How to still lose weight when I'm abroad?

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sarahrachel90
sarahrachel90 Posts: 49 Member
in Health and Weight Loss
Hello everyone :)

My goal for august is to lose 3 kilos, which I think is pretty healthy. However I am going abroad in a couple of days to stay with my Father and am afraid I won't be able to keep losing weight!
I will be staying at his apartment, so I will have choice of food, and my Father usually eats healthily and has nutritious things in the house. He always has low fat milk and porridge oats around, haha!
He also has a swimming pool and a gym in his compound so I know I can use them every day to keep losing. HOWEVER, I'm just worried about dinner or lunch, when we eat out. We grab Nando's and go to mexican when I go to stay, so, this might be a problem. I don't want to be ordering salads for dinner though because that would be worrying. My Father also does barbecues when I go to stay too, so ughh! I don't want to pack on a load of calories lol. Does anybody have any advice for this?
I obviously will not be eating out every night, just some nights of the week.

If i stick to eating as healthy as I can, and manage to swim for an hour every morning and go to the gym when I can, do you think I can lose this weight? Even if we eat out during the week?

Thank you so so much :) x

Replies

  • SimaN2014
    SimaN2014 Posts: 23 Member
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    I just recently spent one month abroad, at home. I decided that I wasn't going to try to lose, but maintain, and I was successful. I didn't have a scale and so just had to hope it was all working out and it did. I think if you are determined to lose, then that is possible too.

    Let me say that by dieting standpoints I pigged out. I had barbecues, I had dim sum, I had sushi, I had Chinese, I had grilled middle eastern meat, I had Indian, I had... you get the picture. Often 2+ meals out a day. Yeah, not exactly ideal for weight management. I normally eat super healthy, so this was a big detraction from my usual routine.

    What worked for me was:

    a) to pre-log often, esp. for meals out. That way I would have an idea of just how much I was going to blow on any given meal and adjust accordingly. I stayed away from second / third helpings.

    b) I wound up skipping breakfast often. I'm a big fan of breakfast every day, but I was eating such big lunches & dinners that I frankly wasn't hungry the next morning. So, I didn't always eat breakfast. That saved me some calories. If i did have breakfast, it was very light.

    c) any opportunity to have a small meal (e.g. 1/2 pita, a tablespoon or two of babaganoush (less calories than hummus!!), some cucumber, some taboule). Salads with no dressing, or dressing on the side where I could add a smidge for flavour.

    d) exercise. I was with my toddler and unfortunately couldn't make it to the gym that much. But I walked everywhere. I had my phone (step counter) with me. For you, get to that gym every day.

    e) be conservative -- it's hard to log accurately for restaurant meals than stuff you weigh yourself. If I don't know what's in a sauce, and there's a good amount of it, I will just add some calories (e.g. a tbsp of olive oil or quick add calories) as a worst-case guess for things. Same principle, be conservative on the calories you think you are burning at the gym and/or only eat back a percentage of them.

    You may consider adjusting your goals (maybe to lose a little less if you are traveling and really want to enjoy those special things). Remember, there is a margin in your deficit. If you are trying to lose 3 kg in a 31 days, that is a 6.6 lb decrease, or about a 740 cal per day deficit. If you blow it by 200 cals one day, you are still at a decent deficit and will still be losing weight. Not quite as fast, but... Worst case, you over eat by 740 cals one day. That's approx half a roast chicken of over kill. So, you don't lose that day. At least you won't be gaining, so you just move on the next day. (I don't know your stats and how close you are to your goal; a 3 kg loss in one month may or may not be realistic. I'm close to goal weight and am only at a 220 cal deficit per day right now, so not much room to maneuver... That's why I thought maintenance would be realistic for me, and I just picked back up my routine and normal weight loss pace when I got back.)

    Enjoy your trip!

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