Healthy Vacation

Vacation is one of the best parts about working. In school, we looked forward to summer vacation. If you have a job, you look forward to using vacation days. No matter what you do, you need to take some time away in order to recharge and unwind. If you don’t, life will get very difficult.

One thing that seems to be very difficult is sticking to a healthy routine while on vacation. It’s difficult enough to live healthy at home, so when you through in airplanes or cars, hotel rooms and restaurants, it can get downright scary.
It doesn’t have to be scary. Vacation and health can go hand in hand. It just takes some planning and some focus on your goals. I have a few specific tips for you to make your next vacation a healthy one, but first let’s discuss why you would want to do this in the first place.

Let’s talk about goals before we get into the tips. Your goals are what keep you doing what you want to be doing. Your health is a series of goals. If you are living healthy, you are reaching those goals. You clearly want to continue living this way, so it becomes important to adjust no matter what your schedule looks like. That is the key to health in general and it is the key to health on vacation.

Healthy Vacation Tips

Get out and walk
Walking is the best way to build calorie burning into your day. Vacation is all about relaxing and part of relaxing is not being in a hurry. What better way to get to and from a meal than nice walk? If you are vacationing near a beach, this helps to get you active again after a long day of sun and sand. If you are worried about how many calories you will consume at dinner, a walk can help you feel at ease since you are burning them off to and from the meal.

Find a store
The most difficult part about living healthy on vacation is the fact that you are away from home. Where do you eat when you are away from home? Restaurants are the most common and often the only places we eat away from home. You can make this better by snacking healthy. Pick up some basics at a local store, keep them in your room and you can enjoy some lighter options between meals. Not only does this build healthy items into your day, but it also helps you fill up and save some of the calories from those dreaded restaurant meals.

Share and split
The restaurant portions are out of control in 99% of the restaurants you go to. I’m sure your vacation is in a place that this will be likely. The hardest part about controlling portions as restaurants is the fact that it’s good food and it’s already in front of you. Eating a little good food isn’t going to hurt you. Eating a lot of good food will. The solution is to share. If you split a meal, you can enjoy the good food without worrying about eating too much. You know you will get enough. The restaurant portions are so out of control that you are likely still getting enough food to constitute a serving…or more.

I’ve written an article about vacation before and it talks about why we take vacations. We take them to relax and recharge. We don’t take vacations to ruin ourselves or to go against our goals. Think about this when you take your next vacation, apply these tips and you will stay on track.