without leaving the party. In between just hanging out talking in the shallow end (like I did yesterday) take a couple of laps back and forth in the pool. Do it enough and you can get 30-60 minutes of total exercise without anyone really noticing that you were working out. You'll get some great full body exercise, burn some extra calories and you can still be part of the party. Happy Hour: I'm certainly not going to tell you not to drink. I like to have a couple of drinks as much as the next person. But you really need to be careful with alcohol. It is very easy to drink 600-1000 calories or more with a few happy hour cocktails. Join the party, but don't over do it. My general rule is to try to limit it to two drinks MOST of the time, whenever I'm in that kind of situation. I nurse them, I enjoy them and I try to make them last. I also try to choose low-cal booze choices. Wine (or better yet a wine spritzer), rum and Diet Coke, gin and diet tonic and light beer are much better choices in terms of caloric bang for the alcohol buck than margaritas and tropical drinks. The juices and sugary syrups that are in these drinks can send the calorie count skyrocketing so that your tossing 200-300 calories down in a matter of minutes. If you do choose to have a pina colada view it as dessert. Calorically, it really is...and he calories you drink slide down easily and add up fast. Move as much as possible: I know that when your on vacation you may be on other people's schedules, but really challenge yourself to get your body in motion whenever you can. I love it when Tony Robbins says, "I know you CAN'T, but if you COULD --- what COULD you do?". Maybe you can't get to the gym and do your "normal routine"...but can you take a long walk, a bike ride, swim in the ocean or take an early morning jog before the day gets going (like I did this AM)... Chances are there usually is something you CAN do -- if you are really committed to it. (And some folks would argue that I should be committed -- but that's a whole other blog ;-) Don't use eating in restaurants as an excuse to pig-out: I don't care if you are eating at Burger King (which I did yesterday) or a seafood restaurant (which I did last night)...there is always a healthier food choice to make. This is really important!! It is very easy to eat a 1500 calories meal...that's probably the number of calories most women need for the day -- shot in a single meal. So ask yourself -- what COULD you eat that is the healthiest and gives you the most nutrition for the fewest calories. Yesterday at Burger King I had the salad with grilled chicken on top and a diet Coke. Okay, I had a few of my son's fries. But a few fries was a whole lot better than an entire order. I had the taste of the french fries without going several hundred calories overboard. For Happy Hour: I skipped the pitcher of rum runners my sister made. They looked amazing...and I'll probably have one or two at some point while I'm down here. But I didn't choose to use my calories that way yesterday. So during our happy hour, I had a diet ice tea instead. You also need to watch the snacks that go with drinking. Handfuls of junk food add up to hundreds and hundreds of calories in no time flat. For Dinner: We went to a seafood restaurant on the water. The fried fish is supposed to be out of this world. I agree..it was good, I took a taste of someone else's...but for my meal I had the blackened shrimp, a big salad and a lite beer. I thoroughly enjoyed it...very delicious...but nothing that I'm going to regret in the morning. Because its all about choices...good choices, most of the time. I hope that gives you some ideas of how to enjoy your holiday trips without sabotaging your health and fitness efforts....just because you are on vacation doesn't mean your health and fitness need to be. Well, I'm off for some beach time (with a couple of 10-15 swims in the ocean) followed by a lite beer (okay..well, maybe two ;-)) later on. Click Here For More Articles Disclaimer: The information contained in this newsletter is not intended as a substitute for medical care. Not all exercises are appropriate for all individuals. Please consult with your doctor before beginning any exercise program. Geralyn Coopersmith, MA, CSCS is the author of Fit and Female: The Perfect Fitness and Nutrition Game Plan for Your Unique Body Type and the creator of The Best Me Ever -- A Complete Weight Loss, Fat-Burning and Muscle Sculpting System |
