How to Get Back to Eating Healthy After Vacation

Getaway from Bad Habits & Get Back to Healthy Living

You’re just getting home from a long trip away, 2-3 weeks, maybe even longer. It’s been a wonderful time, and you really allowed yourself to live in the moment and make the most of every second of your trip.

Then the fateful moment comes where you notice the bathroom scale as you’re unpacking and decide to see just how much fun you had on your vacation. If you really let loose while you were away, there’s a good chance you’re not going to be happy when you see the numbers on that little machine.

Worse than that, if you’ve been neglecting your morning fitness routine or didn’t eat healthy on vacation you could have adopted some bad habits that are hard to shake.

But don’t worry! We all slip out into bad habits from time to time, and there’s no point in beating yourself up about it. The best thing that you can do for yourself is to get back to the good habits that you need to keep yourself healthy.

Apart from reinstituting things like a daily 10-minute workout, learning how to get back to eating healthy after vacation can be a huge challenge for all of us. That’s why we’re here to help.

Start your journey to good health with our tips for how to get back to healthy eating after vacation, and you’ll be well on your way to Getaway Well every day.

14 Tips for How to Get Back to Healthy Eating After Vacation

Stay Hydrated

There are plenty of reasons why it’s important to stay hydrated, including the fact that it can have an impact on your ability to control your weight loss.

Weight management is important, and not only does staying hydrated allow our bodies to efficiently process the foods that we eat, but it can increase your metabolism and reduce hunger between meals.

When you’re trying to figure out how to get back to healthy eating after vacation, it’s not all about the food. Staying hydrated contributes substantially to your overall health and wellness.

Consider grabbing a sports water bottle, so you can easily take cold water with you wherever the day takes you.

Eat Lots of Healthy Greens

Sub out starches like fries or rice for some side salads and leafy green vegetables that are packed full of vitamins and minerals.

Not only are these vegetables great sources of fiber, but they’re real foods that help our bodies detox from weeks of eating high cholesterol foods that contain unhealthy amounts of sugars and salts.

If you enjoy them raw, they’re even better for you this way, so don’t be afraid to sit down with a bowl of broccoli or some sliced cucumber, instead of chips or cookies.

Start a Supplement Routine

Sometimes one of the reasons that we’re feeling so tired and groggy in the days after our vacation isn’t just the jet lag or return to normal routines. Occasionally, it can be the result of our bodies telling us that we haven’t been giving them enough of the things that it needs to run efficiently.

Try picking up some health supplements that can take the guesswork out of whether or not you’re actually getting everything you need from your daily diet.

Not only will this improve things like circulation and energy levels, but it’s good for your cardiovascular health as well. Those are some big benefits from something as simple as starting a morning supplement routine.

Cut Out Alcohol

It’s no secret that one of the biggest indulgences that we allow ourselves when we’re taking vacations is alcohol.

This is especially true for places like all-inclusive resorts or cruise vacations that encourage overconsumption because you may have purchased an expensive drink package – we’re all guilty of wanting to “get our money’s worth” in these situations.

When you’re trying to return to healthier habits, consider cutting out alcohol for a few weeks once you get home. It may be a bit of a challenge for the first few days, as our bodies crave the sugar from these drinks, but your waistline (and liver) will thank you for it.

Reduce Your Sugar Intake

Cutting down on alcohol isn’t the only way that we should consider reducing our sugar intake. Of all the ways to get back to eating healthy after vacation, this one might be the hardest to swallow.

Vacation eating is often full of sugary treats – not just foods, but drinks as well. Many sodas and juices that we splurge on during our trips are overloaded with processed sugars.

Start making a conscious effort to think about your snacking habits, and plan to make better eating choices when you’re inevitably hungry.

You may be used to overeating from your vacation, but if you can’t tolerate reducing the amount of food you’re eating right away, making better dietary choices is a great first step towards eating healthier again.

Start a New Daily Fitness Routine

Not every fitness routine has to be incredibly intensive or time-consuming.

Most people can work in a half-hour at the beginning or end of the day for a tai chi routine or some yoga. There are plenty of yoga routines that are led by an instructor you can find to use on YouTube.

If you don’t feel up to something that requires a lot of movement, you can even start with something like guided meditation that might put you in the right mindset to take on some more physical exercises.

Eat Less Meat

You may love eating meat, but too much meat isn’t a good choice for your diet.

Some meats are high in saturated fats, which can raise your cholesterol if eating too frequently or in large amounts. In turn, this can raise your risks for health issues like heart disease or heart attacks, especially as you get older.

Switching out meat proteins for other forms of proteins like tofu, chickpeas, or lentils is a great way to improve your overall heart health.

There are plenty of great recipes out there for meat-alternative proteins, so you don’t have to worry about switching over to bland, uninteresting meals to start making healthier choices.

