Do you need a break from your vacation?

By: Michael Beiter

It’s the time of year when clients are coming back from their spring breaks.

To me, it’s amusing to see the differences in outcomes between people who vacation correctly and those who just take their home life with them.

Know this: if you need a vacation from your vacation, you’re doing it wrong.

Another one of my favorite tips: pay attention to how much you sleep on vacation; that’s how much you need at home, assuming you didn’t drink your quality rest away.

Some people come back without gaining weight. They feel refreshed and have the energy to get back into their routine. Sadly, this seems to be the minority.

Instead, most people come back frazzled. They gained weight, ate like crap, drank too much, stayed up too late, didn’t exercise, and are less prepared to go back to work and life than when they left. It begs the question: why did you even leave?

People like that should stop traveling and just take time off to rest and relax at home.

For many reasons, it’s famous for a vacation to have an itinerary where more activities get crammed into a week than are ever completed at home. I hate to state the obvious, but this is not relaxing, which is the point of vacation.

Our obsession with experiences is a problem. It leads to stressful breaks.

Additionally, overindulgence in food and drink and underexercise are far too common.

The clients I work with who report the best vacations maintain their exercise routines or are active while they’re gone. The people who LOSE weight on vacation follow a schedule like this:

Sleep in, work out, eat fresh breakfast, sunbathe or hike, nap, eat lunch, sunbathe or walk, eat a three-course dinner, enjoy some entertainment, go to bed shortly after sundown. Repeat.

That type of trip is much different than the typical Disney vacation: Up before dawn, buffet breakfast, rush to the park, wait in line for rides, buy overpriced processed food for lunch, wait in line for rides, buy merch, overpriced dinner, get ready for evening activity, go to bed too late. Repeat. At least they walk a lot there!

For years, clients who stick around evolve their vacation strategy to look more like the former and less like the latter. They make their vacations an extension of their healthy lifestyle rather than a complete departure from self-care. These people come home refreshed, ready to work, and happy.

I wish vacation and celebration weren’t synonymous with drinking too much, overeating, and over-stress. Vacations are meant to give a break from all those things.

One way I’ve found to encourage rejuvenating breaks is repetition. The more trips you go on where you come back and sit down, talk about your eating, exercise, and feeling, the more you will gradually move towards breaks that restore you instead of destroying you.

Start practicing.