Old Man Cranking…

I turned 29 on Saturday! Wowza I’m becoming an old man – it only seems like yesterday when I was out partying in my early 20s!

For the bank holiday weekend and for my BD we took a trip down to Brighton – the place where my mum grew up and where half of our family live, it’s also a place where I went to college for 2 years!

During the 4 day trip I ate 2 burgers, chocolate cake, apple crumble, spaghetti bolognaise (with a full loaf of garlic bread!) and all sorts of other treats. Guess what??? Surprisingly, my weight has stayed exactly the same!

In this short post i’d like to talk about my time in Brighton whilst explaining how I managed to go on holiday and eat lots of treats without gaining weight!

Service Stations and Healthy Eating Don’t Go Hand In Hand…

We set off to Brighton last Thursday, I skipped breakfast and when we arrived at the first service station I was ‘Starvin Marvin’ (that’s code for Hungry beyond belief!). As I rocked up all I could see was Burger King, KFC and Subway… any chance of some healthy options?

I’m not going to lie I could have quite easily devoured a Burger King, but instead I went to M&S and bought 300g of mango (buff!), and I also popped to WHSmith and bought some Graze Veggie Nuts and 2 x Nakd bars (which are gluten, wheat and dairy free!).

It can be difficult eating healthy on the road, especially with so many temptations and limited food options…but it can be done.

Once we arrived in Brighton my gran had cooked a spaghetti Bolognese (be rude not too!) so I opted for a smallish portion, but I must admit I polished off a whole loaf of garlic bread haha! After eating Brighton out of carbs I decided it would be good to put some of those calories to use so I went on a hour long walk along the beach.

TIP: When on holiday it’s going to be harder to control eating habits, unless you’re one of those bodybuilders who takes food with them and can’t eat out all holiday?!?! personally, I think theres more to life! Typically then your calorie intake will be higher so make-sure you move more, go on walks along the beach and plan activities in advance which are fun but that will also burn calories e.g. canoe, kayak, volleyball, swimming, etc

Double Burger… Call Me Augustus Gloop!

On Friday we went into Brighton for my birthday meal! I knew in advance that I would be going all out on a double burger so I decided to make some room for the ginormous stack of greasy meat that would be digesting in my stomach later in the day…

I therfore went on a 30 minute run along the beach and also did a bunch of bodyweight exercises, stuff like walking lunges, squats, push ups, etc. I also did some stuff at the outdoor park gym. If you look you’ll notice that plenty of parks now have these facilities as it’s part of the governments initiative to promote healthy activities.

When we arrived at the Gourmet Burger Kitchen as promised I went all out and ordered the Mighty Burger (2 burgers with cheese and bacon!) I also ordered fries and the blue cheese dip! If I had to guess it would be about 8.9 gazillion calories! haha! I ordered a diet coke though…apparently it cancels out all of the bad stuff!

TIP: When you know you’re going out for a feast (BD meal, work meal, family social, etc!) here are some things you can do to limit the damage:

1. Pick Diet Drinks to accompany your meal (Diet Coke, Pepsi Max, Diet Lemonade, etc)
2. Skip Breakfast or reduce your calories across other meals. For example on the day I had my double burger, I missed breakfast and for tea all I had was strawberries (300g) with 10g honey (150g calories in total) this meant that my total caloric intake for the day was only 2,800 cals.
3. Get in a Workout – during my morning session I burned approx 500 calories, this meant I had 500 calories saved up. If you take the 2,800 calories I consumed through the day and take away 500 calories I burnt through exercise… that means my total intake for the day was only 2,300 calories (that’s enough for me to lose/maintain weight)

Full English Breakfast & Chocolate Brownie…

On Saturday my auntie, uncle and cousin came over and we chilled out at my grans house. We had a monstrous full english breakfast (eggs, sausages, hash browns, beans, bacon, you name it!). We spent most of the day chilling in the sun (I got burnt! high five!) and then in the evening we sat down and had some chocolate brownie with cream (buff would be a huge understatement!).

Again though, in the morning I did a 30 minute HIIT workout and also went for a 1hr walk in the evening (total of 700 calories burnt). Adding up the calories for the day I consumed 3,200 but if you deduct the calories burnt through exercise that brings down the total to 2,500 cals!

Sunday Chills…

On Sunday we headed out for another pub lunch, £10 if you can guess what I ate? haha. In the evening I had some apple crumble and chilled out. Again I followed the principle outlined above…doing a workout in the morning and eating less at other meals.

Moral Of The Story…

All too often I hear people make the excuse that the reason they’ve gained a gazillion stone whilst on holiday is because they had no other choice! The truth is we have a choice every moment, it’s entirely up to us as to what decisions we make.

You can go on holiday, eat plenty of treats and maintain weight, even lose it! By being mindful of calorie intake and by making the effort to move more you will put yourself in a much more favourable position.

I must add that if you’re not into the routine of being healthy it’s not wise to start whist you’re on holiday! but i’m sure you already know that! Instead work on improving yourself throughout the other 51 weeks of the year, build some lean muscle, and build up your fitness….then even if you do go all out on holiday…it’s going to make very little difference to your body shape!

Nick 🙂