I work out with heavy weights at home. Vacations give me an opportunity to rest my body, have FUN exercising, and work on stretching and core strength.

Should I exercise on vacation?

Let’s first separate the normal people from the semi-crazy exercise masochists like myself. Wink wink. Jokes aside, my honest answer to the exercise-on-vacation question is that it depends on you. If you enjoy working out, then why not?!? If you hate working out, then maybe not!

Vacation is vacation. It’s a time to step back from our normal lives and daily responsibilities. Vacations should be spent with people we love, doing things that make us happy, recharging and stressing less. So don’t overthink the exercise thing…

If you haven’t been exercising regularly, the next 7 days spent on vacation won’t make that much difference in the long run. If you have been working out regularly, the next 7 days still won’t make that much difference in the long run.

Takeaway messages: If you love exercise, go for it! If you hate exercise, don’t do it on vacation (but definitely get back on it at home). And if you haven’t exercised in a long time (or ever), vacation may not be the time to start.

Do you have to exercise on vacation? Nope. But it’s a good idea to stay active. Since when would anyone consider beachcombing exercise?!?

Worried about vacation weight gain?

Let’s get down to the real reason people feel compelled to exercise on vacation: fear of weight gain. Stop. Don’t exercise in an effort to do damage control. It doesn’t work, and if exercise is something you don’t really want to do, it only adds stress to your vacation experience. Stress = cortisol = belly fat.

Is it possible to gain fat on vacation? Absolutely. But you won’t…unless you are simply trying to prove me wrong by bingeing on 5,000+ calories per day. Even if you eat your heart out and barely move for seven days, you’ll hardly gain anything. Believe it or not, the body has mechanisms that increase metabolism in response to short bouts of excess calorie intake. Your body is designed to handle this.

That said, please do not take my nonchalance as license to binge out of control on vacation. I always encourage people to be concerned about their health, but more importantly, focus on how they feel. I mean, who wants to spend their vacation feeling like a bloated whale who can’t poop and has a bad case of acid reflux?

The following tips will help you have a healthy-ish vacation without losing your mind trying to restrict yourself or doing hours of exercise to punish your dietary transgressions.

Tips for a healthy-ish and worry-free vacation

Relax. Like, in your head. Seriously. The more you worry about whether or not to exercise, the more miserable doing it will seem. If you want to exercise, do it. If you aren’t feeling it, don’t. The same goes with eating. The more you worry over overeating, the more likely you are to overeat. The more you try to restrict yourself, the worse the binge will be when you can’t resist any longer.

Be active. You don’t have to exercise, per se. But find fun things to do on vacation. Visit a new beach and do a shell hunt every day. Find a hiking trail. Go on a snorkel tour. Rent a bike, kayak, or paddleboard. It’s not about burning calories…it’s about experiencing all that your vacation destination has to offer!

Eat in. I’m no fan of doing dishes, and I’m a foodie who loves to eat out. But when on vacation, we eat a significant number of meals in our rental house. This has become somewhat of a favorite tradition for us: we seek out local fish and farm markets and try to “make like the locals”. This always proves to be a fun (and sometimes challenging) adventure. We get to know the local culture and meet some very interesting characters along the way. Hands down the best meals we’ve had on vacations come from our own kitchen!

Exercising on vacation won’t help you outrun poor eating. One of my biggest tips for a healthy-ish vacation: rent a unit with a kitchen and eat in for at least some meals.

When it’s time to indulge, indulge. Even on vacation I naturally tend to follow the 80/20 rule. We cook in our rental house and I try to eat healthy for breakfasts and snacks because it makes me feel good. But, when we do go out, we really go all out. Cocktails, appetizers, entrees, and desserts. I don’t worry about indulging myself because I don’t do it often, and when I do, it’s on food that’s really worth it.

Be mindful. Nothing makes me want to strut my stuff down the beach in a bikini like having a food baby. (*insert sarcastic laughter here*) Want to know what has really helped me eat healthy and eat less? Paying attention to how food makes me feel – both type and amount. I like to feel good. When I overeat or eat a bunch of garbage (usually at the same time), I feel like crap. And that sucks. I try to eat every meal with the forethought of: I want to be able to go out and play after this meal.

Stay off the scale. For the love of God, do NOT get on the scale while on vacation or within five days of returning home. You just spent seven (or more) days eating strange foods at strange times. Your weight will be higher than normal. But it’s all water. Give your body at least five days to normalize on returning home. You will likely find that you gained little, if any weight.

Rein it in when you get home. As I mentioned earlier, seven days is a proverbial drop in the bucket of your life. You can get away with seven days of eating and not exercising. It won’t make that much difference in the long run. But when you get home, you better get back on track pronto. This is the biggest challenge I see with my clients who go on vacation: they sucked back into a routine of doing nothing and eating junk. I know the first week back is hard. But get on it. Because what you do on a daily basis at home does determine your health and weight.

Sweaty beach workout done…time for my reward: a paddle on Maho Bay…which is more exercise!!!

Want to exercise on vacation (or any old time)?

Hey! I’m vacation this week! And I do exercise (because I like to)! Want to join me? I am going to be offering two LIVE workouts on my business Facebook page this week! The first will happen on Tuesday, November 22nd at 8 AM EST. The second will be on Thanksgiving day, November 24th, at 8 AM EST. These workouts will be 100% body weight and suitable for beginners.

Can’t catch the workouts live? Don’t worry! The videos will be available on my page. Don’t forget to save them to your favorites so you can use them forever!

And for those looking for more long-term support in both exercise and nutrition, consider joining an online coaching group! The next one starts on December 7th. Get the delicious details here.

Thank you for reading!

Blog Author: Kelly Bailey, IIN certified holistic nutrition coach, and NPTI certified personal trainer

Learn more about the author here.

Should I Exercise On Vacation?