How to survive travelling when you're losing weight

Those of you that have followed me for a while might remember that I spent a lot of time when I was losing weight travelling all over the country for work. So I thought I would post some of my tips on how to stick to plan when you're travelling and staying away, whether it's for work or a holiday!

Stick to the right mindset 
A lot of people see a change to their normal routine and a night away as an excuse to go off plan. Whether your excuse is that it's too difficult or stressful, or that it's you deserve a treat, that's not always the most healthy mindset to have. Slimming world is a plan for life and it's easy to stick to whether you're at home or not, so try to leave home for your travels with the mindset that you can and will stick to plan. Just being positive and believing in yourself goes a long way.

Plan!
I feel like planning is always one of my tips, but it's true...! When I was working away from home a lot, I'd plan where I would buy each of my meals and what I was going to eat. By having something in mind for each meal and snack I was going to eat, it made me less likely to stray from plan, especially if I made sure that my planned meal was actually something I was going to look forward to.

Learn some fail-safe options for meals out
If you're travelling in the UK, learn the syn values for meal options in a few high street chains, so that no matter where you are, you'll be able to get an on plan option. I drove for work, and knew that most service stations would either have an M&S simply food or a waitrose, so I learnt the values for a few things from there so that I'd always have a choice of lunch options - plus they're great for pre-chopped fruit and crudites as a snack. I also learnt the values for some high street restaurant chains - this was really key as it meant that I could still go for meals with colleagues and stick to plan. Some great chains are Nandos (butterfly chicken with sides like salad, corn on the cob, spicy rice and chargrilled veg makes a great low syn meal), Harvester or a tomato based pasta dish in places like Zizi are all great options. If you're travelling overseas then it's a little more tricky but by no means impossible. Hotel buffets are actually great - bread rolls (heB), cheese (heA) and salad bars make great low syn starters, and filling up on grilled meats, rice and more salad makes a great low syn meal.

Be flexible
Especially if you're actually going on holiday, then there's absolutely nothing wrong with having a few treats. I for one wouldn't love going on holiday without having at least one cocktail or ice cream and with Slimming World there really is no reason to deprive yourself at all! Some people decide to stop counting on holiday (and after I got to target I did do this), and that's fine, sometimes the gain is totally worth it! But if you're aiming to minimise your gain or even carry on losing weight, I'd recommend using flexi syns. Flexi syns is basically setting yourself an upper syn limit for the day above your normal syn allowance. So if you know you'd like a few glasses of wine at dinner plus a dessert, you might allocate 35 syns that day. That way, you still get to treat yourself, but you're remaining in control and hopefully not faceplanting the dessert buffet...

Pack your snacks!
Make it easy for yourself to stick to plan by packing some go to snacks! On long trips away, I'd keep a snack bag in my boot so that there was always something close to hand - I'd keep apples, oranges, pears etc (any fruit that doesn't need to be refrigerated) along with hifi and alpen bars for my heB choices and low syn sacks like mini bars of chocolate, popcorn and hartleys 10 cal jellies. Having a stash of snacks both for the drive and boring nights on my own in a hotel helped stop me from ordering a huge pizza from room service!

Ask for help
In my experience, staff at hotels and restaurants are always more that happy to help if you ask for it. At breakfast buffets for example, I'd ask for a poached egg instead of scrambled or fried (so I could guarantee that no oil, butter etc had been added) and for some dry fried mushrooms and tomatoes. Add free baked beans and you've got a filling, syn free breakfast! For dinners, it's the same, staff are more than happy to make you a batch of plain veg or to grill your meat without oil, just ask. I have genuinely never had anyone look annoyed or refuse me!

So that's it - those are my tips! Finding the motivation to stay on plan can be tricky, and I'm not suggesting that you have to be on plan when you're on holiday, but if you want to, then it's definitely possible! If you have any other tips, I'd love to hear them in the comments below!

Becca xo