Its fair to say that during my holiday I put on a few pounds (13 in all!). What started out as good intentions quickly developed into a ‘I’m going to enjoy myself, so what the hell’ mindset.
There were numerous occasions where I sought out my favourite ice cream by far (DQ’s Peanut Buster Bar) and an array of fast food that was freely available. For the first few days, I made geniune efforts to side step temptation and eat as clean as possible, but I was on holiday and I had worked hard up until that point.
During my 2 weeks in Canada, I was keen to understand how food played its part in the grand scheme of things, so I started to read labels. Initially at first it was confusing because here in the UK, you get a breakdown of both portion size and per 100g, so fundamentally you have a better chance of comparing like for like. No so in Canada, you get portion size only, so if you were trying to compare 2 items side by side you had some maths to do!
I did notice a a lot of salt is added to processed food upward of 30-40% RDA in a lot of snacks. Alberta beef is generally regarded as being the best in the land so I sought out some beef jerky snacks to keep me going. I found not only was salt added to the process but a a lot of sugar was added to. This was just one example.
Being out an about a lot, food choices were limited to sandwiches or burgers and not a lot in between. I did opt for a salad in Wendys once, but I had to refrain for all the ranch dressings that came with it. A lot of places also have infinite refills, so an 18oz cup of Root Beer quickly became 54oz!
I enjoyed my stay in Canada immensly, I always do, the scenery is breathtaking and I miss my family loads when I return. I decided to get over the jetlag and then knuckle down on getting back to pre holiday weight. Its fair to say, I’ve been very aggressive with the weight loss because I wanted to see just how quickly I could do it but still remain within the parameters of a healthy diet. The last time I was in Canada it took me months to lose 10lbs, but I’ve done 13lbs in just over a week.
I will publish my diary tomorrow to show you just how I managed it…
nu-tri-tion (noun) 