Ep: #71 - Your Ultimate Guide to Having Food & Life Freedom on Holiday - Part 2

Faye Casement Author

Jul 27, 2023 |

Hello, hello, hello and welcome to episode number 71. Part 2 of Your Ultimate Guide to Having Food Freedom on Holiday.

Last week we were getting ready for the holiday… we were at the airport and waiting to take off. This week we made it! We are finally on holiday wahoooo.

But what now? Is it instant calm and relaxation? Does your mind stop the negative self-talk and constant chatter about your life, weight loss and everything in between.

I wager the answer to that is nooooo.

You’d be very lucky if you did or you’d likely already doing some of the work I teach which is fabulous if so.

But for most folk this is not what happens. It is not how our life and our brains work. You may be on holiday from work but you are not on holiday from life or your brain.

How many times have you been partway through your holiday and said ‘I feel like I am just about switching off now’? It can take time to go from one state to another and just as you are getting into relaxation mode and your brain starts to settle it is often time to come home. But what if you could switch off from the get go?

Maybe part of your ‘troubles’ came with you. The children still need looking after unless you are letting them go feral or popping them in a kids club, there is perhaps some bickering with your partner about who had the passports, is everyone doing their share. Maybe you have your parents or outlaws in tow which adds a different dynamic.

Perhaps like me you were away with friends or people you are not with for long periods under normal circumstances.

And what about your ‘weight loss’ are you preoccupied with what you look like? The fact you have had too much ice cream or pina coladas? Is there a lot of inner chatter going on about this?

I know when I was away recently, even after all the work I have done for years, the chatter still came up regarding my body.

My skin is usually the star of the show as I get rosacea and face welts (delightful) due to heat and dehydration from the plane. I tend to have less trouble with food thoughts nowadays due to the fact I had used the method I described last week to decide how I wanted to show up and I owned it like a boss but I remember the drama well and this does mean there were no thoughts. When we have downtime there is often more space for our brains to go into overdrive.

So let's dive into that a little more today.

RELAAAAX

So where are you at on the ‘relaxometre’?

Are you someone who can instantly switch off and enter holiday mode, are you a mid-week maud who gets there eventually or are you a stressed-out Sally who never really gets a chance to relax and before you know it you are back to the hustle and bustle of ‘normal’ day to day life?

Do you sometimes feel you need a holiday to get over your holiday?

We explored some of this last week whilst gathering some initial awareness about what holidays mean to you.

Your beliefs and thoughts about holiday change and will change so be sure to come back and revisit the exercise.

I remember when my daughter was little I would think of my holidays as ‘busmans’ holidays… the same shit just a different location. Not that I didn’t love caring for my daughter but there was a greater expectation to entertain her, she was out of routine and she had expectations of what she wanted to do.

As she got older her needs and expectations changed and so the approach had to adapt, I had to decide if I needed to change and adapt.

This is the same if you travel with others, partners, parents, friends etc we all have our own lenses (or should I say sunglasses) that we view holidays through, our own individual expectations and wishes. Sometimes that marries up well and sometimes not so.

Maybe you get away and you are worrying about work or your business. What if x y z happens? Did I send the proposal I was supposed to? What if Jose from accounts gets back to me and I am not there?

All of these dynamics and all these thoughts could be impacting your ability to chillax and thus in turn could be zapping your joy, maybe even leading to some drama and then on into your food intake.

So how do you move from clapped-out pigeon to zen master with all of this going on?

There are so many different techniques we could discuss and I can teach you. Today I want to talk about the gift of presence.

If you are in the Backstage Pass Membership you have a resource to assist you called ‘Unpacking Your Presence‘ and I have signposted you to the other relevant resources you have at your fingertips to help in your portal. Not a member yet and want to lay your hands on this too, check out the description box.

So back to presence, I know it can sometimes feel like a word that is banded about and is perhaps misunderstood by many as being woo or poppycock but it is powerful, it doesn’t take long and it doesn’t eat into our luggage allowance as you can carry it with you for free.

