Health Fitness Beauty | Natural Health | Fitness | Woman Health | Online Doctor

Dec 25, 2010

Avoid Travel Weight Gain

Woman-Crunches-Swiss-Ball
Travel can literally wreak havoc on your health and fitness levels, if you don’t take care. When we say fitness, we mean even your efforts to lose weight. The erratic sleep and eating patterns, lack of exercise and stress all make it worse.

So, to help you stick to your plan, here are some tips to avoid weight gain when you travel.

- Eat Before: Don’t leave from your place hungry, or you’ll be much more likely to make poor food choices (read: unhealthy) … partly because healthy choices are limited, and secondly because unhealthy choices look more appetizing. Your mom was right ‘Never leave home empty stomach’.

- Traveling dehydrates. Drinking plenty of water will also help fill you up and keep you from feeling fatigued. If you hit the bar when you travel, make a habit of making every other or every third drink order a water or sparkling water with citrus. This will both slow you down (on the liquid calorie intake) and keep you hydrated.

- Here the key is unsweetened beverage like water, fresh fruit juice, green tea, iced tea.

- Liquidate before a meal: Drink a fair amount of water or other unsweetened beverage before each meal, as well as during and between them. The liquid will help trick your mind into not feeling as hungry, which reduces the tendency to gorge on potentially fattening foods.

- Carry some ‘Easy-to Carry’ snack options like raw nuts (but keep the portions to about 1/4 cup) , an apple or other easy to carry snacks like that.

- Fill your plate with healthy options: Eat with an 80/20 rule in mind. Fill your plate with mostly (80%) vegetables, whole wheat crackers, fruit, protein, and nuts.  The remaining 20% can be indulgences.

- Cut calories wherever you can. Order a small salad before your main meal. Have your dressing on the side.

- Exercise whenever you can, wherever you can. Whatever you do, don’t completely skip it. Any exercise is good- Walk, jump rope, use water bottles as weights, or do push-ups, lunges or sit-ups. These are all exercises you can do anywhere.

Use these travel tips and you might even make progress on your fitness while you travel!

No comments: