What Your Holiday Eating Says About Your Relationship With Food

Ever come home from holiday feeling worse than when you left? More tired, more bloated, more sluggish — when you were supposed to be resting and recovering? 

In this episode I'm talking about what happens to our eating when the usual structure disappears — and why holiday is actually one of the best mirrors for your relationship with food. 

This isn't about restricting yourself when you're away. It's about something much more interesting than that. What would she do on holiday? Exactly what she wanted. And feel brilliant for it.

Find me on Instagram @worklife_health or drop me an email at jennie@worklifehealth.co.uk — I'd love to know what landed.

Instagram: @worklife_health 

Email: jennie@worklifehealth.co.uk

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to What Would She Do? I'm Jenny Reynolds, nutritionist, health coach, and someone who has spent years learning to hear what people aren't saying. Sometimes it's just me, other times it's conversations with women whose stories will make you think a little differently about your own. So, it's time to ask yourself, what would she do? Hello and welcome back to What Would She Do, the podcast. And at the time of recording, we are in the height of summer. It is currently around 30-sometes. It is baking hot. I'm here for it. I'm not complaining. Um, it does make work a little more challenging, I will say, and it does make sleep a little more challenging, but um I'm not gonna complain. This is summer, this is what it's supposed to be like, so I'm here for it. But it felt like a really timely moment to come and talk to you about holidays, and actually, I think that what you eat on holiday tells me more about you and your relationship with food than anything else that we talk about perhaps in like a one-to-one consultation. So for me, um, you know, I know I remember going on girly holidays when I was, you know, in my early 20s and we had egg and chips for lunch every single day, cold beers all afternoon, you know, a little snooze before we went out in the evening, and then we just ate, you know, whatever we could and drank cocktails all night. And then, you know, I think probably in a few later years, maybe being guilty of going for all the things, all the options on the all-inclusive buffet, all the things that I wouldn't eat at home because you know, I'm on holiday, and then coming home feeling really bloated, really uncomfortable, probably at least half a stone heavier than when I went and tired than when I left, you know, certainly not well rested. And now, you know, I will say, you know, at the risk of sounding really smug, something has definitely shifted for me. I do still have an ice cream probably every day. And I would probably still have like a few crisps and nuts. I would probably still have more alcohol than I do at home. I barely drink now at home, but I would still have a pina colada on a tropical beach. There's nothing better than that, as far as I'm concerned. Um, but what I don't do is allow the complete wheels to come off. Um, I manage to come home from a holiday these days, still feeling good. And it led me to kind of think about what is it that has changed in me that has got me to this point? Because it's not the holiday, um, it's not the food that's available. You know, if you go to an all-inclusive buffet, the the food's pretty much the same. What has changed is my relationship to holidays, to rest, and to food. So this is why I say I think that the holidays for me, if I'm working with clients and I'm talking to them about what they eat, and then I often get people coming to me at this time of year saying, I really want to come and work with you, but I'm gonna wait until after I come back from my holiday. And that again tells me all I need to know, really. It is almost like this best possible mirror that you could that you could have for your relationship with food because all of the usual structure is gone. You know, there's no routine, you don't have to make up lunch boxes or think about what you're gonna eat in advance and pack it up for your lunch. You're not kind of sitting at a desk eating whatever it is that you made that morning. There's none of those kind of habits, those structures to fall back on. And what you choose when you're on holiday, when everything is available and you don't have to cook it yourself, that is the real information. That's the real data, that's what really reveals who you are. And I think there's kind of two kinds of women at the all-inclusive buffet. And you're gonna know which one you are. There are there are some women, and I was definitely this woman at one point, who will load up the plate with the pastries and the bread and all of the things that she probably doesn't even like truly want. Um, maybe she tells herself she wants it, she tells herself that it's a treat and they're there and they're fresh and they smell really nice, and she's on holiday, so go on. And she's been good. I'm doing that in inverted commas, been good all week. She's been she's been good on the run up to the holiday, she really deserves this. This is her holiday too. And and then actually, what happens is she eats all those things, and then probably even that same day feels really heavy and uncomfortable and unpleasant, just not liking how she's feeling. But then she does it again and again the next day because that pattern is there. I'm on holiday, I'm gonna have whatever I want, I'm gonna eat whatever I want, it's already paid for, you know, this is the attitude. And then coming home from that holiday, just feeling heavy, already depressed because we've got post-holiday blues, but now you've got an extra half a stone that you're unhappy with, and you're probably feeling really tired and sluggish, and you've got to start all over again, and now you don't have the motivation of the holiday to look forward to to kind of pull things back in terms of your diet and exercise. So it's a bit of a vicious cycle, it doesn't feel great. And then there's this second type of woman, the one who looks at everything available and chooses not just what she wants, but what she knows is going to make her feel really, really good. And maybe she does have a pastry, but maybe she eats a small one after she's already eaten a really healthy and well-balanced breakfast. So she doesn't gorge on them. She tastes it and she enjoys it and she really appreciates it, but it and she's having it as a conscious choice because she really wants it, but not just because she's on holiday and therefore why not? She's eaten the nourishing foods, she's given her body what it needs, she knows that she's going to feel good, and she's also having something that she wants and she enjoys. Do we see the difference? There's a huge difference. Those women, the women who make those healthy choices because they want to, not because it feels like work, come home from that holiday feeling good, feeling well-rested, feeling nourished, feeling replenished, feeling ready to crack on, coming back and just slipping back into the habits that they've got at home when they're in their normal routine. So this is something that we have spoken about before in previous episodes. It is this all or nothing thinking. And again, holidays are where