To truly relax and to do so swiftly, the gift of presence is essential. It is about allowing yourself to fully immerse yourself in the present moment, about letting go of worries and distractions. By practising presence, you can experience a sense of calm and clarity whenever and wherever you are.

When away on holiday you have some great external tools all around you that you can use to channel your inner zen. All you have to do is tap into your senses.

Maybe you're at the beach and can hear the waves crashing as you feel the sun on your face. This is a visualisation I do to relax even when I am home but it is great to be able to do it on locale.

Perhaps you are walking in nature or up a mountain seeing beautiful skies, hearing birds, and smelling flowers. Even if it has rained, you have that fresh smell you can choose to appreciate, maybe the prospect of a rainbow. The sound of puddles as you splash in them or the softness of the ground underfoot. Wonders are all around you if you stop and look for them and deeply appreciate them.

You could be on a city break and you have all the sights, smells and sounds that bring. Maybe your close your eyes and just focus on one sound as you breathe deeply.

Even if you are stuck in a traffic jam and the kids are screaming they need a wee and are we nearly there yet you can drop into a moment if you need to. All you have to do is turn your attention where you want it to go rather than getting swept along, and into the drama.

Wherever you are (as long as it is safe to do so) you can drop into this type of mindfulness.

You have always got with you your breath and your body. You can always focus your attention on the sensations of your breath or body, or your surroundings and on loop gently bringing your mind back whenever it wanders off.

The gift of presence is not about shutting out everything and having no thoughts but being able to harness self-command and direct your thoughts intentionally. It is about finding the stillness within, even if chaos surrounds you.

As you drop into these moments, work on letting go of judgments or expectations and just being.

Simply observe and feel and breathe in and slowly exhale. Notice how each breath brings you back to the present moment, anchoring you in reality and calm.

Sounds beautiful right?

Eat Up

As well as savouring the moment, making memories as you release your stresses and tenses and drop into relaxation I want to talk about eating on holiday.

As usual, I want to know what comes up for you. So let me know under the video or if you are catching this on podcast drop into the Wellness 4 Women Group Free or Member group if you are a member.

Before I became a free foodie I remember the food dramas I would have when eating on holiday.

A near constant running dialogue of I shouldn’t be eating this or should be eating that. When dieting not knowing how many points/calories were in things was a source of anxiety.

When eating out their was fear about the fact if I eat out I am not ‘dieting’ and therefore will gain weight.

Constant chatter about how much I was eating and how I would be ‘as a fat as a house’ when I got back. Or how ‘I would have undone all my hard work’. Little comments to anyone who would listen full of self-judgement and just generally not being nice to myself.

This then all kicks the brain into overdrive, and strips some of the joy from the holiday.

What then does our dear brain do… it panics!

It perceives us to be in trouble. Its number one job at the end of the day is to keep us safe, happy and to maintain the status quo. It is already on high alert as we are out of our normal routines, perhaps sleep deprived from an early set off and chemically a little bit more imbalanced due to the extra booze and possible dehydration from the heat.

It wants to make us feel better, so it checks the memory banks, what helped in the past? how have we holidayed before? What makes her happy? 

Have you seen the movie ‘Inside Out’?. If not you really should watch it as it capture how our brains work to a tea. And I love picturing little characters in my brain pulling leavers and pressing buttons.

So it starts to send us more thoughts… ‘It’s ok… you are on holiday you deserve it’; ‘f’it I can worry about it when I come back’; you tell yourself to enjoy the moment; everything will be fine. These thoughts swirl around and around and you then flip-flop between the judgement and trying to smooth it over. It can be draining.

Flip-flopping thoughts or conflicting beliefs is a common issue for us all but especially in ‘weight loss’, the mismatch between expectations and reality; like wanting to ‘lose weight’ but not wanting to do the work. The key is to recognise these thoughts and to work them through with some mind ninjary.

