Get Back to Healthy Eating: 8 Easy Steps to Post-Vacation Recovery

Written on 6/24/2008 by Ali Hale who blogs about healthy living for busy people at The Office Diet. You can grab the RSS feed here.

You went on a dream vacation – enjoying gorgeous weather, lazy days by the pool, fun with family and friends, and, of course, lots of indulgent meals, snacks and drinks. But now you’ve returned home to find the dream fast becoming a nightmare – starting with the moment you step on the bathroom scale.

You need a post-vacation recovery plan, to make sure you don’t pile on any more pounds – and to lose that weight you gained quickly and easily.

Here’s my eight top ways to get back on the dieting wagon:

1. Prep the Fridge
   As you struggle home with your luggage, dinner is probably the last thing on your mind. But arriving to an empty fridge often leads to ringing the nearest pizza joint. Instead, leave a key with a friend, and ask them to pick up a few basics for you on the day you’re due back (and promise to reciprocate the favor when they go on vacation!). You’ll have the makings of a healthy meal ready on your return.

• Hide those holiday treats
  Chances are, you (or your kids) have picked up a few goodies whilst on holiday: boxes of fudge, biscuits, chocolates and candy are all great little vacation souvenirs. However, an extra few inches round your waist isn’t! Put the treats out of sight, at least for a week or two.Another option is to take a boxful of vacation yummies to work, Church or school, and offer them round: it’s a nice way to share some of the fun you’ve had! 

• Get straight back into your usual routine 
  It’s often tempting to stick in “vacation mode” for just a few extra days. Whether it’s ordering takeout for dinner, having sticky pastries for breakfast, skipping your gym session, etc., The indulgences you enjoyed on vacation can quickly become bad habits. 

Be firm with yourself and get stuck into your normal routine as quickly as possible. That might mean dragging yourself to the gym for your usual Monday workout, or reminding the family that only Friday is “takeout day” – not every night of the week!

• Eat lots of fruit and vegetables 
  Going back to the basics of healthy eating really helps. Have plenty of light, simple meals incorporating lots of fruit and veggies. If you’ve been suffering any digestive problems as a result of changing your eating patterns during your vacation, upping your fruit and veg intake can help get everything moving smoothly again. 

And, if you’re like most of us, the figure on your bank balance post-vacation may have been as horrifying as the number on the scales. Easy, healthy meals – perhaps going meat-free a few days of the week – can also help you recover financially…

• Keep a food diary for a couple of weeks 
  It’s easy whilst on vacation to lose track of what you’ve eaten over the course of the day – meals might be at odd times, and you often end up eating a series of constant snacks. 

Don’t let this carry on once you’re home. Grab a small diary or notebook, or open up a new spreadsheet on your computer and write down what you eat and when. If you’ve never kept a food diary before, you’ll be amazed how much easier it is to turn down that tempting cookie when you know you’ll have to write it in your notebook…

• Cook with some new ingredients 
  It’s likely that you tried a few new foods, or whole dishes, whilst on holiday. Did you find any new favorites? Why not get a recipe book, and try recreating them at home – some may need adapting to make them a little healthier, but you might just have discovered a great new addition to your diet. 

Broadening the range of foods you eat is usually beneficial, helping you get plenty of nutrients in your diet for optimal health – and ensuring that you enjoy lots of variety, so that you don’t get bored. Plus, every time you cook your new meal, you’ll be reminded of the great vacation you had. 

• Carry on with the new activities you tried 
  Vacations are often a great chance to try out some new things. Perhaps you’d always wanted to water-ski, learn to fence, take an aerobics class, or swim every morning before breakfast … but you never got round to trying it till your vacation. 

If you found a type of exercise that you really enjoyed, why not make it a regular part of your life? Look for a club nearby that offers beginners’ sessions, and sign up. You might soon have a whole new hobby.

