Latest / Cameron's Conversations: The last weight loss podcast you'll ever need. / Episode 62: What to expect on the scales post holiday
Transcript
- Cameron Cummings: Welcome to the Cameron's Conversations podcast. And in today's episode, I want to talk a little bit about what to expect on the scales post-holiday. This is particularly relevant as I have just come back from Corfu on a stag do. So it was my first ever stag do abroad. And yeah, it was good fun. It was good fun. I am pretty well recovered. I thought I'd be worse off than I actually was. I have to admit that Tuesday took a little bit of kind of getting the swing of things to kind of get up early and get stuck in after being up to guess what's 3am core food time or 1am ⁓ UK time for about four nights in a row which if you know anything about me is probably not my normal schedule to say the least I'm very much an early morning person not late night person but it's good fun ⁓ not too traumatized by the tequila a little bit about another 10 years before I any tequila again it's been a little while ⁓ but obviously over that trip it was going to be more relaxed now actually my food choices were pretty good overall ⁓ I probably had gear us about three nights in a row at one point but anyway But beyond that, my breakfasts were pretty steady. I made sure to have some fruit for breakfast, so it tended to be a banana and an apple and some protein yogurts and a couple of days, a couple of protein shakes as well. So pretty simple stuff. I find in Europe in general, the options for high protein foods are excellent. In fact, I couldn't believe it because I walked past a little shop and it had a fridge outside the shop for ice creams and then beside it, a fridge for... protein drinks and protein stuff like yogurts for example which just tells you how popular they are now which made me chuckle because I thought that's really interesting as well. My two favourite things right beside each other right? Protein shakes, protein yogurts right beside the ice cream so that's pretty much ideal for me in the sun. so that was pretty good. Lunches were a wee bit more chill. We kind of ate out a few times when we're on the move so I just picked the best options. One of the day I had a salad, a couple of the days I just had sort of like a higher protein kind of option in terms of like I had a pasta dish and something else can't quite remember so pretty sensible and then dinners were a little bit bigger and obviously there's a bit more alcohol consumed as someone who's not much of a drinker normally and that's where probably a chunk of the calories came from so that was obviously a bit different because it's stag juice a little bit more social so I was a wee bit more relaxed so as you would imagine after a good few days of that coming back the scales were up a little bit as you would anticipate so up about one and a half kilos, which is kind of in line with what I would expect. I typically find for me it's gonna be like one to two kilos. If it's maybe like a longer holiday, sort of like nine, 10 days, it's maybe gonna be a couple kilos up. And then if it's going to be a shorter trip, then it's probably gonna be a kilo. It tends to be no less than that because it's just a bit of a change in food, kind of foods that I'm eating, potentially even saltier foods and so on and so forth. So weight was unsurprisingly up a little bit then. And over the subsequent days, it's come from one and a half kilos down another half kilo. and then down another half kilo again. So I'm currently sat about half a kilo up, 0.6 kilos up compared to where I was pre-holiday. And that's kind of what I'd expect. And I always say this to my one-to-one clients where we have to sort of take that initial scale weight when you get post-holiday with a pinch of salt. Like I have a lot of clients who are going on holiday at this time of year and it's something that I find myself talking about a lot week to week is. you know, that first weigh-in, don't panic, like don't react to it, don't let it, you know, dissuade you, because a lot of the time, it won't be that big anyway, it's not that big a jump, and sometimes it will be a little bit bigger, but then it just drops off. What's important to remember is that when you are dieting for an extended period of time, you are more responsive to weight fluctuations, so if you go away and you have saltier food than normal, a bit more carbohydrate, you drink a bit of alcohol, you eat a bit more food than normal, you've got more food in your digestive tract, your glycogen stores are replenished, the alcohol has an influence on weight, All these things factor in, but they're all really short term. So a lot of the time you'll go away, you'll come back and then the weight basically falls off you. And I think that's a really good bit of context. Can't speak, the tequila's still in my bloodstream clearly. But the point is that you often could get dissuaded by a big jump initially, only for it to drop really, really quickly afterwards. So I think that's a good perspective to have and not to get too caught up in it, because honestly, it really isn't as impactful as you think. And... That isn't a reason to go overboard on holiday and think, oh it'll be fine, it doesn't matter. That's not how it works. Like of course the calories factor in, right? If you're in a calorie surplus of a thousand a day over seven days, well yeah, you probably are going to put on a little bit of fat mass. Probably not the kilo you might think, but probably close to 0.6, 0.7 kilos for a few different reasons, but that's really, really good to know. So it's probably not going to be as ridiculous as you think. And it's often like for me, an example being the breakfasts were pretty sensible, right? My breakfasts weren't wild. My lunches weren't overboard either. My breakfast and lunches were very much in line with what I'd eat at maintenance. So were my dinners, to be quite honest. Probably all but bar one of the days where I probably was a little bit higher in terms of calories. I would say that actually everything was quite in line with what my maintenance would look like. The only exception's probably the alcohol that would push me into a bit of a surplus. And that's fine. It's a one-off for me. I'm not gonna lose sleep over it. You know, I don't think I have gained half a kilo of fat mass. I think I'll probably have gained 0.2, 0.3 kilos realistically over that time. But the way I kind of frame it is I'm quite happy with that trade off. And I sometimes say this to clients too. It's like, if you have a little bit of a spike in weight, as long as you're okay with that, then and not stressing about it, then it's not an issue. Most of the time we're aiming as much as we can to maintain. Sometimes it is going to be a longer holiday, maybe a bit more indulgent holiday. You may be eating out a lot and you're going to see a weight spike, but I'm not going to lose sleep over. 0.3 kilo jump in fat mass, which I will likely not lose over a four to five day period. probably by the time we get to Sunday, I am as lean as I was pre-holiday again, if not a bit leaner, I've probably kicked on even farther. So I just have that perspective and I think that helps. So I think that's a really good way of looking at the scales is expect an increase in the scale weight, but don't stress about that increase in the scale weight and have a little bit of a pinch of salt with it where you can think, right, let's see where it is in four days time. And that's kind of my internal rule. So I got back on Well, I got back properly actually Tuesday. I suppose I flew back on Monday, but that was just a 13 and half hour travel day thanks to some issues at the airport. But anyway, we'll gloss over that. But the point is I got back basically on Tuesday, so it's only Thursday today. My weight's pretty much back to where it was. I would expect another day or two and it will be where it was. So that's a good perspective is like, know, if you give it four days and see where it is, that often takes the stress out. I think if you were reacting to what day one says, that's you're doing yourself a disservice. I think that's quite an unhelpful way of doing it. I find even ⁓ clients that are traveling for work, sometimes even after the flight and things like that, because mean, sat loads and all the rest of their activity drops often see a bit of a fluctuation up, even if they're just really traveling for work rather than coming off of the back of holiday. So that's something else that's contextual too, is that often is not the day, two days after the flight, you see a drop anyway. So just a few things to consider, but. Hopefully that is helpful and hopefully you're going somewhere nice and holiday this year. It's always good if you are. And that should give you a little bit of an idea how you approach it. So what you might expect, what I've kind experienced and also a little bit about my four day rule, which is don't worry about it. Measure yourself, weigh yourself. It can be good fun experiment, but see where you are after four days of eating normally and you'll be quite pleasantly surprised. So hope that helps. If you are struggling with your weight loss right now and need a bit of a hand, then in the show notes, the link for one-to-one coaching. But otherwise, I'll speak to you soon.