Let’s face it, the first thing you often want to do when on holiday, particularly somewhere tropical, is overindulge on cocktails, poolside snacks and extravagant meal! But you don’t need to fall completely off the wagon when you are on vacation. I have been fortunate enough to holiday in Bali at the Komune Beach Resort in Keramas. It is an amazing resort, with pools overlooking the beach breaks and the most amazing food on the menu. The resort grows a lot of its own organic fruits and vegetables, and rice, and has a full vegan and vego menu, as well as the usual full a la carte menu. This is where these guys take it up a notch. You can order a hearty beef burger with chips, and you will be delivered a monster sourdough burger with homemade pattie, caramelised onion, organic spinach leaves, with a delicious aioli and beetroot chips. The vegan and vego menus are just as impressive, with so much to choose from you need a few weeks here to get through it all!
Even if your hotel or villa isn’t as health food focused as Koumne Beach Resort, most will offer a variety of healthy meals on their menus, My general rule of thumb when holidaying is to make sure that you have a large serve of veges with every main meal. For example, have you bacon and eggs for breakfast, but add a side of mushrooms, tomato and spinach, and ask for poached eggs instead of fried. When lunch time swings around, opt for a salad that has added protein like chicken or beef strips, or even some seafood, some healthy fats and low GI carbs, to round out a well balanced meal. You can even order a burger if you so desire, but sub the chips for a side salad. At dinner time, a large fresh stir fry with heaps of veges, protein and noodles will add further veges to you day. Where many travellers go a bit off track is with snacking in between meals, often with alcohol. The 2 go hand in hand right?! Instead of ordering hot chips or wedges with sour cream and sweet chilli sauce pool side, choose more healthy options such as rice paper rolls, sushi, or anything on the menu that isn’t deep fried! Which leads me to alcohol. I’m certainly not going to enforce that you abstain from drinking alcohol altogether, but choosing wisely can have a drastic effect on “holiday weight gain” and how you feel the next day. If cocktails are your poison, limit the number of creamy drinks and choose those with soda or mineral water as a mixer. We all love a good pina colada, however a standard cocktail can contain approximately 660 calories!! A mojito however contains approximately 420 calories. Both considered still high in calories, choosing to drink mojitos over pina coladas all night seems like the better option. To improve on this would be to have vodka lime (fresh of course) and sodas. Vodka contains very few calories (96 per shot) and soda water has none, so drinking these over cocktails will certainly reduce the incidence of holiday weight gain. Remember too, drink a spacer of water in between each drink to not only slow down the rate of intoxication, but help with being hungover the next day!
Holidays are all about relaxing and having fun, but making some healthy food choices and sensible drinks swaps can mean that you don’t go home with more than just some memorable moments.