Everyone loves a holiday, but if you’re trying to lose weight, it can be a little stressful if you’re constantly worrying about whether the break from your regular routine will derail your success.
Rest assured, we’re here to let you know that holidays can actually help you lose weight — and you can even have a break from your regular workout routine as well.
While holidays do involve a break from your regular daily routine, they also provide a host of opportunities that will help you lose weight.
Holidays give you the opportunity to…
Move more
While you might have a break from your regular training schedule, you don’t have to sit on the couch and do nothing. Holidays provide a great opportunity to build in extra movement during your day, especially if you’re travelling, or holidaying away from home. If you’re at the beach, you can swim, walk, surf, canoe, or stand-up-paddle-board. Winter holidays can offer skiing, snowboarding, ice-skating or even hiking. And if you’re travelling overseas, there’s nothing like seeing a new city on foot, or by riding a bike.
Rest and recover
Resting and recovering is vital while you’re on holidays. Not only will it help you recover physically from your training, but mentally as well. As well as incorporating rest and recovery time, holidays provide the perfect opportunity to get more sleep. Sleep has a direct link with weight loss. Poor sleep has been associated with weight gain and a higher likelihood of obesity in both adults and children. Not getting enough sleep will also increase your appetite and lead you to consume more calories. Poor sleep also lowers your metabolic rate — the amount of calories your body burns at rest — which will make it harder to lose weight. Focusing on your sleep while on holiday will go a long way to changing your body shape. It will also ensure that when you do come back to your normal routine, you’ll be more energised and stronger than you were, when you left for your break
Reconnect with family and friends
When you’re busy raising a family, working, or perhaps running a business, you don’t usually have much time to connect with your family or friends. However, holiday time offers the perfect opportunity to do so. These people are usually the ones who will support you most in your weight loss journey, so it’s important that you spend time with them. Catching up with family and friends in a café or even at a casual BBQ can also help you to relax and reduce your stress levels.
Reduce stress
While we’re on the subject of stress, this can be one of the things that will impact your weight loss journey the most. Stress has a huge influence on your body shape, with chronic stress being linked to weight gain, a higher tendency to gain belly fat, as well as having a negative impact on your sleep patterns. Getting away from work, or the usual busy routine and indulging in some of your favourite activities will go a long way to lowering your stress levels, and helping you succeed in your weight loss.
Nourish your body with food
When you live a busy life, it’s quite common to skip meals, or grab the nearest thing you can find, even if you know it’s not good for you. However, holidays present you with an opportunity to nourish your body with good food. With the extra time you have, you can spend time preparing delicious food that will keep you feeling satisfied and help you lose weight. It’s also an opportunity to try new recipes or new cuisines (if you’re travelling overseas). And who knows, some of your holiday favourites may end up featuring on your weekly menu, when you return home.
Revise your plan
Another reason why holidays can help you lose weight is because they provide you with time to look at your current weight loss program and evaluate what is and isn’t working for you. For example, the current weekly schedule you follow may make it difficult for you to do your meal prep. Or maybe you’re finding that you’re just not getting your regular walks in as often as you’d like. Finding time to reschedule your week, while you’re already busy is often too hard, but when you have a little extra time on your hands, you could use this to figure out a plan that will yield you better results.
At Imani Tribe, we embrace holidays, down-time, and rest and recovery time because we know that these things will lead to better results when it comes to losing weight and changing body shape.
