Vacation Mentality

Jul 30, 2012

Used to be that I began the eating-out-of-control part of vacation as soon as I got in the car to drive to the airport, or sometimes even the day before left if I couldn’t hold back the tide.  And, while Israel is admittedly an easy place to maintain a Mediterranean diet or my well-practiced Paleo (hunter/gatherer) eating style, it is interesting to see how much progress I have made with vacation eating simply because I have practiced managing certain of my personal Achilles heels on a regular basis at home.

Everybody has them, I think, those specific behaviors, actions, mind games and foods that are their catalysts for losing a grip.  From these tipping points flow a whole cascade of regrettable food decisions.  Once I learned to identify the triggers that become the beginning of that predictable slide, I can usually nip it in the bud.  I can get myself off the tracks before the train runs me down.  For me, a couple of examples of these triggers are eating baked goods in the morning or opening the door to the treats too early in the day, week, vacation.  So, I practice managing these triggers in my day to day life at home.  Turns out, it does bleed over into vacation mentality if I can make it second nature enough.

 

Vacation poses an even bigger challenge of course, because once I really lose it on vacation, I am likely to just throw in the towel and not even try to keep it together until I return home.  In fact, I often seem to look for trouble and even eat things I don’t really want just because I am “off”.  And then there is the “I will never have the opportunity to eat this again, so…” thing, and the “After all, a girl deserves a break, and I’m on vacation after all” thing, and the “I don’t want to spoil it for everyone else and be a damper on their fun” thing, and yadda, yadda, yadda.

 

The trip was especially interesting because I was accompanying a great friend and former client (who actually lost two pounds on the trip, BTW) on a business trip.  So we fraternized with native Israeli’s who happen to have spent considerable time in the United States.  They took great pride in treating us to typical Israeli cuisine at a famous seafood restaurant in Old Jaffa called The Old Man and the Sea.  By the time we had munched away on fifteen or so tasty, fresh salads with unlimited refills, I could have skipped the main course (which of course, I didn’t.  Far be if from me to let a silly thing like being full stand in the way of my eating more – hence my history).

The thirty-something, engaging, slender son of the CEO had some interesting observations to share, comparing his appetite when in the United States to that when he is home in Israel.  Between the high fructose corn syrup and the deliberate engineering for high palatability, American food, he suggested, is deliberately designed to increase your appetite, to make you want more.  “And besides”, he said, “in the US, the vegetables have no taste”.

 

Virtually everything in Israel is organic and locally grown, and I have to acknowledge that the parsley, for example, is really parsley-y.  Food with more taste is simply more satisfying, no matter which food group you are referring to.  So, not only do we have no identifiable national seasoning here in the US (sugar, fat and salt are our national “spices”), but also in the case of most fast food, the food industry has deliberately created food that does not even require chewing.  No wonder we are struggling so much with our appetites and our weights.

On the whole, the vast majority of people we observed (in Tel Aviv, Bethlehem and Jerusalem, and at En Gedi in the desert) were of normal weight, especially the young people.  And I noticed that I never saw anyone eating anywhere but in a restaurant – not while on the beach in Tel Aviv, not while walking down the street, not while sitting in the park.  When I went to the famous Carmel Market in Tel Aviv, despite the tempting Nougat and Baklava vendors right alongside all the produce vendors, I was the only one eating while they shopped.  Hey, it was nuts and dried apricots, OK?  But still….

 

But what really made Israel an easy place for me to keep it together was the vast amount of vegetables available all the time and everywhere, and especially the infamous Israeli breakfast that was included in all our hotel stays.  I love when the cuisine is such that I can eat as much as I want not find it a problem.  And thank God we all finally got over the no fat thing that kept me depressed and on the edge of a binge for ten years.  The Israeli salad just becomes the fresh, crunchy vehicle for hummus or babaganoush, or arugula and apple salad a vehicle for some olive oil, feta and nuts.   Just not hard to eat that.  It is not the first time either that I have observed that when I really fill up in the morning on what I call food food (protein and produce with healthy fats) – above and beyond what I even feel I am hungry for (which making it $ free is sure to induce anyway!) – my appetite is tamed for the entire rest of the day, almost making me into an actually reasonable person, even on vacation.

My personal bribery-form-of-weight-management goes something like this:  eat all the protein and produce I want first, and if I still have to have the breakfast pastry stuff, I can…after I am full.  Works most of the time, at the very least to decrease the overall pastry damage.  Even more gratifying for me was to notice that after a couple of years of breaking the toast with my eggs habit, I never even noticed if they had a toaster when I had my daily made-to-order omelet.  Practice makes progress apparently.

But it was not glitch free.  How fun would that be anyway?  And I am after all, me.  The pita at dinner predictably created bit of a slippery slope.  And on the one occasion where we did succumb to buying some mini pastries from Marzipan, the supposed “best bakery in Israel” according to our host (and how could you insult her by not buying at least something, right?  She might lose sleep over that.), I stayed excruciatingly aware of exactly where that bag ‘o pastries was until they were gone.  Seems to go with the pastry territory, at least for me.  No surprise there either.

And ya know, anything would really be OK on vacation if I could just leave it there (what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas, right?).  One of the biggest struggles can be trying to close the door on vacation eating once home and re-establish the healthy habits.  There is a lot more potential for long-term damage if I disrupt my practiced routines at home than it is to over-indulge when I am somewhere I may never visit again.

Naturally, it helps tremendously when I set up the return environment in advance so that it is easy to do a couple of “skinny days” right away – always a surefire way to regain my on-track momentum.  And if I banked in advance for the calorie damage, I don’t even owe the caloric bank back.  That too seems to make it easier to just get back on track – no guilt and no debt.  So now the caloric banking before the trip and immediate skinny days upon arriving home are just a matter of course for me.

 

This trip was particularly gratifying in addition though because, due to the supportive food environment and company as well as a lot of practice of these habits on my part when home, it was quite easy to keep enough of my healthy behaviors in place on the trip so that any tempting doors I opened while away, I could still fairly easily close once home.  Priceless.

 

Begin your final weight loss journey now…