Healthy Travels – Tips For Vacation

Written By Jessica Janc • 3 min read

We all love to travel and see new places and have fun adventures. But, traveling can really derail you from your healthy food plan if you aren’t careful. I travel a lot with my husband for his job and I have had to get really creative so that I don’t carry extra weight every time I return. My first goal when I travel is to NOT Gain. Especially if I have worked really hard to lose a few pounds before the vacation! No way am I going to cancel out all that hard work! I try to plan my travel day to go pretty smooth and healthy because the times that my travel day was full of unhealthy options and I ate poorly, it seemed like the rest of my trip continued in that direction. But when I have made an effort to eat great on my travel day, I stay motivated for the rest of the trip to stay the course. So here is my fail-proof tips for staying healthy on vacation:

1. Check Hotel Amenities – Hotel’s a-la gyms allows me to fit in a morning exercise without the hassle of finding a gym nearby. If that doesn’t happen then right away I find a good walk/run path to go on. I know I will be eating extra calories and want to burn them off daily!

2. Pack a Healthy Food Emergency Kit – I try to bring protein single packets with me in case I can’t get a healthy breakfast or to use as a snack in the afternoon. I bring a shaker bottle for the shake knowing I probably won’t have a blender. I bring Quest, kind or Good On Ya bars with me for those times where I need a snack and there isn’t anything healthy around; and I pack raw almonds as well for the same reason, just in case there is no healthy snack’s available. This has saved me so many times when everyone is having chips and salsa and drinking and I know I need to have protein, while I drink instead of chips and salsa, I pull out my almonds. Or when everyone is having an ice cream and I don’t want to go there, I pull out a bar that will help me feel like I am splurging.

3. Splurge Smart – I absolutely love to splurge and have fun on vacation! But I do it moderately, not at every meal. I may have a day that I feel like splurging on pancakes. But if I do that, I am not splurging at lunch and dinner, I am making healthy choices. If I know that I will be drinking that night, then I might skip my morning snack to save some calories, eat really healthy for breakfast and lunch, have a shake for my PM snack so I don’t go into dinner ravenous and then allow myself alcohol as my treat that night. I probably wouldn’t have desert and alcohol on the same night. I might have desert on another night and not drink.

4. Plan Active Activities –  Exploring is one of the best parts of vacation! I of course try to be as active as possibly on my vacations, so making it about fitness, taking hikes, walking or running, surfing, etc. makes it a little easier to get away with a splurge here and there.

I think the main goal for travel is your mindset. If you feel like its vacation and you deserve to totally splurge and go off, then do it! But know that if you lost 10lbs to get ready for this trip, you may possibly gain it back and have to start over when you get return. If that is worth it to you, then go for it! But know that yoyo dieting is not good for your metabolism and will eventually catch up with you. I personally want to come back from vacation feeling relaxed, renewed and feeling good about my weight and my healthy, balanced decisions. But it all starts in your head. If you have a plan and goal to NOT gain the weight on your trip, then you have succeeded at half that battle. Staying on your plan sometimes is difficult, but the key is to get back on track as soon as possible and don’t sweat it! You can work out harder the next day!

Healthy Travels!