By the time you read this, I will be around halfway through a 2-week holiday in Europe, and it’ll be the 16th time (I think?) I’ve been in a city other than Hong Kong since the start of 2018. I share this not to humblebrag about being a jet-setter (also, if I’m gonna brag about something, why be humble psssh), but because travel is a huge part of my life, and I’ve had to come up with a way to balance the inability to cook and eat my ‘regular’ meals without completely undoing any progress I’ve made in those snatches of time between trips.
So this is, once more, not the usual science-based content I tend to write, but as much as I am #TeamScience, the human experience is one that is fraught with non-lab settings, and practical applications have as much relevance as the studies that may govern the directions in which we choose to exert our efforts.
Fair warning: this is a meaty issue — I’ll try and pepper in as many gif breaks as I can without exacerbating the problem!
Before we get stuck in, I want to preface this with: if your regular schedule does not involve this sort of frequent travel, if the trip you’re stressed about is your 10th anniversary celebration, or some other massive ‘round the world, once-in-a-lifetime trip that you’ve been saving for the last 3 years for, PLEASE do not worry about these interventions. Enjoy yourself. Eat the things. Your overarching goal in improving your health and fitness should be so that you are able to enjoy your life better, not so that it ends up hampering your quality of life. Even if you’re off for a good week or two, you didn’t get a lean sculpted torso after 10 days of salads; likewise, experiencing whatever food, culture, and deliciousness that your holiday has to offer will not suddenly make you fat again.
Most of my trips revolve around food. As evidenced by my Instagram account (my sexuality is former foodstagrammer turned reluctant fitstagrammer), food occupies a pretty big portion of my brain space. Food is also my favourite lens through which I experience different cultures. Past trips I’ve taken have resulted in anywhere from a moderate to eye-wateringly embarrassing caloric surplus, and I’ve easily arrived home from trips anywhere from 1 to 5kg (2 to 11lbs) heavier. Some of that will be water retention (from flying, the inability to drink as much water as I’m accustomed to whilst out and about), but…let’s be real: a good chunk of that came from fat. These are some steps I’ve implemented over the last year or so which have mitigated, or, in some cases, completely eradicated, that unintentional holiday dirty bulking.
Nutrition
The overarching strategy here is to minimise unnecessary caloric intake, while also being realistic, and not ending up feeling deprived. It sounds like a bit of a tall order, but it’s not too difficult. Here’s how I do it:
Be realistic with your targets
It’s often hard enough for us to stick to our deficit targets when ‘cutting’ at home, with easy access to a full kitchen, lean proteins, and the ability to avoid too much restaurant dining. But we often forget that there’s a vast middle ground between ‘my deficit targets’ and ‘I am almighty trash panda WATCH ME EAT’, so raise your targets by around 500 calories, which should have most of you (assuming you’re in a deficit) right around maintenance, and aim for that instead. It’ll give you much more freedom.
While I usually have a rather aggressive protein target (currently slightly over 2.2g/kg of my bodyweight — not necessary, by the way, I just enjoy it), I will lower that to somewhere between 1.4-1.6g/kg (which is the ballpark minimum effective dose I outlined in my earlier issue on setting up macro targets).
Track your intake
One of my absolute best hacks, regardless of whether you’re at home or away, is to simply log everything you eat. (And try not to do this retroactively at the end of the day.) Even if you’re not aiming for any specific goals, it will force you to be more mindful of your consumption, and likely guide you towards better decisions.
Case in point: on a trip to the US a couple of years ago, I was fully intending to smash a Double SmokeShack at Shake Shack, but once I entered that into my tracker and realised I was looking at 925 cals (and a whopping 65g of fat — this exceeds even my higher fat day’s entire dietary fat intake), I grudgingly, but quickly, adjusted my plan, and ended up 100% satisfied with a Single SmokeShack (610 cals and 39g fat).
Share dishes
One issue I often run into when eating out in general is a poverty mindset of “but who knows when I will ever come back here and get to try all these amazing sounding things?!” And it’s a fair concern (sometimes). But there’s an easy way to try as much variety as possible: share your damn food. My partner and I will often each get our own starter (and I’ll steal a couple bites off her plate), split a main, and share a dessert. Alternatively, we skip the starters, get a main each and swap halfway through, and share some high-fibre, low-cal vegetable sides (and then I get a dessert, likely to myself). It’s a great way to experience variety without also overloading on quantity.
Pack some protein
More often than not, I pack a few servings of whey protein powder (and/or protein bars) with me. I strongly prefer protein powder (which I’ll usually pack in single-serve portions) because I rarely want to ‘waste’ 20-25g of carb and 5-10g of fat (120-200 cal) on a 20g serving of protein. However, if you’re hungry and don’t have any better options (e.g. protein bar vs crappy airport sandwich, or gas station bag of chips and candy), then those make great — and super portable — options, and may provide more protein per calorie than the average ‘healthy’ trail mix pack.
Don’t eat like a trash panda
Back to that poverty mindset — save your calories for stuff that will actually contribute to the experience of your holiday. Just because you’re in the UK doesn’t mean you need to inhale an entire sleeve of custard creams; likewise, being in the US doesn’t mean you should be falling asleep as a Dorito-encrusted human sausage roll. Have the 50% butterfat croissant from that famous bakery you’ve been stalking on IG, by all means, but it’s not going to add to your experience to eat 6 of them without taking a breather.
