“I need a vacation from my vacation.”
Sound familiar? You bet. Avoidable? Absolutely.
With a few simple adjustments, you can make sure that you return from your summer vacation relaxed, refreshed and ready to get back at it. Because it’s that stress that makes you feel worn out when you get back home.
Hitting the road
First up is the car trip. You know the scenario. You want to get there as fast as you can, so you stop drinking fluids to avoid that extra rest stop. If the trip is more than a day and you have two drivers, you push right through taking turns driving and sleeping. Food is often grab-and-go from the rest stop, which leaves you with a bag of pretzels, trail mix, or—heaven forbid—a candy bar, because we all know that really satisfies.
The answer is simple. Take your time and plan ahead, keeping the following in mind:
- Make frequent stops. Staying in a seated position for a long time on a road trip will really wear you down. You will feel much better when you get to your destination if you get in and out of the vehicle and stretch you legs as you travel.
- Drink plenty of fluids. And by fluids we mean water, not sugary soft drinks. When you don’t drink enough water and become dehydrated, you put incredible stress on all body systems. Drinking plenty of fluids also makes you stop more often, and as we explained above, that’s a good thing.
- Don’t drive all night. If you possibly can, plan to stop at the end of the day. Even if you switch off drivers, you simply don’t get enough rest in an upright position. What’s more, a reclined car seat doesn’t support the body properly, leaving you stiff and sore.
- Plan food for the road. Pack a cooler with good, healthful food or plan to stop for a real meal. Taking a cooler allows you to control portions and the content of the meals to keep them within healthy parameters. That way you won’t relegated to fast-food drive throughs, and can resist grab-and-go junk food.
Following these steps may mean it will take a little longer to get to your destination, but once you get there you’ll raring to go and won’t be burned out – whether it’s on the way there or on the way back home.
Handling an activity-filled vacation
If you’re the kind of person who measures the success of a vacation by how many miles you hiked, how far you biked, or how many sets of tennis you’ve played, it’s pretty common to come home stiff and sore, or—worse yet—injured.
With an activity-based vacation, everything is more intense. Not too long ago we had a client come back from a long weekend, thrilled that he rode a bike for 30 miles. We didn’t know he rode. And, as it turned out, he doesn’t. When he got back to us, he could barely walk.
To avoid that scenario, you need to plan ahead and make some adjustments to your normal patterns so you don’t end up doing more harm than good. Here is how to do that:
- Start early. There is a reason professional athletes train before the season begins. If you are planning a biking or hiking trip, start riding or walking well before you are scheduled to leave, giving yourself enough time to increase the activity’s duration gradually. That will raise your injury threshold so you can handle more without too many problems.
- Be realistic. Once you get there, if you have been preparing for the trip you will know what you can handle comfortably. Sure you can push it a bit, but you need to be realistic about your limits. If you have been training, you will have a good idea of how much you can add without killing yourself.
- Drink more water. Remember when you are sweating like crazy on a 90-degree day, you need to replenish. Avoid sports drinks unless a coach, trainer or doctor recommends them. As a rule, they contain too much sugar. We recommend plain water. Just make sure it isn’t too cold. During intense workout sessions, ice cold water can cause cramping.
- Consume more calories. If you are doing more and not fueling, you will slow your system down. Make sure your food intake matches your activity level. And, of course, make sure you are eating good nutritious foods, not junk. Best foods are those with high hydration and low sugars such as cucumbers, grapes and pears as opposed to watermelon, oranges and berries.
- Rest more. It is really important to give yourself time to rest and recover before you go back at it the next day. If you don’t give the muscles enough time to heal, you will be more prone to injury the next time you use them.
With proper planning you can go far, have fun and be safe. Then, once you get home you can brag about your accomplishments instead of complaining about your aching knees.
How to really relax on that pool-side vacation
If your idea of heaven is sitting by a pool or on a beach with a good book, you know how tough re-entry into regular life can be. It’s typical to come home with reduced energy and a bigger waistline.
But it doesn’t have to be that way. It is possible to have a relaxing beach or pool-side getaway that refreshes and relaxes instead of zapping your strength. Here’s how to do that:
- Plan ahead. A week ahead is too late to start worrying about how you are going to look in a bathing suit. At that point, many people stop eating properly in a last-ditch effort to trim down. Not eating well actually slows the metabolism and zaps strength which leads to making you lethargic. Calorie depravation sends the body the signal to store energy instead of burning it. That makes your body cling to each and every calorie and thwarts your efforts to lose that muffin-top or spare tire.
- Choose your destination carefully. If you have to pack up your stuff and hike or drive to a pool or a beach, most people won’t run back to replenish. If you are going to a resort, look for one that includes pool-side service to get you what you need. If you are on a lake and don’t have access to a “cabana boy” plan to pack a cooler with water and nutritious snacks to take with you.
When you are there:
- Pay attention to the environmental factors at your location. We can’t completely control those factors, but we can manage them to help lessen the impact on our bodies. Look for a spot that has mix of sun and shade. Sure, sunscreen (try to select a natural product; shea butter is great) can be important, but be careful about lathering it on. Some sun screens can dry out your skin, and others have even been linked in recent studies to cancer. Shade is your best bet. It’s not harmful to the skin and is not known to cause cancer.
Also, don’t forget the wind. Wind can cause just as bad a burn as the sun, and sunscreen can’t help with that. A moisturizer is the best remedy if you get a wind burn, but to prevent one, turn your chair or find something to block the wind so it isn’t blowing directly on you.
- Hydrate. Don’t forget to drink liquids, and by liquids we mean water not sugary soft drinks or, heaven forbid, alcohol. Alcohol and caffeine will dehydrate you and put you to sleep. If you want that beer or glass of wine—after all you are on vacation—make sure you have at minimum an equal amount of water. Many people who hang out on a beach or at a pool stop drinking to reduce the need to hike to the bathroom. This will lower your metabolism, drop your energy level and add to the waistline, even if you aren’t eating very much. What’s more, when you are relaxing in the sun, you really need to hydrate to get the toxins out of your system. The good news is that you will be producing Vitamin D in droves while you are in the sun.
- Make sure that you interrupt your rest cycles – don’t stay in the same position for the majority of the day, or you may have difficulty being alert. Make sure that every hour or so you get up and walk, change your position, or simply as turn over on the lounge chair to change the blood flow. If you are drinking enough fluids, those bathroom breaks will be the perfect incentive to move around.
- When you are relatively sedentary, you should modify your caloric intake to match your activity level. Don’t pattern yourself after the grizzly bear who sleeps all day, has one big meal and then sleeps all winter. We know that during vacations going out to dinner can be the daily highlight, and we don’t want to keep you from that, but remember that portions at restaurants are huge. If you make good choices and eat half or less of what they give you, you’ll have a great lunch for the next day to carry down to the beach.
A word of caution for all you protein junkies out there, eating high protein in the sun when you are trying to rest will dry you out and slow down your metabolism. For snacks, pick raw natural foods high in water content and low in sugars such as cucumbers, grapes, melons (not watermelon), or celery with a little peanut butter.
As hard as it may sound to a beach-chair potato, you really will feel much better if you get out of the chair and get a little movement into your day. If you plan to do small activities at intervals, your body will feel more limber and won’t be as soar as it will be if you don’t move around. It could be as simple as swimming or even just walking in the pool, taking a short bike ride, or walking to dinner. If you do that, you won’t feel as guilty if you indulge a little more, and you definitely will feel much better when you get back home.
Originally published in Grosse Pointe Today.