• Have a few days alcohol-free 
  If you drink alcohol, you probably indulged a little (or a lot) more than usual whilst on vacation. Knowing that you don’t have to drag yourself to work in the morning may have meant drinking every night, rather than just at the weekend. And local specialties, or vacation treats such as cocktails, may have tempted you into having a bit more than usual. 

Declare the first few days or week after you come home as an “alcohol free zone”. It’ll help you get your wallet and your waist back into a healthier shape – and you’ll be better able to focus when it comes to digging through that inevitable pile of emails…

The main thing to remember is not to panic about having gained a few pounds during your vacation. Giving up on healthy eating entirely is not a good option, but neither is crash dieting. Getting straight back into good routines and habits will see those pounds drop off easily – and you’ll be left with just the happy memories, rather than unwanted weight, from your vacation.

Have you ever put on a lot of weight during a vacation? How did you deal with it? Add any of your tips in the comments below … and hopefully we’ll all learn how to have a wonderful summer!

Get Back to Healthy Eating: 8 Easy Steps to Post-Vacation Recovery 

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7 Simple Foods to Boost Your Mood!

1. Whole-Grain Bread
   If you can picture your children asking you several questions one after the other, you already have an inkling as to what happens to your brain power when you eat whole-grain bread. Amino acids are building blocks of proteins and can be found in most foods. One essential function of amino acids is to deliver messages to your central nervous system, more commonly known as brain.Proteins and amino acids play an important role in normal brain function, particularly before birth when the concentrations in the blood of the developing foetus can be three times greater than in the mother.We also tend to forget that most of the essential chemical substances in the brain and CNS – the so-called neurotransmitters, such as dopamine and serotonin – are produced in our bodies from

1. amino acids.
   The following amino acids and their related neurotransmitters are vital for a healthy nervous system:
   • Gamma-amino-butyrate (GABA), glycine, aspartate, glutamate
   • Tyrosine – dopamine, adrenaline and noradrenaline
   • Tryptophan – serotonin
   • Adenosine, ADP, ATP and AMP
   • Arginine – nitric oxide
   • N-acetyl amino acids and peptides
   [Supplement: Health 24 - Diet and your nervous system]
   Whole-grain bread is enriched with the essential amino acids as compared to plain bread. The trick is to eat a few slices of whole-grain bread every morning with your breakfast to increase the transmission speed of nerve impulses in your nervous system. 

• Turkey and Chicken
  These low-fat protein sources are rich in an amino acid called tyrosine, which boosts levels of the brain chemicals dopamine and norepinephrine. These two chemicals are responsible for our motivation and reaction time. Tyrosine lifts energy levels and helps the body cope better with stress. 

Studies have suggested that tyrosine may help people with depression. Preliminary findings indicate a beneficial effect of tyrosine, along with other amino acids, in people affected by dementia, including Alzheimer’s disease. Due to its role as a precursor to norepinephrine and epinephrine (two of the body’s main stress-related hormones) tyrosine may also ease the adverse effects of environmental, psychosocial, and physical stress.[Supplement: Mother Nature - L-Tyrosine]

[Supplement: Mother Nature - L-Tyrosine]

A chicken sandwich or chicken noodle soup may produce the same results. An effective alternate is tuna fish.

• Water
  Mild dehydration is a common but often overlooked cause of fatigue. When the body dehydrates, blood flow to our organs decreases and the body slows down. Drinking enough water each day can prevent you from feeling lethargic. But don’t rely on thirst alone. Most adults should drink eight to ten glasses of water per day. Caffeinated soft drinks and coffee, however, are no substitute. They may act as diuretics and increase dehydration. Learn how to develop the water habit. 

• Bananas
  Magnesium deficiency and stress are linked so closely that some doctors and dieticians advise people who lead a hectic life to add magnesium-rich foods like bananas to their diets. 

Deficiency symptoms have three categories:

• Early symptoms include irritability, anorexia, fatigue, insomnia, and muscle twitching. Other symptoms include poor memory, apathy, confusion, and reduced ability to learn. 

