Passport At The Ready

Every time I go on an all-inclusive holiday, I promise myself I won’t come home needing a diet.

Usually, that plan lasts until I see the buffet tables.

I am in the middle of an all-inclusive holiday, and this holiday has been different.

 I’ve still enjoyed the food, eaten ice cream most afternoons, celebrated our wedding anniversary with cake—and yet I’ve managed to find a much better balance.

I will explain the strategies that have worked for me and the other options available.

There are those people, like my husband, who can eat whatever they like and never put weight on. It’s best to pretend they don’t exist.

There are also people who stick to lettuce leaves and carrots even on holiday. I am not writing this article for them.

I am writing for the people who put weight on looking at a cake and don’t have superhuman willpower, ordinary people like me.

Most people indulge when on holiday, and many regret it afterwards when they are back home and take months to lose that little bit of weight gain. It doesn’t have to be that way. Healthy eating on holiday is possible without major sacrifices.

Why we eat too much on an All-Inclusive Holiday

I like to save money, so when the food is fully inclusive, I do have the thought in the back of my mind to get my money’s worth. I am not paying all that money to stick to salads.

I also love mixing food from different cultures. Normally, you have to choose one type of cuisine, but on cruises and large fully inclusive hotels they often cater for a mixture of tastes, and that is my downfall when I like to try a bit of everything.

It’s easy to see why so many people overeat on holiday. Hotels and cruises want you to be impressed by the quality of their food.

Some cakes and desserts take hours to make, and they look almost too stunning to eat; they are works of art. I was really impressed this holiday by strawberries stuffed with cream with a strawberry puree in the middle.

How can we resist it when so much work has gone into it?  It would be rude to refuse it.

There’s also the feeling that you might never get another chance to try that dish. When everything looks amazing, it’s easy to convince yourself that one more plate is part of the holiday experience.

When we are on holiday, we want to enjoy ourselves, and most people can cope with a little bit of indulgence. However, people are taking more holidays now and sometimes very long holidays. There has to be a balance between healthy eating and eating everything in sight.

Start with a healthy breakfast

For some people, starting with a healthy breakfast is easy. Especially those who don’t eat much for breakfast. Think fruit or salad rather than cake or buttered croissants. Salad for breakfast seems an alien idea to me, but it is often on offer. Don’t forget nuts and seeds, or good bread, unless you have allergies.

Breakfasts can be high in sugar. I thought I was being good, making sure to keep up my liquid intake in hot countries. I would have a couple of fruit juices for breakfast. Unfortunately, I felt off for the rest of the day. I blamed it on the hot weather but later found I felt much better when I swapped fruit juice for water and had a breakfast with more protein.

If a great British fry-up is on offer, all my resistance goes out the window.  I love bacon; I also am quite keen on fried eggs and maybe a hash brown. Too many cooked breakfasts aren’t something I want to make a habit of, especially as I’m trying to look after my cholesterol.

This holiday I have restricted the bacon to one slice every other day. I haven’t given it up completely, but on the day I can have bacon, I am excited. Maybe you too can find a way to restrict the food you overindulge in that isn’t healthy for you. Don’t cut it out completely; just reduce the times when you have it.

Three Buffet Strategies That Work

It’s a good idea to walk around a buffet to see what the choices are before you make any selections. This will stop you filling your plate up with more food as you discover better items.

Sometimes there are different-sized plates, one for the main course and one for desserts. If you pick up the smaller plate, portion control will be much easier. You can always go back for more if you haven’t eaten enough.

Next follow one of these 3 buffet strategies.

`Option 1: Save Your Treats for Dinner

With this approach, you have a healthy meal at midday, then indulge in the evening. It can be a good plan. I have seen some people take this a bit too far when they only had lettuce leaves for lunch. Remember, if you have salad, the dressings can be high in calories, so only have a moderate serving, just enough to add flavour but not enough to drown the salad.

One downside of the plan is sometimes they offer a food item that you absolutely love, and it is hard to resist it as it might not be offered for an evening meal.

Option 2: Fill Up Before the Main Course

This is when you have a salad first, so you feel full then, or it could be a soup. You will then naturally eat less food.

I like this method as I can eye up all the choices for my next course and gives me time to decide which food goes on my plate.

 Option 3: Build a Balanced Plate

The idea is you fill ½ your plate with vegetables, then a quarter with protein and a quarter with carbohydrates.

This method is what I try to do at home but it never works out well for me. You can’t do it when you have a stew and all the vegetables are included in one dish with the meat. Half a plate of broccoli and cauliflower is fine but half a plate of sweetcorn and peas seem too much.

