Yes, that is a REAL ice cream in my hand!
I went to Rome for 2 days over the May Bank Holiday weekend.
BEAUTIFUL city. I loved it. So much history and amazing architecture, buildings and monuments and statues everywhere.
We saw the Colosseum, the Vatican, the Sistine Chapel, the Spanish steps, the Trevi Fountain, the Pantheon and more. Amazing. Walked for MILES.
Being a foodie, one of the things I was most looking forward to was some authentic cuisine…pizza, pasta and ice cream, the way the Italians make it.
If you’ve seen some of my other blogs and social media posts you’ll know I love all this kind of stuff, and don’t live off chicken, broccoli and lettuce leaves like your average personal trainer.
People are always still surprised at this.
I do love a lot of healthy foods too, but I also love the ‘less healthy’ things just as much as the next person. For me, it’s important to make the most of every situation and get the most out of life, so I pick and choose my moments when it comes to food.
Being in Italy, I wanted to really enjoy it and not feel like I couldn’t eat what I wanted for fear of gaining fat. I knew what I wanted would be high fat, high carbohydrate and low protein (not ideal for maintaining your figure) so on the day before going I ate higher protein and lower fat, with a few quality carbs too. I also did a fairly heavy weights session, to optimise fat burning for the following 24-48 hours.
Then I went out, had what I wanted, and enjoyed it. Tried a few slices of pizza, had an amazing fresh lasagne for dinner and a delicious carbonara for lunch the next day. The best bit was a visit to a gelato (ice cream was unreal).
I probably gained a couple of pounds over the weekend.
I don’t care. This will mainly be from suddenly taking in a lot of carbohydrates, which are quickly stored on the body and pull water into the cells as well, thereby temporarily increasing body weight. We walked for miles, at no point did I eat so much I felt stuffed, and after the carbonara I was actually full for the rest of the day, so it kind of balanced out.
To gain 2lbs of actual fat, I would have had to eat 7000 calories more than normal (a pound of fat equates to about 3500 calories) and not do any extra exercise (when I did more exercise due to all the walking).
The reason I’m telling you this story is that I see a lot of people fretting and worrying over holidays, meals out, and occasionally overdoing it with food. Life is for living, and it’s too short to fret over things like that. If you are eating well 90% of the time, 10% of the time you can eat what you want and not worry. It’s a case of balancing things out.
I’ll eat well again this week, get back to weights training, do a cycle or play a bit of tennis and the weight I probably gained will drop off. Same can happen for you or anyone else.
So if you want to indulge on a few treats every now and then on trips or meals out, go for it!
Keep training, keep eating well the rest of time, savour what you eat – appreciate every mouthful, stop when you’re full, and enjoy it.
Then get back on track after and never beat yourself up about it.
You only live once 🙂
May 23