• Moderate deficiency symptoms consist of rapid heartbeat and other cardiovascular changes. 

• Severe deficiency symptoms could lead to tingling, numbness , and a sustained contraction of the muscles, along with hallucinations and delirium . 

[Supplement: AllRefer Health - Magnesium in Diet]

Increased magnesium intake results in less anxiety and better sleep. If you don’t like bananas, other good magnesium sources are nuts, beans and leafy greens.

• Seafood
  Seafood contains a lot of Selenium, a mineral linked to upbeat moods. Increased intake of sea food leads to a greater sense of happiness, more energy and a reduction in anxiety. If you juggle a hectic life, your level of stress hormones rises. Stress hormones flood the body during tension and resulting in lower resistance to cold and viruses and a tired feeling. Whole-grain breads are also good sources of selenium. 

Cautions and possible side effects: Don’t take more than 200 micrograms in supplement form; higher amounts may cause fragile, thickened nails; stomach pain; diarrhea; loss of sensation in the hands and feet; fatigue; and irritability. Doses of about 800 micrograms have been known to cause tissue damage.

[Supplement: Mother Nature - Selenium]

• Oranges and Grapefruits
  Even a small deficiency in vitamin C – a key ingredient for boosting levels of norepinephrine – can leave you feeling irritable and blue. A lack of vitamin-C-rich foods also inhibits your body’s ability to absorb the iron it needs to fight fatigue. Eating roughly 6 oranges per day can result in less nervousness, crankiness and depression. Vitamin C supplements are also effective. 

[Supplement: Mother Nature - Vitamin C]

• Hot Chillies
  Capsaicin, the natural ingredient that gives chillies their pow, stimulates the mouth’s nerve endings, causing a burning sensation. In response, the brain releases endorphins, natural painkillers that produce a temporary high. So the more hot chillies you eat, the stronger the soothing effect. In fact, some hot-chilli lovers may just be hooked on the high. 

[Supplement: Wikipedia - Endorphin]

Note: Most of the above I learned in medical school but following the HonCode principle (Health on the Net Foundation), I’ve tried to supplement this article with sources to back it up.

Gyanish Gungaram is a “blogless” freelancer and a medical student at Université de Lille in France, currently in his 2nd year. When he is not studying, he will pop up on Dumb Little Man with occasional tips to improve your health.

7 Simple Foods to Boost Your Mood! 

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Finding a Healthier Lifestyle – Committing to Change

Everyone wants to live a healthier lifestyle and everyone wants to look better in their swimsuit. However, many people don’t know where to begin or what questions to ask.

Six months ago I was in that very position with not a clue as to what I should do to lose weight. Today I have lost 40 pounds working out only five hours of every week and the weight is still going down, despite the fact that my occupation as a student and web developer is largely sedentary.

I am eating healthier, I look great, I am much stronger, and I am in better shape now than when I played football in high school.

Here are the steps I took to begin rebuilding my lifestyle:

Acknowledge Self Destructive Behaviors: One night I went out with a handful of my college friends and drink beer at a popular bar in Nashville. 

• pieces of pizza and seven pints of thick German beer. If that had been the first time I had splurged on food and drink I wouldn’t have thought anything of it, but it wasn’t. The following day I thought about why I let myself go at the bar, and it hit me: when I’m with my friends, I drink and when I drink, I eat. But that wasn’t the only thing I was doing wrong. Here are some other troubling behaviors that I recognized:

• I was always “too busy” to take the time to exercise 

• I was always “too busy” to prepare my own healthier meals 

• I didn’t eat salads, fruit, or whole grain bread because I liked how cheese burgers, potato chips, and white bread tasted better
• I ate whatever I wanted without regard to the toll it took on my body

After honest introspection I found the causes of my problems. The thing is, these patterns of self behavior all boil down to a few simple causes:

• social pressure to eat and drink in excess

• time pressure to skip exercise 

• time pressure to skip preparing my own meals 

• personal preference for unhealthy food

• ambivalence to my own health 

So take the first step, take a moment to think about your daily routines and identify some of your habits and behaviors that create problems for your self image. Make a list of your bad habits or even the pressures that force you into those habits. This will help you identify which areas of your lifestyle need to change.

