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May
12
Vacation Zen
Filed Under Eating Healthy, Motivation
After a long and incredibly fun honeymoon in the Caribbean, my wife and I returned home last night, exhausted but very satisfied. Today, I climbed on the scale for my Monday morning weigh in and was pleasantly surprised to see that I had gained no weight over this trip. This surprised me since I had no time for workouts and my diet was not as controlled as it usually is. However, in retrospect, I realized that being healthy on vacation turned out to be pretty easy.
Physical Activity
In terms of workout, a vacation may not have scheduled trips to the gym, but it’s actually very active. Sure, I wasn’t in the gym every day for an hour, but I was constantly moving. I was swimming in the ocean, wading in the pool, diving on a reef or walking through interesting neighborhoods. Rather than hardcore exercise once a day and then remain relatively sedentary the rest of the day, I was moderately active the entire day. There’s an important lesson there about how healthy an active lifestyle can be. It’s also comforting to know that an active day can replace a daily workout, at least in the short term. This will allow me to enjoy my vacations a lot more.
Food
This is the pitfall of vacations. You are constantly surrounded by food and most of it is unhealthy. Get to the airport and your breakfast choices are Starbucks or some greasy bacon omelet. Get on the plane and they toss salty peanuts and cookies at you to keep you pacified. Get to the hotel and there’s Pina Coladas to drink plus overprice room service. Go out to eat and the tourist restaurants will provide you with an incredibly large portion size in an attempt to make you forget about the incredibly large bill. In other words, you are constantly surrounded by food, most of it bad.
This is really the essence of unhealthy vacations. It’s not the lack of physical activity, it’s the tendency to binge. To say “hey, I’m on vacation so why not have that extra steak plus the cheesecake and the milk shake!” Well, the immediate answer is because you want o enjoy your vacation and not spend it feeling bloated. The long term answer is because you want to be healthy and not spend your post vacation time regretting those extra milk shakes. And the real answer is because vacation is not about food, it’s about enjoying yourself, and you could do that a lot better if you weren’t overweight and out of shape.
A Whole New Life
During this honeymoon, my wife and I got our scuba certification. We had the most incredible time diving on the coral reefs of the Grand Cayman and playing with the stingrays. Having spoken with the dive instructor, he relayed quite a few stories about overweight and out of shape people who simply couldn’t dive. That really made me realize how much more I’ve been enjoying my life in the past few years.
I’ve been able to climb peaks that I could never imagine climbing a few years ago, and the views have been spectacular. I’ve been able to bike down roads I might never have seen if I had not lost weight. I have hiked trails that I could never attempt if I was still out of shape. I’ve danced with my wife, and while the exercise didn’t cure me of my two left feet it has certainly allowed me to stay on that dance floor for more than one song before I’m out of breath. I’ve now dived on reefs and swam with sting rays, two experiences I will never in my life forget. These are all things i could not have done if I was still out of shape and to me, these are what vacations are all about.
Culinary Experiences
By the way, I’m not saying you should stick to lettuce and tofu on your vacations, my wife and I certainly didn’t. We sampled the local cuisine and we enjoyed a few desserts we wouldn’t normally order. All I’m saying is that making a vacation healthy means not eating that extra food you really didn’t need in the first place. I mean, are those airplane peanuts part of your unforgettable vacation experience? Get rid of the useless junk and save room for the really important things.
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Next time you’re on vacation, ask yourself “do I want to spend my time binging on food or do I want to spend it having an experience I will never forget?” Believe me, you can get that extra milk shake anywhere, but you can’t really say the same about diving with the stingrays.
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Comments
2 Responses to “Vacation Zen”
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Great post, thanks for the tips. My wife and I try and take a few vacations a year and always try and stay active during our trips. Sounds like you had a wonderful time and stayed healthy. Good job!
If you want to really take it to the next level, you could ask, “do I want to spend my time binging on food or living?”
It’s all a matter of choice…….:)