How to stick to your diet, while travelling.

Travel is one of the most reliable diet-breakers there is. Not because you suddenly lose discipline the moment you board a plane, but because the environment that quietly keeps your eating on track at home - your meal plan, your kitchen, your routine, your habits -disappears almost entirely. Understanding why travel derails diets so predictably is the first step to preventing it.

Why is it harder to diet when travelling

At home, your diet runs largely on autopilot. You've pre-decided what to eat. Your kitchen contains only the foods you chose to put there. Your meals happen at consistent(ish) times. These set controls do the heavy lifting so your willpower barely has to. It is basically less stressful.

Travel destroys all of that. Every meal becomes a fresh decision, made in an unfamiliar environment, often when you're fatigued from transit, socially pressured by a group, or jet-lagged and running on poor sleep. Each of these decisions depletes your ability to think rationally - what is also known as decision fatigue. And a fatigued brain defaults to whatever offers the most immediate pleasure: the pasta, the dessert, the free flow of alcohol and laksa at the airport lounge. 

The goal while travelling is NOT to summon more willpower. It's to rebuild structure as quickly as possible so you don't need much willpower at all.

Before you leave – Plan ahead.

The most effective tool available to you is a decision made in advance with a clear head. Before your trip, research where you're travelling to. What supermarkets are near your hotel? What kinds of restaurants are in the area? What cuisines are typical? The more you've pre-answered these questions, the fewer choices you're making in the moment when you're tired and hungry. Yes, I know it isn’t going to be as accurate as when you count your calories food prepping. But having some accountability is going to be waaaaaaaay better than gong “fu** it”. 

Pack food for the journey itself. Airports and train stations are freagin minefields: you're bored, fatigued, surrounded by food cues, and your normal meal timing is already disrupted. 

“I’ll sit at the café and have coffee while I wait for my connection” 

Then the café has greasy burgers, truffle fries and “OMG alcohol is so cheap compared to Singapore”

Die lah. Mampus. HongGan liao.

Having some food you trust on you — protein bars, lower calorie snacks, individual packets of protein powder — means you're not making decisions from hunger at a terminal food court. Though I must say, carrying small packets of protein powder in Ziplock bags through immigration at some airports is a real gamble. Especially if you look like me. 

Protein bars are a safer bet. This is my non-sponsored favourite. https://iherb.co/n5fUobsC

The supermarket rule

My cousins Simone and Nikki would be proud I wrote this part. When on holiday, these two would go to a supermarket even if it was on top of an active volcano surrounded by savages and wild beasts. 

PS: I love you both. 

This is the single best action you can take in a new location: find the nearest supermarket within the first few hours of arriving and stock your room before you do anything else.

You could consider picking up some Greek yogurt, fruit, pre-cooked chicken or tuna cans, or low-calorie drinks. These days, even 7/11 has Ready To Drink protein shakes. Everyone seems to be protein-maxxing. This does several things simultaneously: you have food you trust, you're never caught hungry with no good options, and you've removed the justification of "I had no choice" that leads to impulsive meals. 

Never make food decisions when you're already hungry - your brain in that state is incapable of accurately predicting what it will feel like to eat the food later. Shop first, eat after.

Think like an economist. 

Without a meal plan to follow, every restaurant meal requires a decision. The key is making that decision once rather than negotiating with yourself throughout the meal.

One hack that my client Dave thought of (and I personally think it’s brilliant): he simply asked Chat GPT about the restaurant menu.

Yup and it gives you a rough idea of what each dish on the menu “costs” in the term of macros. It’s not the most accurate, but it gives a range. Which is good enough given the circumstances.

Before you decide on what to order, briefly evaluate your options the way an economist would: what's the protein-to-calorie percentage here? Is this dish worth what it costs me in my daily budget? Can I get something more satiating for a similar or lower calorie cost? This brief pause allows your brain to rationalise rather than letting your eye wander to whatever looks most appealing in the moment.

