How to keep your healthy habits intact after a spring break vacation

March is a big month in my world. It kicks off spring, which to me, means two things: spring training and, even better, spring break! I love having the opportunity to get out and travel with my family. But this wasn’t always the case. Spring break used to stress me out. Because traveling usually means getting out of my healthy habits and routines.

But seven years ago, I decided to take control of my health and learn how to eat well in every situation. And I mean every situation. I learned how to eat to put on muscle for a body-building competition. I learned how to eat - and drink - on vacation without gaining weight. And I learned how to eat when I’m road-tripping with my kids to sports competitions.

It can be intimidating to go on a vacation or a spring break trip with healthy eating as a priority, but mama, I can promise you that it’s not only possible but it feels so, so good!

There is so much freedom in learning how to enjoy your food and stay within your nutritional boundaries. Because it frees you from the ridiculous, annoying feast-or-famine cycle that happens every time you feel like you need to lose weight. I know you’re stuck there because it’s how we were all taught to prepare for and enjoy a vacation! But that ends now mama!

You don’t have to restrict your food for a few weeks before your trip. To then gorge yourself on anything you have denied yourself during your diet! This cycle isn’t healthy and it doesn’t work long-term. So, let’s break it!

I want to teach you two simple tips to help you keep your healthy habits intact for spring break!

Make a plan before you go

If you’ve been around here for more than a minute, you know that I love a plan. And it’s because planning keeps you on track. If you’ve been on a health or weight loss journey at all this year, you know that you need a plan to change your habits. So don’t treat your vacation any differently!

If you have a lot of control over your spring break plans, plan your food ahead of time! A few years ago, we had a camper and whenever we would take it out, I would plan all of our meals for the week before we’d leave and it made the trip so much better!

Not only did I not have to worry about where and what we were going to eat each day, I felt so good because I was sticking to my normal eating patterns! I didn’t have to deal with feeling bloated and gassy from eating too much fast food. Instead, I had the energy to do all the fun things we had planned! It was amazing!

If you’re going to a resort or on a vacation where you won’t be able to prepare your food, you still need a plan!

You probably won’t be able to say, I’m having x,y, and z for breakfast, lunch and dinner, so I can hit my goals. But you can make a plan to eat as healthy as possible. 

One of the reasons so many people overeat or gain weight on vacation is that they stop caring about their nutrition. If you’ve ever used the “calories don’t count on vacation” line then you know what I’m talking about.
But the truth is that calories always count. Your body doesn’t magically burn through calories faster on vacation than it does at home. Because calories always count, you want to think about your food choices and make the best ones you can! 

Now, I’m not saying that you need to eat boring, diet, foods when you’re on vacation. You can and should enjoy food a little bit more when you’re on vacation, but you shouldn’t go hog wild. 

That being said, it’s incredibly tempting to give into heavy, decadent foods and yummy drinks when you’re in the moment, which is why I don’t want you to make food decisions in the moment. I want you to make them ahead of time.

When you’re making decisions in the moment, you’re making decisions from your toddler brain. Your toddler brain, or primitive brain, only cares about the here and now, reward and pleasure. It doesn’t think about consequences, only what feels good now. 

However, when you make decisions ahead of time you can use your adult brain. Your adult brain, or logical brain, weighs pros and cons, it thinks through the whole situation and what’s going to be best for you long-term.

When you decide how you want to eat on vacation before you go, it’s easier to make the best decisions when you’re traveling. If you say you’re only going to have one drink with dinner and the waiter asks if you’d like another, you don’t have to weigh the options in the moment. You can say no knowing that you already got to enjoy one drink and that you’ll have another one tomorrow. 

Having a plan takes the “feast-or-famine” mentality out of vacationing. You can still enjoy all the food you love, but you don’t feel the need to eat everything in sight anymore. It’s about finding balance - whether you’re at home or not.

Get back on track as soon as you’re home

The second step to keeping the healthy habits you’ve been building all year intact comes on your way home from vacation.

Whether you stuck to your vacation nutritional plan or things got away from you, it’s absolutely crucial that you get back to your normal eating habits the first chance you get. 

Before I give you tips for getting back on track, I want to talk to you while this is so important. 

Most people go on vacation in that feast-or-famine mindset that we talked about. They seriously restrict themselves before a vacation so that they can get “bikini ready” and then, because they’ve been starving for weeks, they binge eat on vacation.

Then they come home and they don’t want to go back to famine (and honestly, you shouldn’t! Being in a famine all the time isn’t healthy!) But they don’t know what it looks like to live and eat between feast and famine, so they keep eating like they did on vacation because that’s more fun than the alternative!

I teach my clients that one off meal, or one week of vacation, eating isn’t going to ruin everything you’ve worked for. But when you turn one week of vacation eating into a habit, that’s where you get into trouble. That’s why you gain so much weight when you get back from vacation. It’s not the actual vacation but how it trickles into your normal life.

In order to stop this cycle you have to return to normal eating when you get home. Again, this doesn’t mean cut numbers or low-calorie. It means coming back to maintenance. When you work with me in Macros Made Easy, I teach you exactly what that means for you. Having exact targets to hit makes it so much easier to get back on track because you already have a plan to follow!

I always encourage mamas to get back to their plan at the next meal. Whether that’s breakfast, lunch or dinner, the first meal you’re at home for should fit into your normal eating. That way vacation eating doesn’t trickle over. You’re back in an environment that supports your healthy habits, so use it!

When you come home from vacation and there’s nothing to eat in the house, it sets you up to eat out. Instead, I want you to prepare to eat food that nourishes you as soon as you get home.

One of my favorite ways to make sure that I get back on track as soon as possible is to have a meal plan ready for the next week. Just like I do every week! I make up a quick meal plan and then I order my groceries.

Online grocery shopping is one of the best things a busy mama can use to stay on track with her goals.

When I’m traveling home, I’ll order my groceries for pick-up or delivery. If I do a pick-up order, I’ll grab the groceries on the drive home so that I know when I get home I’ll have healthy options right away. Or, I’ll have them delivered so that it’s one less step! 

Mama, you’ve worked so hard this year to create the healthy habits that are leading to your best life. Don’t let them get thrown out the window because you went on vacation for a week! You don’t need to restart, just hop back into what you know makes you feel good and do it!

If you don’t know what is looks like for YOU to eat without restricting or binging (aka feast-or-famine) then let me teach you! Schedule a free discovery call today!

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