Avoid Gaining Weight When Traveling

There is only one simple way to avoid gaining weight when traveling.

If you never gain weight when you travel, you would not be reading this post. Most people decide to eat whatever they want when they travel, and when they get home, they find themselves several pounds heavier. We all know how difficult it is to lose that extra weight. Some people, my wife and son included, indulge on vacation and cut back when they get home. For most of us, that doesn’t work. Cutting back enough to lose weight is difficult because you have to go hungry. Again, if you could easily lose weight by cutting back and going hungry, you wouldn’t be reading this post.

What about simply eating less on vacation? That is also very difficult. My wife and I just spent four days in New York City. We were at a hotel and had no kitchen, so we ate out every evening and grabbed food during the day. At every corner in Manhattan, there is a food cart that smells better than most high-end restaurants where I live. What are you going to order, half a falafel? On the last night, we went to dinner at Estatorio Milos, my favorite restaurant. If I had tried to cut back on calories, I would have had to order something light and take half of it back to the hotel. If I had tried that, I would have eaten all of it anyway, despite my best intentions.

So, how do you go to New York and not gain weight? The key to anything weight-related is carbohydrates. Don’t eat bad carbs. Avoiding carbs that significantly raise your blood sugar is the basis of my book, The Three Rules to Lose Weight and Keep It Off Forever. At all five restaurants we went to (we ate out for lunch once), I ordered only food with a low glycemic index. The glycemic index is the measure of how high your sugar goes after you eat. If the index is low, your insulin level also stays low, making it difficult to gain weight.

Every meal we ate, I followed the Three Rules. In between meals, I grabbed food that met my Rules—cheese, nuts, apples, oranges, hummus, guacamole and veggies, olives, and cold cuts (I usually avoid processed meat, but a few times on a vacation is not a big deal.) Eggs would be fine, but they raise my cholesterol. I never went hungry.

At Milos, I ordered a 2.6-pound lobster and grilled vegetables. I don’t know how many calories were in the lobster dish, but there were pools of butter in the shell—it was served already cut. I ate all of it and most of the platter of vegetables that my wife and I shared. Oh, there was this cheese called Halloumi, which was quite good. I am guessing my dinner had 2000 calories. I had no dessert, and I don’t drink alcohol.

At a restaurant, don’t order bad carbs. If it’s not in front of you, you won’t eat it. I have Three additional Rules when I eat out. 1. I don’t order bad carbs 2. I don’t pick off other people’s plates, and 3. I don’t drink alcohol—alcohol drinks usually have bad carbs, and alcohol weakens your resolve.

The Three Rules to Lose Weight works wherever you are, but it is especially helpful on vacation. I probably ate the same number of calories as everyone else, but I had no concerns about weight gain. The first night, we went to Le Marais, a superb kosher restaurant in the city. I don’t keep kosher, but we joined my brother and his wonderful family, and they do. I suppose as is typical, this restaurant had beautiful-smelling bread. I avoided it, knowing it would make me gain weight when I ate the superb 10-ounce salmon I ordered for dinner. My brother knows about my Rules, but no one else noticed I avoided bad carbs. It’s simple and allows you to keep your dietary habits private.

Had I eaten the bread and tried to eat light, I would have taken half my salmon back to the hotel. Everyone at the table would have known I was on a diet. That wouldn’t have necessarily bothered me, but some people have trouble with everyone knowing they are trying to watch their weight.

If you have weight issues, I recommend The Three Rules to Lose Weight. You will lose weight, and you will not gain it back. The Three Rules are especially valuable when traveling. You can go to fancy restaurants and eat as much as you want. There is no guilt when you get home, and you don’t have to starve yourself to lose the weight you gained.