Restaurants are NOT the enemy. They can actually support your diet when you order well. Use lean protein as your anchor, load up on vegetables for volume and satiety, ask for sauces on the side, and substitute where the menu allows. The key habit is looking at what you're going to order before hunger is doing the choosing for you.

For example:

Instead of ordering the 

Eggs benedict, approximately - 30g protein, 55g fat, 28g carbs = 727 calories which is about 16% protein

I’ll order 

4 poached eggs on a slice of sourdough toast approximately - 28g protein, 20g fat, 20grams carbs = 372 calories and about 30% protein calories. And that’s a pretty damn good ratio.

Do you think I memorise this shit? 

NO. I obviously just looked it up. 

But If I was going to a hotel breakfast tomorrow - I NOW know which is the better option. Imagine going to the eggs station and then when the cook asks you what you want and you have no idea. 

“Umm..2 scrambled eggs…errrr…wait. Poached…eh…actually wait..cannot..”. 

The 3 people behind you: “eh you go and eat shit lah”

ALWAYS Plan ahead.

Plan for the high risk moments.

Travel has predictable danger zones, and you can neutralise most of them in advance by writing specific plans for when they arise. Vague intentions like "I'll try to eat well" are almost useless. Specific “When-then” or “If-then” rules are what you should be making.

Before you leave, write out plans for the situations you know you'll face:

If my travel group goes to a restaurant, I will check the menu online beforehand and decide what I'm having before I arrive.

When I land after a long flight, I will go to a supermarket before checking into the hotel.

If there's a buffet, I will fill my plate with protein and vegetables before I look at anything else.

If I feel like raiding the minibar at night, I will drink a sparkling water (Which I bought at the supermarket) and give it 20 minutes first. Also because - $12 for nuts?! You can gargle on deeznu..! 

These are implementation intentions - action plans in “if-then” format - and they are dramatically more effective than motivation-based approaches. The reason for their effectiveness is simply 

Structure.

Just like your training program at the PIT. We don’t tell you what exercises to do when you walk in. We’ve planned it weeks in advance. And there is a method to the madness we put you through. Still dealing with guesswork in your fitness journey? Contact us to schedule your complimentary, non obligatory consult with one of our personal trainers. This message was brought to you by Ving the Merciless of the PIT Singapore. Your friendly, sometimes grumpy-without-coffee trainer in the Orchard Road area.

And now back to the article.

By creating a specific plan in advance, you make the action the automatic response to the cue, so it requires almost no willpower in the moment.

Re-establish your meal timing 

Your body's digestive and metabolic processes run on a roughly 24-hour biological clock, and when your meal timing becomes irregular, the consequences are measurable: increased hunger, elevated cortisol, higher cholesterol, and a reduced ability to burn the food you eat.

As soon as you arrive somewhere new, establish a consistent local meal schedule and stick to it. Don't eat just because the rest of the group eats, or when food appears, or whenever the hotel puts out the buffet. Decide your meal times and stick to them. Your appetite will adapt within a few days, hunger will become predictable, and the random cravings that come from metabolic disruption will subside. What if I’m on a road trip for long hours? Like driving from one state to another? Or one country to another? What if I’m on a ferry? 

Please read part about supermarket rule again.

“If you look hard enough for an excuse, you will always find one. Not necessarily a good one. But you will still manage to find one”

Again, we are trying to NOT make food decisions when we are hungry. 

I remember during a solo trip to Portugal, I found out that people had their dinners at around 9pm! I had mine at 6pm and it was the best thing ever. No traffic, no crowded restaurant, in bed with my book by 9pm.

I also ONLY ordered multiple starters from the menu so that I can have smaller portions and havemore variety. 

I wasn’t going to eat at 9pm and just order mains because everyone in Lisbon was doing that. I would be starving by that time and would have eaten everything in sight. And at what time would I have gotten to bed? 

