Mental Planning for Our Upcoming Trip - Diet and Exercise and Knee!

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diverjen

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Location
Denver
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I hesitate to post this, because I am always rolling my eyes about people asking for "diet" advice on a vacation.

Well, now here I am in the middle of a weight loss journey and about to encounter a 2 week dive trip to Bonaire.

I have taken vacations before while dieting (never two weeks though), I have taken dive trips while not dieting, but never both.

I guess I am trying to wrap my head around what a good strategy that will be mentally and physically healthy for a dive trip without starving myself or just incessantly eating everything in site. Overall goal: Don't gain a ton of weight, but eat enough to have energy and feel good and of course enjoy being on vacation!

Challenges - Exercising:

It seems like limiting exercise after a dive is a must and with all the repetitive diving we plan to do any exercise should be light.

1) I'm an emotional eater - exercise daily helps with anxiety about life and eating.

2) I dislocated my knee almost two years ago during an accident and have worked very hard to get that leg back in shape mostly by doing daily exercise and stretching.

Possible approach I see is that swimming and diving may be enough to both combat the anxiety ( I find diving to be incredibly relaxing) and hopefully physical enough to keep the knee "lubricated" (it gets stiff with inactivity). If this turns out to not be the case, I plan to try additional light exercise such as walking, swimming, stretching, yoga, etc.

Challenges - Eating:

What can I say, diving makes me really hungry, it did before I was dieting and it does now. There are articles out there that conflict about how many calories diving actually burns, but 4-5 dives a day,especially with a good portion being shore diving with surface swims will probably make me pretty hungry. How do you estimate how many calories you would need to eat for maintenance?

How do you find a happy medium with eating on a dive trip - Are there middle of the road plans you guys have tried successfully in the past?
We are doing most breakfasts and lunches at our accommodations so I can eat similar types of foods as I do at home, but I know the 1200-1500 calories/day is not going to cut it while diving this much. I don't want to count calories on vacation, but I don't want to "fall of the wagon" and binge eat either. Do you guys have any good strategies for this?

Hubby is not dieting and loves food and sweets and desserts - ie gelato/ice cream everyday is a given. I am just hoping to control portion sizes and not binge. That is my rough plan for now.

I just needed to vent and get all this down so I can start getting a mental plan together to organize my expectations, goals, thoughts, and feelings about how to approach eating on the trip.

Thank you for your thoughts (and please be gentle....)
 
I just read that diving, on average, burns .053 calories per minute per pound. For a 175lb person, 30 minutes of bottom time translates to burning approximately 278 calories. If you're doing five dives a day, you will be burning the calories. I managed to lose over 100lbs the last 18mos, and traveling was always the worst...almost impossible to eat right. It does help if you're staying somewhere where you can do your own cooking (for the most part). Just stay focused and keep the treats and snacks to a minimum. Lots of fish and fruit, and stay away from those post-dive alcoholic beverages. :) Good luck and have fun.
 
Diving burns a lot of calories, not only from the effort but also from your body regulating its temperature and staying warm (this is true even in tropical waters). Bonaire even more as it is shore diving so you have all of the exercise of carrying your gear to the beach, beach entries and exits, etc. If you do, 4 hours in-water time you will be burning about 1000 calories. You do NOT need any additional exercise on diving days. If you are repetitive diving and go deeper, DAN recommends that you do not do any exercise. Maybe some stretching but that's it.

In Bonaire, there will be no shortage of fresh fish. That is not only heaven for seafood lovers, but is very healthy as well. Stick with chicken and fish at lunches and dinners.

Finally, download myfitnesspal app to your phone. This is a food/calorie tracking program that provides the calorie counts for millions of different food items. It will calculate your basic calorie needs based on your height, weight, age and gender. You can then add to that 700 more calories for those you will burn while diving. Tracking your food intake is an eye-opening experience and you will immediately see where the trade-offs are. I.e., those two slices of french toast with syrup can be replaced with two eggs, a nice bowl of fruit, a yogurt, much more food (and more filling) for the same calories. That's just one example.

You can also see when to cut back on main meals to enjoy a "treat" like a dessert or a couple of drinks.

Healthy food choices while traveling are not often more difficult physically, but they are more difficult psychologically because you are mentally relaxed and in the mood to indulge. But, it can be done. I typically lose weight on vacations because I am active (much more than my usual routine) and keep an eye on my food choices.
 
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