Prevent Overeating on Vacation While Still Having Fun
With summer in full swing, many are going on vacation.
Vacation poses a challenge to many of my clients.
Vacation historically for most all of them has been a time to indulge in overeating snacks, junk food, and dessert, as well as overdrinking alcohol.
There is a lot of fear and anxiety before going on vacation around being able to stick with planning their meals 24 hours in advance and honoring that plan.
Their brain gets very clever with creating excuses for why planning meals and sticking to their plan is an impossible feat while on vacation.
Excuses such as:
I don’t know exactly what food will be available to me so it’s impossible to plan.
There are special foods to our vacation location that I can’t get anywhere else so I don’t want to miss out on eating and enjoying them.
Vacation is a time to cut loose, relax, and enjoy the little things in life like food and drink.
Vacation won’t be as much fun if I can’t have ice cream and funnel cake at the boardwalk, and alcohol on the beach.
Everyone else will be eating, drinking, and enjoying themselves, and I will feel pressure to join them.
Food is one of the pleasures of life, so I deserve to enjoy it on vacation.
I’ve earned this vacation so I deserve to enjoy any and all food, and not restrict myself.
I’ve never been able to control myself
Our weight loss journey begins with a commitment to ourselves.
Vacation is one of the many circumstances that challenge our commitment.
You will always have competing desires, so you must consciously decide what you want.
Do you want health, or do you want indulgence?
What is really important to you?
Our reason to remain committed to our weight loss goals during vacation (or under any circumstance) must be compelling enough to get you there.
You have to dig deep to figure out what your compelling reason is.
We discover if our reason why we have our weight loss goal is compelling enough because it keeps us honoring this commitment to ourselves no matter what.
There is a difference in saying “I will try” to stay on protocol during vacation versus saying, “I am committed” to honoring my protocol during vacation.
Your reason why should be motivating.
Often we become focused on trying to overcome our lack of motivation to stay committed, instead of trying to create motivation to stay committed.
A great, effective way to create motivation is to imagine your “Future You” who is already at her goal weight.
Most people spend time focused on the present or in the past.
For example, “Past You” might have eaten ice cream on vacation because you didn’t want to explain to your friends and family that you had given up sugar, and sugar was not on your food plan.
“Past You” might have thought, “Everyone else is eating ice cream, and I feel pressure to join them,” and the result would have been eating off of protocol and gaining weight.
“Present You” might feel an urge every time you see ice cream.
This present version of you might think, “I want the ice cream, it looks yummy!” creating the feeling of desire and urge for the ice cream.
“Present You” may allow the urge to pass, and not give into it by eating the ice cream, resulting in successfully staying on protocol.
“Future You,” the woman at her goal weight, might not feel any urge to eat ice cream because your habit of eating on protocol is part of your identity.
This future version of you doesn’t even have a thought about the ice cream just as someone who doesn’t smoke doesn’t think about a cigarette.
Instead, “Future You” has reached her goal weight, knows how to maintain it, and has shifted her focus to a new goal.
That new goal may be working on a relationship, or building a new business, and therefore, she is still experiencing life’s 50/50—a life filled with positive emotion half of the time, and a life filled with negative emotion half of the time.
It’s not “better” in the future—there is still positive and negative emotion, and challenges, but connecting to your “Future You” shows you possibility and opens your mind to create from your inner wisdom.
Here are a few tips for visualizing your “Future You:”
Think of it as creating a memory from scratch before the event happens.
Attach details, images, feelings, sounds, and textures just like you would if something had happened and you are recalling a memory.
Your “Future You” who has reached her goal weight is the example you think about and use every day to help motivate you to plan your meals 24 hours in advance, commit to that plan no matter what, and help you manage urges to eat off of protocol.
It is like a muscle that requires some practice in the beginning.
Practice being patient with yourself when starting to strengthen that ability to create a vision that is new to you.
Use these questions to help create motivation to plan your meals 24 hours in advance on vacation, and to stay committed to your food plan:
How does your “Future You” feel when she sees desserts, bread, alcohol, etc. while on vacation that is not a part of her food plan for the day?
Why doesn’t “Future You” feel an urge?
How does “Future You” explain her choice to not eat ice cream to her friends and family when it is tradition to have ice cream every year on vacation?
How does she have her own back?
How can imagining your “Future You” lay the foundation for the thoughts and feelings that can create your desired results?
You get to plan your life—your life doesn’t just happen to you.
You get to decide what you want and how you’re going to get there.
Losing weight is really a series of decisions.
We think it’s just one big decision.
But really, there’s the decision to lose weight, and then there’s the decision every single day of what to eat.
So many little decisions make up our big results, and going on vacation presents a new or different circumstance for making decisions.
Consider the level of commitment you feel toward following your protocol on a scale of 1-10.
If you are not as committed as you’d like to be, ask yourself what is standing in the way—what excuses are preventing you from being at a 10?
True commitment to a goal often feels terrible because it requires a willingness to experience discomfort as we teach the brain that we are not going to give in to its desire for immediate pleasure over long-term well-being.
Commitment requires learning to allow and process emotion while moving forward with our goal no matter what.
Consider these thoughts that may create commitment for you:
I am doing this no matter what.
I don’t have to want to, I just have to do it.
I love me enough to keep going.
The only way I fail is if I stop trying.
I am only one thought away from being able to stay on protocol.