Eat smart while on holiday

                           (By Lisa Sarah John, Courtesy Bangalore Times, Apr 9, 2007)

With all the excitement of planning a family holiday comes the nightmare of weight gain. But there is a way of coping. The first point is to get your focus right. Holidays are not about eating and drinking without control. So mentally prepare yourself to enjoy some specialities of the place you are visiting, but don’t plan to overeat from morning to night. One can easily gain 3-5 kgs in 10 days. So before you set out, make a decision to be cautious.

It’s a common practice, if your hotel offers buffet breakfast, to eat a huge breakfast and skip lunch or just have a juice and sandwich at lunch, and then eat a huge dinner. This is a harmful practice. In the morning if your body needs three slices of bread but you eat six, the other three are converted into fat and stored. A cup of cornflakes and a cup of skimmed milk is good for breakfast. Or 2-3 slices of toast and an egg or 2-3 idlis and sambar. Avoid bacon, sausages, pastries, croissants, vadas, butter.

Lunch is the main meal of the day and should comprise rotis or rice along with dal. Vegetable and curd or nonveg can be eaten along with salad. Lunch time is also the ideal time to eat your seafood or non-veg and even desserts as you have the whole afternoon and evening to burn it off.

With Chinese food you may eat steamed rice or noodles with vegetables and some non-veg, but try to include a salad and non-fat yogurt. While eating a Continental meal you may order bread rolls, pasta, or rice with boiled vegetables and grilled nonveg or salad.

Dinner should be a light meal. A vegetable soup along with whole wheat bread and baked vegetables or rotis with dal and lots of salads is a balanced but light dinner. Any fatty food eaten after 6pm is converted into fat in the body at midnight and it is stored away in the fat cells. Once or twice during a ten-day holiday, you may eat a good dinner, but not every day of your vacation.

The most important thing, however, is to keep up your regular walking. Try to squeeze in a 20-30 minute walk in your hotel driveway in the morning or after dinner. Finally drink plenty of water — two to three litres — daily.

Alcohol is usually a big part of holidays. But it’s very high in calories. Try not to drink twice in a day. Try not to drink every day. Try to restrict yourself to a bottle of beer or two large drinks or only two glasses .

 

                                   *  *  *  *  *  *  *