I also personally struggle with the concept of leaving any food behind (childhood conditioning of being made to clean my plate because starving kids in [third-world country] is difficult to unlearn), so if there’s something I’m not enjoying or don’t want to eat, I’ll remove it to a side plate so I don’t end up mindlessly picking at it.
Exercise
There are 3 main reasons why I don’t stop exercising whilst on holiday, even if I can’t stick to my exact programming:
Momentum
More than motivation, more than willpower, more than sheer, pig-headed stubbornness, more than determination, or any of that, I credit any success I have achieved in my fitness endeavours to habit and momentum. Sticking to some semblance of a workout schedule means that upon arrival back home, I don’t have to suffer through the inertia of restarting my exercise regime (on top of the sadness of a post-holiday hangover).
Maintaining strength
I’m also less likely to suffer massive strength setbacks, which can be horribly discouraging and demotivating.
I’ll take any calorie expenditure I can get
Whatever extra calorie burn I can scrape together to increase my TDEE does and will add up, and, at the very least, will not result in diminished energy expenditure.
Travel — in spite of everything I love about it — also means weird sleep, lack of routines, suboptimal nutrition, possible mild dehydration, and increased alcohol intake, among others. Don’t expect to bust out PRs; instead, have fun with the change of scenery (maybe play with some machines, or bodyweight workouts, if that’s all the hotel has!), make do with what you have, keep that workout momentum going, and preserve whatever strength you can. The main resources and tricks I employ with regards to exercising whilst away are:
Free access to hotel gyms
I’m much more of a hotel than an Airbnb traveller, and I have been known to rule hotels out based on appalling (or a complete lack of) gyms. Now, hotel gyms often aren’t amazing (Westin Chosun in Seoul is an exception — that place is better kitted out and more spacious than the average HK commercial gym), but it’s usually pretty easy to find one that at least has an adjustable bench and some decently heavy dumbbells. (Together with some resistance bands, I can easily hit a relatively challenging workout with just this kit by manipulating tempo or tension, performing band-resisted variations, or switching to unilateral loading.) The reason I tend to opt for this over drop-in passes at a ‘real’ gym is: convenience. If the gym’s in the hotel, I can roll out of bed, smash a quick workout in, and be showered and ready to head out within an hour flat. That becomes incredibly unlikely if there’s any commute involved. And, if you’re not travelling solo, it usually makes much more sense to shoehorn a quick workout in around your schedule, instead of the other way around.
Drop-in gym passes
Sometimes, the hotel gym won’t be sufficient, or I’ll have maybe one workout that I’m not willing to compromise on (usually deadlift or squat day, where I’ll need barbells and/or a rack). I’ll run a quick search on Google Maps for gyms near my hotel (including the terms “free weights”, “squat rack”, and/or “powerlifting” will usually help to refine results and weed out spin studios — nothing against spin, it’s just not my jam) and check to see if any have affordable day passes. Gyms in biggish cities often have free trial passes, so definitely check for those too.
Modify your workouts
My average workouts, when I’m at home, run somewhere between 60 to 90 minutes if I’m not dawdling, and I usually do a 4x/weekly upper/lower split. When I travel, I’ll often end up lowering weights and supersetting accessory work so I can speed the workout up, or, on longer holidays, I may switch out to a 6x/weekly push/pull/legs split, which affords me two things, namely: much shorter workouts, and a bit of daily activity (which I enjoy, and usually has the carryover effect of better nutrition adherence later in the day).
Lightweight travel gear
Gyms aside, there are a couple of things I rarely travel without: a long, lightweight resistance band, a set of mini loops or a hip circle, and an Acumobility or lacrosse ball. None of which take up much space. Worst-case scenario (e.g. stuck in an Airbnb against my will in some countryside mountain with nary a pound of iron in sight), these will allow me to hit a decent full body workout (such as the one I described in this post). My traitorous body has also started protesting being stuck in cars or on planes for more than a couple of hours, so having trigger-point or mobility tools goes a long way with keeping this machine well greased.
These feet were made for walking
Finally, and most importantly, holidays are the best times to make all of the step goal records. Even if the weather isn’t amazing, you’ll have a change of scenery to enjoy, side streets to wander down and get lost in, and sights you wouldn’t otherwise get to appreciate from the inside of a cab or subway. Your Energy Out side of the equation (aka your TDEE) consists of your resting metabolic rate (RMR), thermic effect of food (TEF), exercise activity thermogenesis (EAT), and non-exercise activity thermogenesis (NEAT). It’s quite impossible to adjust your RMR, you’re unlikely to increase EAT (unless you’re on a super active holiday like a multi-day hike or a snowboarding trip that’s less après, more ski), and TEF is gonna be moving in the wrong direction due to a likely lower intake of fibre-rich produce and protein. Hence, in order to mitigate that caloric surplus, NEAT is where the money is.
The name of the game here is consistency over perfection. Don’t worry about needing to stick to every single aspect of your plan down to the letter, but also don’t let that become an excuse for going completely off the rails. Enjoy the change of pace in workouts, drop in on local yoga studios, running clubs or fitness classes, go on hikes (don’t forget to pack your machete or whatever relevant equipment your activity of choice might require) if that’s how you like to experience different locales.
And, most importantly…