Managing Weight During Vacation
By Dr. Kelly Theim Hurst
For many of us, summer has been a chance to take a vacation – to get away for a bit, to hit the pause button on work or the demands of the school year, and to catch up on anything you didn’t have as much time for while you were wrapping up that last work deadline (or trying to pack for vacation!)
But for those who struggle with weight management, vacation can bring with it the risk for weight gain and/or less healthy eating behaviors. After all, you’re on vacation! You’re off the hook! The trouble is, the mindset of being “off” can easily transform into thinking that you’re off the hook for doing self-care – when ironically, you may have taken the vacation in the first place so you can devote more time to self-care.
As a psychologist specializing in weight management, eating behaviors, and related health concerns, I sometimes see people take a “break” from healthy habits and then return from vacation not feeling as recharged as they expected, further fueling the “on/off” rollercoaster so common in weight management. Here are some tips to help your vacation truly feel like vacation, rather than a step back in your health and self-care efforts:
1) Think carefully about what it means to you to take a “break.” What exactly are you taking a break from? You may be taking a break from work; are you planning to stop anything else? If you view vacation as a break from a particular diet or exercise routine, it’s OK to allow yourself that change – a mindful, strategic, carefully planned departure from your regular habits can be healthy, as long as you have a Plan B (see below). On the other hand, if you are at risk for taking a break from your self-care, you may want to reconsider how you’ll feel when you return from your time off.
2) Have a plan. A vacation or holiday is a special time, and you may need to devote some time to think ahead about how it will affect your health habits. For example, you may keep a food diary regularly or eat the same thing for breakfast every morning, but pause this while on vacation. Plan B (aka the “vacation plan”) could be to focus your attention on physical activities you don’t normally get to do (e.g., morning walks on the beach) and sampling the fresh produce of the destination you’ve arrived at, while remembering to honor your hunger and fullness cues. Upon returning home – hopefully with that recharged feeling and the pride that you stuck to your Plan B, rather than bloated and hungover – you can pick right back up on your regular habits.
3) Revise as needed. Think about vacations you’ve taken in the past and how you felt during and after. What would you do differently next time? If your next vacation is many months away, take a few minutes to think this through and write it down, even if you think you’ll remember later. Think about how you want to feel upon returning from vacation, and note anything that seems important to reaching that goal.
4) Take a break after the break. If at all possible, schedule some time on the back end of a vacation to transition back into regular life. For example, if you’re away for a week, try to return on a Saturday or even Friday, if you have to hit the ground running Monday morning. Unpacking, laundry, opening the mail…it all takes time, so it helps to budget for that. Use this time to restock your fridge and pantry if needed, and prepare food for the start of the next week if this is helpful to you. Or, schedule a grocery delivery or meal delivery to arrive right when you get back. The transition out of vacation mode requires its own plan. Otherwise, you may get to Thursday without any groceries and think, “Well, the week is almost over anyway, I’ll get back on track Monday.”
5) These are year-round strategies. Ever had a snow day where all of a sudden you were home from work, with surprise unstructured time, or perhaps kids running around enjoying their own “off” days? The same thought may creep in – “Well now today is an ‘off’ day, so the normal rules don’t apply.” Try to remind yourself that snow on the ground just means a chance for sledding and unprepared DC drivers, not necessarily a departure from your healthy habits. It’s just another day. Likewise, you don’t need a day off as an “excuse” to have hot chocolate or ice cream – each day is just another day to do the best you can to make decisions that feel good to you.
Lastly, if you’re struggling with that on/off, up-and-down cycle of managing weight, eating, or health, remember that there are trained professionals who can help. Fortunately, the potential challenges of vacation don’t have to mean a departure from your self-care routine; what matters is how you think about them and how you choose to respond. Seek out the ongoing support you need, any time of the year!
