Losing Weight After a Year of Travel

So we got a little fat.

It was bound to happen eventually, I suppose. Eating in restaurants every day, drinking more than we normally do and trying all sorts of foodie delights across four continents certainly doesn’t help one’s waistline. And who wants to miss out on any of this stuff when they’re travelling.

auckland

One week into our 2011 travels in Auckland – we were pretty fit.

We actually did pretty well the first four months. New Zealand and Chile were places where we were hiking long distances at least once a week on average and staying pretty active the rest of the time. Then Argentina came along. Steak dinners, red wine, pizza, ham and cheese sandwiches and medialunas were the staple diet there. Bolivia was healthier and then we had a few bouts of food poisoning in Peru to get us back to normal. Colombia began the decline with its delicious food and craft beer. We were much less active in Europe with our long hikes becoming fewer and fewer. Then winter hit and it was all over, even in the Middle East where the food was sublime.

The places that really killed us: Argentina, Ireland, UK, Austria, Turkey, Germany and Jordan. Not that we’re complaining too much. And may I add airports and flights? Lack of sleep and overeating in transit are incredibly damaging to one’s figure.

So now we’re finished with full-time travel and back to a slightly more normal routine, though sitting around looking for overseas work and not being able to exercise in the Australian heat isn’t helping. But we do have a plan: Operation Rewind, where we will attempt to turn the clock back one year to our fitter selves.

Pigging out in Jordan eleven months later. Notice the same shirts but a much tighter fit.

How will we achieve this? Everyone knows crash diets don’t work so we just have to take it slow and get it off the healthier way. We have a three step plan:

1. Eat healthy.

We’re eliminating fattening foods from our diet and sticking to vegetables, fruit, lean meats and whole grains. We won’t be eating processed foods, red meat, fried foods, fast food, snack foods and refined carbohydrates. In the past it has helped to have one “free day” to keep us from losing our minds (and we’ve found that we don’t usually eat that much on the free day because we’ve been so good all week).

2. Curb alcohol.

We usually stick to beer and wine but even these drinks have around 200 calories per beverage, which adds up quickly when you’re having one or two a day, three or four times a week. We’ll be cutting out alcohol except for once a week when we have a social event. Life doesn’t stop just because you’re dieting.

3. Exercise.

We hate gyms so for us this means getting active outdoors. Unfortunately we’re in very hot weather at the moment and our one hour racewalking at the beach three times a week has been difficult to keep up with. Sometimes it’s still 32-34 degrees C at 7pm and that makes it hard to get a walk in before dark. We’re going to have to start getting up early in the mornings to walk if the weather keeps it up.

Unfortunately this is not a post containing a magic formula to help others lose weight post-travel but I thought I’d share our battle with you. John’s goal is to lose 15-20 kilograms and I need to lose around five to get back to our pre-travel weights. We’ll keep you posted on the progress.

In the meantime, help us out: do you have any tips for losing weight, keeping it off or preventing travel weight gain in the first place? Do you tend to lose or gain weight when you travel?

 

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