How would I feel when I wake up early for my itinerary the next morning? Tired, then over caffeinated, then you guessed it - “Hungry”.

Not actual hunger. My brain would just be hunting for a quick hit of “pleasure” to cope with the fatigue. And that would come in the form of over snacking - Hello breakfast pastries, and other high calorie snacks. Get in ma belly noooow (Will talk more about snacking in a future article.)

So remember, your trip – YOUR rules.

Which brings us to…

Managing social pressure

Ok, this is one of many reasons why I LOVE solo travel sometimes. Anyway..

Group meals while travelling are one of the most consistent triggers for overeating. 

Conversation distracts you from how much you're actually eating, reducing the brain's signalling for satiety.

We have an unspoken rule during restaurant meals in the Henson family. Chit chat is for before the food arrives. Once it's on the table, we eat. No talking, no distractions - just food.It’s just that with the Henson men, if you keep talking, there will be nothing left for you to eat(Oh for any new expats reading that might not understand – In South East Asia we normally order multiple dishes to share with our personal plate of white rice. Welcome!) So nothing to do with satiety or the topic actually -

Just thought I’d use this opportunity to remind my wife about our very first date where she didn’t get to eat any of the chicken I bought from the chicken rice stall because she kept talking while I continued eating. Yes she still married me. Because I have a MASSIVE..

Heart.

Next - Social pressure nudges you toward ordering what others order. Longer meals with multiple courses give more opportunities to accumulate calories you weren't planning on. And if alcohol is involved, your brain's ability to rationalise and hold the line deteriorates quickly. Decide what you're ordering before you even sit down. 

None of this means avoiding social meals. I’m not saying that AT ALL. That would be both miserable (for many) and impractical.

Again, all this is avoidable if you go in with a plan. 

Don't catastrophise when things don’t go to plan

They will go wrong. A trip will produce off-plan meals, missed workouts, disrupted sleep, and days where the best available option still isn't great. That's not failure - that's travel.

The genuinely dangerous moment isn't the deviation. It's the response to the deviation that is potentially dangerous. One off-plan dinner has very little impact on your body composition. One off-plan dinner followed by three days of "I've already blown it, I'll restart when I get home" is where real damage happens. 

The “fu**it mentality” or the all-or-nothing mindset - treating your diet as a streak to protect rather than a budget to manage  is one of the most reliable routes to actually fu**ing things up completely.

Think of your calories as a weekly budget. One expensive day doesn't empty the account if the other days are managed sensibly. A heavy restaurant dinner on Tuesday means a tighter Wednesday, Thursday or even Friday, not an abandoned week. 

When something goes wrong, the only question worth asking is: what's my next meal going to look like?

It happened already right? 

Can’t click on un-do right?

Can’t build a time machine right?

So how? 

Do you go - 

“Next meal I’ll do better”

or 

“I’ll just forget it, binge and start over when the holiday is over”?

If you usually take the second option I have to ask you this.

Let’s say you drop your handphone out of a window. You pick it up. It’s still intact. Screen is not broken. Nothing. Maybe a small scratch on the case.

Do you go 

“I won’t put my phone near the window next time” 

Or 

do you stomp on your phone till it breaks because it didn’t break the first time round? 

The bottom line

Travelling strips away every structural advantage that keeps your diet on track while at home. The solution is NOT tougher willpower - it's replacing passive environmental control with deliberate pre-planning. Find the supermarket, establish your meal timing, pre-decide your restaurant orders, write out your if-then plans for the hard moments, and treat any deviation as a single occurrence rather than a reason to abandon the effort entirely. 

“Your discipline doesn't have to increase when you travel. Your preparation does.”

And if you are struggling with your fitness goals and want practical advice from your trainers without unnecessary fitness jargon (I freagin hate those guys) – Contact us to speak to one of our personal trainers today. 

Also, please feel free to share this piece with anyone you think could benefit from it.

See you at the PIT.

Author: Henson Irving, PIT Director