Plan for Healthy Breakfasts

There’s a reason that people say breakfast is the most important meal of the day, and that’s because the first thing that we put into our bodies at the beginning of the day sets the tone for how it functions for the rest of the day.

When you put valuable fuel into your body (healthy proteins, vitamins, minerals, fiber, etc.) it turns those things into energy that powers us throughout our daily activities.

Putting processed sugars, saturated fats, and high levels of sodium into our bodies only gives your body short-term energy boosts, which results in a midday sluggish feeling, combined with the fact that your body will process some of those things straight into fats.

Planning to eat a healthy breakfast is absolutely one of the most efficient methods for how to get back to eating healthy after vacation because if you’re starting every day with healthy choices, you’ll be more likely to follow suit the rest of the day.

Try Intermittent Fasting

You’ve probably heard the term intermittent fasting before, but what does it actually mean? Simply put, it means that you only eat during certain hours of the day.

There are many different forms of intermittent fasting, but one of the most common is the 16/8 method, which involves fasting for 16 hours a day, and then only consuming everything you’re going to eat for the day during the remaining 8 hours.

This is a great way to start making healthier eating choices. By creating a regimen for when you can eat vs when you can’t, you’ll be more conscious of the choices you make when you are eating, which can often lead to more strategic meal planning and better overall dietary health.

STOP MIDNIGHT SNACKING

How awesome was the midnight buffet at the resort where you were staying? Well, it may have been a nice (albeit unhealthy) treat for your vacation, but now that you’re getting back to regular life, it’s time to leave the midnight snacking behind.

Eating right before bed or waking up to eat in the middle of the night is one of the worst ways that we can feed ourselves. Our bodies process food differently while we’re sleeping than when we’re awake, and you absolutely won’t be able to work off any of those calorie-heavy meals while you’re snoozing.

One of the best choices you can make for yourself is to stop yourself from eating any time after a certain hour. For the sake of digestion, we’d suggest avoiding any kind of snacks for at least 2-3 hours before bed.

Skip Dessert

This ties back into our other suggestion about cutting down on your sugar intake. It’s one thing to get rid of the sugary sodas or juices that you could be drinking with meals and offer nothing but extra calories.

However, it’s another thing altogether to start foregoing dessert after dinner. Yes, that’s right. Part of how to get back to eating healthy after vacation means not letting yourself have dessert every night.

Sad as it might be to accept, a carefully planned meal made with healthy ingredients and cooked in healthy ways will only get you so far, especially if you’re going to consume a 600-800 calorie dessert immediately afterward.

Do yourself a favor and start saving dessert for the weekends.

Avoid Snacking from Boredom

We’re all guilty of reaching for the bag of chips or cookies when we’re bored. For some reason, many of us will reach for the refrigerator as a sign that we’re not interested in whatever we’re currently doing.

It’s an easy habit to pick up on vacation – particularly where there’s food practically everywhere. But now that you’re home, do yourself the courtesy of keeping the chips and cookies hidden in the back of the pantry where they belong.

With snacks out of reach, it’s easier to avoid falling back on boredom snacking habits. You can try alternative techniques to control your boredom as well, like switching tasks, taking a break, etc.

That means the little machine in the corner of your washroom might offer you good news once in a while, but it’s best not to make it a habit of checking your weight on the scale every day.

There are going to be good days and bad days on your journey to good health, and you won’t help yourself along the way by beating yourself up every time the number on your scale goes in the wrong direction for a day or two.

Be patient and remember that you’re doing your best. The scale is only a number, and the effort that you’re making to improve your health is what really matters.

The sooner you can accept your overall health is all that really matters, the sooner you’ll be less focused on your weight and more focused on living a healthy, active lifestyle.

Try Eating Only Whole, Unprocessed Foods

Just like eating more green vegetables and whole, unprocessed foods are a great way to get back to eating healthy after vacation.

Your body will get more good things out of the food that you’re eating if it’s less processed, and that also usually means there will be fewer ingredients in those foods that can have a negative impact on your health.

This doesn’t have to mean doing a crazy juice cleanse, or going on the all-raw diet you saw in Cosmo. It can just mean making more of an effort to eat organic, unprocessed foods. It can also mean taking the time to make homemade meals for yourself and your family, instead of eating frozen, sodium-heavy meals.

Planning is the Key for How to Get Back to Eating Healthy After Vacation

Healthy Habits Allow You to Getaway Well Every Day

We all have habits in our lives, whether we like it or not. It’s easy to accept the easy, bad habits, but maybe they aren’t so good for our bodies.

But getting back to good health and wellness habits after your trip means making sure you’re maintaining healthy eating habits.

Everything we do each day is fueled by the foods we eat and the beverages we drink. The question becomes, are you ready to get back to living with healthy habits?

If so, we’d suggest following these tips. Use these steps to get yourself back on the right track after vacation, and you can begin to Getaway Well every day – no matter what you might be doing.