Have you ever gone on holiday, and done one of these two things?
- Completely gone off the rails, and let go of every part of your healthy lifestyle?
- Tried to maintain every part of your healthy lifestyle – only to find it impossible to do so?
Either way, I have a fix for you.
Since I started tracking habits, my view on how to handle things whilst on holiday has evolved. However, over the last year or so, and the last couple of holidays – it’s settled into a place that feels right and works for me.
Before I dive into the tactical stuff, I want to share three principles. These principles define my approach for how I think about my habits when I’m on holiday:
1. It’s critical to dial things back
It’s not realistic to perform at the same level when you go on holiday or on any type of significant trip.
A big part of that is your environment. Having a predictable environment is crucial to being consistent with habits. And of course, that becomes completely disrupted when you go on holiday. This makes it virtually impossible to achieve the same levels of consistency whilst on holiday – even if you wanted to.
And look, you’re going to have a hard time enjoying your holiday if you’re continually getting bent out of shape by struggling to stick to unrealistic habits. You don’t want that to spoil your holiday.
So, the first thing is you have to dial everything back, and reduce your expectations.
Taking a break from your usual discipline and consistency now and again, is actually a good thing.
2. Taking a break can help you re-group, and recharge.
Here’s a good example of that. I train in a five week block. Weeks one to four follow almost exactly the same structure, and increase in intensity. By the end of the fourth week, I’m always feeling physically and mentally tired.
Welcome, week five – the deload. In the fifth week, there is much less structure. The emphasis is on being out of the gym, staying super active and reducing the intensity.
By the time I’m through the fifth week, I’m recharged mentally and physically. I’m super ready to hit week one of the next block.
This is a good example of how it can be advantageous to take a bit of a break from the normal discipline now and again. And that’s what I aim to do when I’m on holiday.
3. Whilst a break is good, it’s important to not detach and go completely off script
If I were to lose every aspect of my foundational health habits, I know I’m going to feel crappy – literally in my body, but also in myself for letting go completely of a healthy lifestyle.
It’s important to keep some type of light or reduced habit practice in place. This helps to keep the element of discipline alive. What you’ll find is that it then won’t be such an uphill struggle to pick things up when you get back from vacation. Sure, you might be a bit rusty when you get back to things. But, if you’re anything like me, I dust myself off pretty quick.
So, the third principle is, it’s important to keep at least some level of commitment to habits while on holiday.
This is all a timely reflection for myself, because I’m heading off to Tenerife on holiday shortly.
So, with all of that said, what’s my exact approach and plan when I’m in Tenerife?
What’s worked really well the last couple of times I’ve been on holiday, is to pick just a few habits to focus on. I tend to try and make sure these habits are not only the most foundational ones – but also ones which are friendly to stick to when on holiday.
For me, three habits always rise to the top:
1. Sleep
Sleep is hands down my most important foundational health habit. Firstly because of the direct impact it has on my physical and mental health. But, also because it has a lot of influence over the consistency of my other habits.
When I sleep well, I feel so much better. I’m more confident. I have little to no anxiety. More often than not, I am in a good mood and my energy is high.
2. Steps
Steps are the simplest way to stay active. I might do some other stuff when I’m on holiday – perhaps getting in the gym, practicing some bodyweight circuits, some mobility, and probably some swimming. But, that’s all a bonus, and only if I feel like it, or have access to those facilities..
Keeping steps as a habit, means that I will maintain a baseline of activity. And this is important for my mental health. Whenever I slip into being sedentary, the bad stuff tends to creep in.
3. Water
Water is an obvious one. It’s an easy habit to stick to when on holiday – and like sleep – when I’m hydrated, I feel good.
When I drink very little water, I feel tired, I get headaches and I tend to feel my mood lower.
The other thing about water and a holiday, is that it’s usually hot weather on a holiday. So, drinking water is an even more important habit to keep up to ensure that I stay hydrated.
So, those are the three habits I usually focus on whilst I’m on holiday – sleep, steps and water.
The other foundational health habits will definitely stay in the back of my mind for sure. Because many of them are becoming second nature for me now, they will still be upheld to some degree. But, importantly, I have no expectations, and they don’t get tracked.
Another piece to this is the actual target of each habit. Now, I think it’s perfectly fine to adjust either the actual goal for each of the habits (i.e number of litres of water to drink), or the total consistency that you’re aiming at for the period of time you’re on holiday (i.e 80% consistency)
For example, I usually aim for 10K steps a day, and 80% consistency over a normal month. On holiday, it would be perfectly fine to reduce that to 5K steps for 80%.
A lot depends on what type of holiday it is, and what is realistic for you. Remember, the key here is to hold onto a few of the most foundational health habits. You don’t want to abandon everything altogether. Pulling back on the targets is perfectly fine and still achieves that.
I find the existing targets I have for sleep, steps and water, as well as the 80% consistency just fine for my upcoming holiday. In fact, it’s usually fine for any holiday I go on. I’ve used this approach for weekend trips, as well as a three week holiday in the US.
So, to summarise, the habits that I’m going to track for my holidays are:
- Sleep: 6.5 hours
- Steps: 10K a day
- Water: 3 litres a day
Now, I’m going to throw in a bit of a curve ball for this holiday. I’ve decided I’m not going to track my sleep, and instead just focus on tracking only steps and water.
You might ask – why on earth would I do that? Surely, sleep is the most obvious one to hold onto?
You might be right. But, there are a couple of reasons I want to run this experiment.
Firstly, I want to take a break from whoop. I’m interested to know what it feels like from having a break from the daily data. I also want to avoid a white band on my wrist, next to the rest of my beautifully sun tanned body!
Also, sleep is something that is naturally very high for me on holiday. I’m not out partying, and I tend to allow myself to lie in. I have a lot of confidence that my sleep will naturally come in above the 6.5 hour mark for 80% regardless of how closely I track it.
There is a good chance that I will learn from this experiment that letting go of tracking sleep is a bad idea. But, I’m interested to give it a go and see how it feels.
So, for Tenerife, I will only focus on tracking steps and water for my 80% consistency. I’ll still somewhat be aware of getting over 6.5 hours of sleep, but I won’t track it like steps and water.
To summarise, here are my recommendations for tracking foundational health habits on holiday:
- Pick two or three foundational health habits that you will focus on, and track
- Try and make those habits the most foundational, but also ones which fit in nicely with your holiday
- Only focus on tracking and hitting those habits whilst on holiday. Let go of all expectations for the other habits.
- When you’re back from holiday, get back to full tracking!
I’ll see you after my holiday, hopefully with a sun tan!
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