Desserts

This is where the pounds can pile on. But again, a good plan can save you. Maybe have fruit instead of an unhealthy choice.  Or set yourself a limit on how many cakes you can have and when. E.g. only one cake in the evening.

When you make your dessert choices, remember they aren’t all the same nutritionally. Yes, the cakes all look delicious, but instead of having three cakes because they are there, choose the one you’d be most disappointed to miss plus maybe a fruit salad.

Enjoy each bite slowly rather than eating on autopilot. It is very easy not to notice what you are eating when chatting with friends.

Health Snacks between meals

Grazing on food just because it is available is all too easy. One place we stayed at had a burger grill open for a couple of hours around 4 pm. Every day we went to this place and got some food, and then at 7 pm I went to dinner. In effect, I was having 4 meals a day.

I convinced myself I needed it because dinner was late, but with a little planning I could probably have managed with a yoghurt or some fruit instead.

At this hotel, I am having ice cream every afternoon. Is it a healthy snack? No, but it is a special treat as I rarely have ice cream at home. My home diet is fairly good, so I am letting myself have an afternoon ice cream. If you want to snack, make sure it is a conscious decision and not just mindless grazing due to boredom.

Enjoy the Local Cuisine

Part of the fun of holidays is trying out the local cuisine; however, it is a good idea to take it slowly on the first few days, especially if the food is spicy or very different from what you are used to.

Try a few of the local foods but alternate them with food you are familiar with until you are adjusted to it.

A large hotel is often a safer option to try unfamiliar foods, as they will have better hygiene standards than a street market. However, food poisoning and tummy bugs do happen, especially if the food has been left out for a long time.

Don’t Aim for Perfection

I feel like a hypocrite writing about healthy food today. Today is a special wedding anniversary for us. The hotel gave us a fruit platter after we had already eaten our breakfast; I have just had ice cream, and a special cake is about to be delivered to the door.

That’s real life. Holidays are often planned around celebrations.

If most of your meals are healthy, then the occasional day of treats is fine. Don’t, however, make excuses that every day is a special day. Your goldfish’s birthday doesn’t count.

If you do go overboard and the willpower is weak, avoid the “I’ve already blown it” mindset. A few days of moderate eating should even things out.

How to stay active on all-inclusive holidays   

I was surprised today to find my step counter was the same as normal. I had spent a lot of time sitting on sun beds, but our hotel bungalow is one of the farthest away from the main buffet area, and this has helped my step count remain reasonable.

I used to plan on doing our daily exercise while on holiday, but I now admit I am never going to manage it. However, I still get plenty of exercise, whether it is swimming or sightseeing.

On our last cruise, we managed to use the stairs every day for the first part of our holiday, even though I had to walk up 6 flights of stairs to the restaurant.

Sadly, because of bad weather and then a cold, we later took to using the lift.

Although our stair-walking plan didn’t work, it wasn’t a complete failure, as we walked up the stairs about 50% of the holiday.

Drinks

Unless you are drinking water, drinks add to your calorie intake. If you are in a hot country, then make sure you drink enough water.  You might find it easier to remember if you just drink a glass of water with every meal.

Alcohol to excess isn’t great. I rarely drink alcohol myself, so my biggest focus is simply drinking enough water, especially in hot weather.

 While everyone was drinking heavily at the bars on our last cruise in the evening, we were walking around the empty deck in the moonlight.

A la carte dinner

Just as I thought I had the buffet under control, we went to one of the hotel’s à la carte restaurants today, and I ate too much. I am now feeling bloated and uncomfortable, and I’ll probably sink when we go swimming.

It was my own fault. I didn’t order a starter, which was a good decision, but the ribs I chose for my main course were enormous. I was brought up to finish everything on my plate because it’s considered polite, but I now realise that was a mistake. I should have stopped when I’d had enough, or removed some and put them on my side plate before I started. I simply need to accept that I didn’t need to finish a huge portion.

That’s life, really. Just when you think you’ve got one thing under control, you realise there’s something else to work on.

Conclusion

I’ve discovered that healthy eating on an all-inclusive holiday isn’t about saying no to everything.

It’s about saying yes to the things you really want and being a little more mindful about the rest.

I’ll still come home with wonderful memories and have had plenty of good meals, but hopefully without needing weeks to undo the holiday indulgence afterwards.

For me, that’s a holiday well spent.

If you come home feeling refreshed instead of sluggish, you’ve probably found the right balance too.