Best tips and strategies for vacation

JessiBelleW

Yo! Hit me with your tips and strategies for holidays. How do you choose to be sensible? Where do you skimp on calories? Where do you splurge?

Lietchi

If it's in a hotel with a breakfast bar, I fill up on breakfast (trying to avoid the most calorific options) and often skip lunch entirely.
If I'm renting a house/apartment, there's a lot more control, cooking myself. I stick to normal breakfast, a light lunch (sandwiches and toppings), sometimes home-cooked dinner and sometimes at a restaurant.

I still log everything as well as I can. I take my food scale with me while traveling: a regular scale for food prepared myself and a portable foldable scale for meals 'on the go' to reduce the guesswork (I don't always use it, it depends on how calorie dense the food is and how much I'm feeling 'watched' 🙂)

I'm usually a lot more active on holiday (walking, hiking) which allows me to sample the local foods (without going overboard).
When staying in hotels, I do look out for hotels with a gym, but that's more to avoid de-conditioning (running and strength training).

cwolfman13

I don't actively try to lose weight when I'm on vacation...so if I happen to be in a weight loss phase, I bag that for vacation. I'm on vacation and just want to enjoy myself. Basically I just don't go crazy with things, but allow for more indulgences...because vacation. We also often travel to places with a lot of food culture and tradition so sampling the local fare is pretty high on my list of things to do.

Also, we are usually in a vacation rental rather than a hotel when we travel so we often cook our own meals at the condo or cabin or whatever. We almost always make breakfast at the condo and go out for lunch as we are out and about and it just depends when it comes to dinner...I'd say on average dinner is about 50/50 eating out and cooking at the rental. We have a 9 and 11 year old, so it really depends on where they're at...if they're overly tired, eating out for dinner can be a rather miserable experience.

We are also on the go a lot when on vacation. We're not much for lounging around the pool or beach all day long and we like to be out and about seeing and doing and taking in as much as possible as we rarely travel to the same place more than once, and if we do there's usually many years in between. We're all usually pretty beat by days end.

Many of our travel destinations are also known for their active recreational activities...so depending on where we are, days may be spent hiking or mountain biking or snorkeling or scuba diving, etc. Some places we've gone, it's just easier to ditch the car altogether and rent bikes to get around on or walk everywhere. Basically, we typically move a whole lot more when on vacation than we do at home.

We have a road trip planned in March for spring break that will take us from ABQ to Sedona, AZ, to Monument Valley, to Bluff, Utah and back. Plenty of stops along the way for hiking in the Petrified National Forest, Natural Bridges, Goosenecks, etc. We'll have 3 nights in Sedona and the mountain biking and hiking there is fantastic.

wunderkindking

I basically don't. I choose very active vacations (hiking! paddleboarding! Biking! dog sports! whatever) and just let it go. Last year I think I gained 3 pounds in a week. I had smores, bottles of wine, chips, candy, pizza - whatever. The activity being somewhat wild offsets it some but honestly it is so rare and so removed from my normal life/habitat that I just don't sweat it. It's 3-4 pounds, some of it water weight. Getting back to normal life gets me back to my normal diet and that weight will go again, so I just don't worry about it at all.

Beyond choosing an active vacation. Which I'd choose anyway because it's fun.

elisa123gal

I'm leaving for a weekend getaway tomorrow. I've decided not to eat breakfast out. I'm bringing hard boiled eggs.. bananas and oatmeal .. this keeps me from the 800 calories vacation breakfasts with all the trimmings. I have dinner reservations and looked up the menus online so I have a good idea of the most healthful option to order. I also decided the trip isn't about the food.. do things.. see things..