this pattern really shows itself like really strongly. Um, it's so visible, even if it's not so obvious in the rest of the year. Lots of women restrict heavily before they go on holiday. The diet is all about the swimwear, the bikini, how she's going to look on holiday. Is she going to feel confident walking around by the side of the pool or is she going to be covering herself up? How is she feeling? So she starts to deprive herself. Diet, diet, diet, restriction, restriction, restriction, all with this goal in mind. So then when she gets on holiday, might not even be when she actually lands at the resort. It can be the weather spoons at seven o'clock in the morning in the airport. It's like holidays here, I'm in a different mode, permission granted, the wheels completely come off. So everything goes to pot on holiday. She eats all the things, drinks all the drinks, comes home feeling heavier, sluggish, more tired than when she left, feeling like she needed a holiday after the holiday. And here's the cycle: restrict, reward, restrict again. The holiday isn't the problem. The pattern is what's the problem. Now, the other thing that kind of layers into this is how so many women experience digestive issues on holiday. And we kind of think about it as being, well, you know, there might be a change in time zone, different water, maybe my whole routine has been disrupted because I had to get up in the middle of the night to make a really early flight or a really late flight. Um, you know, we're thinking about all of these things when we're thinking about why is my gut playing up? Like some people have a real issue with using a toilet that's not their own. God forbid you end up in one of those hotels that's got a lot of glass in it and there's not really any privacy between, you know, the bathroom in the hotel room and where everybody else is. Um, absolute worst nightmare, but let's not go there. The bloating, the not going to the toilet, the general discomfort, we need to start connecting it also to the changes in your dietary habits while you're away. So if you are somebody who really struggles with your digestive health, eating all of these things that you don't normally eat, loads more of the kind of sugary, refined carbohydrates, loads more alcohol. Alcohol is one of the biggest disruptors to the gut microbiome that you can possibly have. When you start to layer all these things on, it's really going to start to compound and add to those feelings of being bloated, feeling sluggish, just feeling tired, not feeling good. So, I mean, let's let's bring it back to reality and go, okay, well, Jenny, that just sounds like you're telling me that I should go on holiday and just eat really, really healthily. And isn't that a little bit boring? You know, isn't that defeating the whole object of a holiday? And this is the bit where it really comes back to your identity and what the real luxury of a holiday actually is. Is the luxury of a holiday for you the endless food? Is it the pastries, the ice cream, the alcohol? Or is it that feeling that you get at the end of the day when you've had your shower and you're sitting on the balcony with your cold beer and your Lay's crisps, watching the sunset, thinking about what you're going to wear for the evening? You know, this is, you know, a genuine luxury of a holiday, the memories, the um, the feelings that it brings up. And there's nothing wrong with that. But actually, if we take it back to the feeling, it's less about the food and the drink and more about the the time, the space, the peace and quiet, not having a TV, not having things to rush around for. Um, for me, really specifically, it's that somebody else is deciding what to cook for dinner. They're cooking it, they're clearing it away. Like that for me is the ultimate in luxury. It's not the food itself, it's the capacity, it's the time, it's the space, it's the peace. It's not having any housework to do, it's not having any work to do, it's not having to run around, not driving constantly in and out of the car, it's the peace. So, what I would say is that actually if we start to think about what it is about the holiday that we really enjoy, what is it about the holiday that is a real luxury to us, then we can start to shift some of the less healthy habits, if you like. So you can have egg and fruit and yogurt and a really delicious breakfast and not really think about any of it. You can have the peace and the quiet, you can have somebody prepare it for you. You can actually eat better than you do at home because someone else is doing it for you. You haven't got to worry about shopping, you haven't got to go to the supermarket and spend a fortune on all these different beautiful, fresh fruits. They're just there. So actually, you can start to see that as this luxury. You know, you go on holiday and someone has done it for you. It's easy, it's available, someone else has done the work. You can still enjoy the ice cream, you can still enjoy a few snacks, and you can still enjoy a drink if you want to. You don't need to feel like you've earned it. You're just doing it because you want it, and that's okay. So this isn't about restricting yourself on holiday. It's not about going on holiday and feeling as though you can only choose certain things. It's not about never having an ice cream or some crisps or an apron, spritz, or a pina colada. It is about becoming the kind of person who wants healthy things, not because she's forcing herself to, but because she's making choices and decisions based on how she's going to feel. And yes, that might make things slightly different on holiday, but that's absolutely fine. That is normal. It might mean that you eat more on holiday, it might mean that you drink more alcohol on holiday. That's absolutely fine. But this isn't about this extreme on and off. It's not about all of the wheels coming off. We don't have to be all or nothing. You're just asking yourself, what do I fancy today? How do I want to feel? What's available to me? What sounds really good for me today? And that is a completely different relationship with food than the one that most women have been taught to have. So the woman who eats really well on holiday isn't necessarily really disciplined. She's just aligned. She has become the person for whom this is, you know, this is just what she does. It's just how she eats. She's choosing what she wants. She did what she wanted before and she's doing what she wants now. It just looks different. So, some questions for you, just to think about. Think about the last holiday that you went on. Did you come home feeling better than when you left? Or did you feel worse? And what did that tell you? So try not to make this a judgment. Just look at it as information because how you eat on holiday tells you more about your relationship with food than any food diary ever could. And then you can start to ask yourself, what would she do on holiday? Well, she'd do exactly what she wanted, but she'd feel really good for it. She would make conscious choices, and probably what she wants might look a little bit different to what you think it is. If something landed for you today, I'd love to hear from you. Come and find me over on Instagram. And before you go, just take a moment and ask yourself what would she do?