• Realize the Succumbing to these Pressures is a Choice: One of the most influential books I have ever read is Stephen R. Covey’s The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, and the first thing I thought about after my introspection was a little theme from the book, which I’m going to paraphrase:
  

  Every thing in your life affects you only in the way that you choose to let it affect you.

  Many people, myself included, feel that they are unable to escape their self-destructive behaviors because society compels them not to through various pressures imposed upon them. This is false.
  To quote The Seven Habits directly:

  “People who exercise their embryonic freedom day after day, little by little, expand that freedom. People who do not will find that it withers until they are literally ‘being lived.’ They are acting out scripts written by parents, associates, and society.”

  The choice I made was to recognize that I was being ‘lived’ by the pressures I had mentally placed upon myself. This was the most important and crucial discovery I made, and it is what has empowered me to be a healthier, more confident, and a more successful man.
  From this point onward, accept that in your previous lifestyle you choose to let these pressures live your life, and commit that from now on, you and you alone decide what will and will not affect you. Commit to embracing and expanding your embryonic freedom everyday. 

• Resolve to Change and Commit: Once you acknowledge that you have the power to be proactive and improve your lifestyle, you have to commit to changing yourself. The best way to create a moral foundation for your new lifestyle is to write down your goals and your commitments. 

Here is my list, which I keep on my cellphone so I can look at it whenever I think I may waiver:

• I resolve to make my health, fitness, and happiness my first priorities, above my school work, above my career, and above my social life. 

• I resolve to be strong enough to resist the temptation to drink beer and alcohol in excess, even in the company of my greatest friends and loved ones. 

• I resolve to exercise frequently during the week, regardless of the amount of work I have to do and regardless of other time commitments. I commit to making time to exercise. 

• I resolve to overcome to resist the temptation for quick and easy meals; instead I commit to eat what is best for my body and I will eat it in moderation.

• I resolve to understand my body’s needs and to maintain it with utmost care. 

I highly recommend that you make a list like this yourself and keep it with you. Reading these words has helped me through many times when I felt like giving up. Make your own list, and read it when hard times arrive.

• Prepare to be Self-Motivated: A lot of your friends, especially if they are also out of shape, may try to talk you out of changing your life simply because they are afraid to do it themselves and don’t want to be left behind. Perhaps your friends will make fun of you for being the only guy eating a salad when all of them eat steak or burgers when you go out for dinner. Your own mother may tell you that you “look fine” even though you don’t feel “fine.” 

While most of your friends and family will likely be supportive, you have to rely on your inner strength and resolve to work through something as drastic as a lifestyle change. So you have to do two things:

• Live without constant positive reinforcement from genuinely supportive friends and family; it will not always be there when you need it, so learn to stay motivated without it.
• Ignore negative or discouraging thoughts, comments, and remarks; people who tell you that you can’t do something are wrong and should be ignored. If you succumb to negative influence and lose your motivation then you will never be able to achieve the lifestyle changes you want.

By no means should you ignore your friends or family, but you need to remember that what you want and what you think matters more than what anyone else thinks of you. YOU are the only one who has the power to change yourself. You have to motivate yourself to stay involved.

Now you have the moral foundation you’ll need for the long road ahead by identifying the pressures that produced your current lifestyle, you’ve recognized that you have the power to choose not to be affected by those pressures. You’ve made your list of resolutions and commitments, and you’ve chosen to rely on yourself to get through the changes. You are ready to take the first step in a long journey towards self improvement.

Next week we’ll discuss making the first cuts: initial diet, daily routine, and exercise improvements.

Finding a Healthier Lifestyle - Committing to Change 

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