Maybe you need to give yourself some TLC which is one of my methods I go back to time and time again where I ask is it true, loving and then get curious about what I could think instead. Maybe you work on owning your decisions and going back to last week you remind yourself of what your intentions were and that you are honouring them. Or perhaps you need to work on acceptance. The more we ‘fight’ our thoughts and feelings the longer they stay. What we resist persists and so more flip-flopping ensues.

This is the beauty of food freedom and ‘weight loss’ with love as you have all the techniques to move out of brain overdrive.

As an intuitive style eater who works on fostering a healthy relationship with food, you can let go of the food drama and in doing so find greater freedom and enjoyment.

As you relax on the sun loungers by the pool, taking sips from fruity cocktails you can allow your holiday to be filled with laughter, adventure, and pure bliss.

Since I started out on my ‘weight loss’ with love journey my holidays have been different. I enjoy them more. I do not sweat my food choices, I own them. I don’t worry about overeating because I continue to listen to my body. As a foodie, I revel in trying all the different foods and drinks that I wouldn’t normally have but I do so in a sensible fashion rather than going into full f’it holiday mode. It feels easy because I simply continue as normal but maybe with a little more ice cream and pina coladas.

This might not be your story.

The point is you create your own that works for you. Maybe you love being active on holidays, still going to the gym, and getting in extra lengths in a beautiful pool. Maybe you want to actively work on weight loss whilst on holiday which is simple with the Triple-A-Way and food freedom as you just make more simple power-up choices. The point is you get to decide. This is the first step in the 5 D’s of Action. Decide how you want to show up. All I ask is you do it from love aka you do it because you truly want to. Not out of fear, not because you think you must. This is where true motivation and momentum lie.

Body Beautiful

Moving into the last mini topic for this week's show... body image.

At the time of going live and recording this, it is summer.

Not that you’d know it as it is miserable and wet in the UK.

Usually though in the weeks leading up to summer my news feed is full of captions, memes and quotes about being summer ready, beach ready, losing weight for holiday etc.

There are many women around the world who right now are wanting to work on ‘weight loss’ for a specific event, such as a holiday, and some of this could be due to beliefs around self-image such as you have to look a certain way to be accepted.

No matter your shape or size you may have some kind of body hang ups or insecurity when on holiday whether that be due to being in sunnier climates where we strip down and so look at our bodies in a different way, or maybe there could be activities you want to do that you do not feel you can physically do, or you are in environments and with people you do not know.

The pressure to 'look good' can lead to us feeling inadequate or not good enough.

This is where ‘weight loss’ with love is different to traditional dieting.

We have similar results but we work on love-filled not fear-filled reasoning.

We work on loving ourselves on the way through our journey not undertaking the journey purely because we think we should.

I know in the past I have worried about what I would look like in my bikini (hell I wouldn't have even dared where a bikini), I have compared and despaired over the way comparing myself to the person on the next sun bed.

As mentioned before my skin flares up in the heat and I can't cover it easily when sunbathing and swimming and I can get self-conscious.

So I know the kind of thoughts we can have on holiday and I would say I am in a good place with my body and am mostly body-neutral.

This is why it is important to work on your beliefs around your self-image, the judgements and hangups because otherwise, they will still be there even when you reach your goal.

Does it mean you won't ever have thoughts about body image ever again?

Sadly, no we are human and this is how our brains work but with mind ninjary techniques and body image work, you can take the temperature down a notch or two.

What’s Next?

Wrapping up today's show. We have explored getting your zen on; food freedom on your holidays and touched on the subject of body image.

A fair few tips to be going along with but you really do want to lay your hands on the accompanying resource as part of the Backstage Pass Membership ‘Unpacking Your Presence’ a go-to must-have for your next vacay to help you chill quicker than you have ever chilled before.

Next week is part 3… we are going to talk all things holiday blues, getting back into routine and what to do if things did not go to plan in the ‘weight loss’/well-being arena.

See you there.

This week's bonus member resource:

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