Coping with bountiful food around on trips

[shootingstar]

A good friend is (over)thinking about joining up on a group tour trip.  She  wonders if she can cope with a 4-wk. trip to China with so much food served.  This is joining up with family members along with others.  Apparently it's a foodie trip plus seeing stuff.  But tour is only in 1 province of China which is the province her family is from (and mine).

It's all part of the pkg. deal.  She said to me:  "That's I why I've gone on cycling trips!"

So how do you deal with this, if you're on a multi-wk. cruise or all-inclusive resort?  

[Razors Edge ★]

I generally return from vacations weighing less and in better shape than when I left - despite eating out all the time and eating well all the time.  My answer is to be active and enjoy.

[shootingstar]

43 minutes ago, Razors Edge said:

I generally return from vacations weighing less and in better shape than when I left - despite eating out all the time and eating well all the time.  My answer is to be active and enjoy.

For me, it can be a challenge. For sure, it helps if there is some cycling / lots of walking.  Walking at least 5-10 km. / day.  Some trips I've gained around 3 lbs. or so which I don't consider good.

Travelling overseas, I really have to be careful what I choose on the menu.  For me, the point of foreign overseas vacation trips is to also see stuff and try food dishes that one doesn't normally find on North American menus. So, my rule absolutely, is avoiding any junk/processed food when on overseas trips...why would I even try that in a foreign country????   I very rarely have deep-fried food.  I avoid any pop drinks, but then I have local wine. 

[shootingstar]

So no one else is ever faced with this food bounty challenge on vacation trips?

[JerrySTL ★]

When on vacation, I don't worry about it too much. No need to ruin a vacation over 3 pounds. Life is too short.

[ChrisL]

28 minutes ago, shootingstar said:

So no one else is ever faced with this food bounty challenge on vacation trips?

Yeah all the time as we usually visit family so there are lots of big meals & eating out.  I don’t know what one has to worry about… Don’t eat it all or eat what you want. Nobody is forcing food down you… Grab a drink, enjoy the experience but you don’t have to eat just because food is being served. 

 

[Longjohn ★]

You can lead a horse to water

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but a pencil must be lead.

[Razors Edge ★]

I am sure this changes over time - especially with aging or injury - but to me, how one lives "normally" is not too different from how one lives on vacation.  Visiting family or a trip to a foreign country still have me essentially being true to myself - ie not sitting on a couch and stuffing my face but also not seeking out the nearest gym so I can hit the treadmill for 2 hours.  Luckily, on a trip, I tend to be walking all over the place - or better yet - riding all over the place, and the biggest difference of all to my eating is that I make room for dessert as often as I want.  What I find, though, is that I don't actually always want dessert  and come to some happy medium where I am not depriving myself as much as sated and being more picky.  In general, I am a sucker for tiramisu but after maybe two of those in a week, I'm good until next time.  I'll try something else and/or not want dessert at the next meal.

[Razors Edge ★]

2 minutes ago, Longjohn said:

but a pencil must be lead.

GRAPHITE, man!!!  Use your phone!  Jeebus, do we have to fact check everything these days???

[Longjohn ★]

That would ruin the joke.

 

As far as abundant food that is available, nobody says you have to eat it.

[shootingstar]

32 minutes ago, Longjohn said:

As far as abundant food that is available, nobody says you have to eat it.

What if it’s food that u know is rarely offered in North American restaurants?

54 minutes ago, JerrySTL said:

When on vacation, I don't worry about it too much. No need to ruin a vacation over 3 pounds. Life is too short.

3, 5 lbs. shows up faster on small/ boned person.

[Longjohn ★]

7 minutes ago, shootingstar said:

What if it’s food that u know is rarely offered in North American restaurants?

 

I wouldn’t care, I look at food as fuel. No point in overfilling the tank.

[shootingstar]

Just now, Longjohn said:

I wouldn’t care, I look at food as fuel. No point in overfilling the tank.

I’m very different from u and not as rigid. I’ve learned about culture and people’ s expertise via their better food dishes.

[shootingstar]

3 minutes ago, Longjohn said:

I wouldn’t care, I look at food as fuel. No point in overfilling the tank.

I wouldn’t have learned as much about German- French influences in food as an example. Always an option to share. 

[Longjohn ★]

2 minutes ago, shootingstar said:

I’m very different from u and not as rigid. I’ve learned about culture and people’ s expertise via their better food dishes.

Judie watches chef shows pretty much every night. They care 0% about healthy eating. Even the vegan chefs do way too much deep frying and use too much salt.

[shootingstar]

9 minutes ago, Longjohn said:

Judie watches chef shows pretty much every night. They care 0% about healthy eating. Even the vegan chefs do way too much deep frying and use too much salt.

That can be problem.  There are simple rules of thumb for avoiding certain dishes overseas, due to cooking techniques.  Deep fried foods is 1 of them for me. Does Judi try any of those dishes to cook?

[Longjohn ★]

3 minutes ago, shootingstar said:

That can be problem.  There are simple rules of thumb for avoiding certain dishes overseas, due to cooking techniques.  Deep fried foods is 1 of them for me. Does Judi try any of those dishes to cook!

Not the ones I gripe about how unhealthy these fancy chefs cooking is. Last night someone was making a butter sauce and it looked like they used many pounds of butter along with garlic and other flavoring. One of the judges said “I just want to drink that sauce. I got up and left the room.

She used to try different recipes she saw on cooking shows before we were married. They usually didn’t turn out well. Our cooking styles are very different.

[BuffJim]

It’s a struggle, especially on cruises. Lately My appetite isn’t what it used to be, so not as much of an issue. Went on a trip to Maine a couple years ago with intentions to eat a lot of lobster over 4 days, but stomach was upset after eating Fried Oysters on 2nd day, and I couldn’t bear the thought of lobster 🦞 until after we left Maine. Grrr.

[Longjohn ★]

Lobsters, the cockroach of the sea. I really limit my consumption of bottom feeders. Oysters are in that category too.

[Razors Edge ★]

31 minutes ago, Longjohn said:

They care 0% about healthy eating. Even the vegan chefs do way too much deep frying and use too much salt.

Generally, the best way to make delicious food is to add fat (lots of butter) and salt.  Sugar too, sometimes.

[MickinMD ★]

3 hours ago, shootingstar said:

A good friend is (over)thinking about joining up on a group tour trip.  She  wonders if she can cope with a 4-wk. trip to China with so much food served.  This is joining up with family members along with others.  Apparently it's a foodie trip plus seeing stuff.  But tour is only in 1 province of China which is the province her family is from (and mine).

It's all part of the pkg. deal.  She said to me:  "That's I why I've gone on cycling trips!"

So how do you deal with this, if you're on a multi-wk. cruise or all-inclusive resort?  

If she's going to be in a lot of restaurants like those I was in, she should enjoy herself then lose the weight after returning.

The typical non-hotel restaurants I was in during a 1999 tour featured a big lazy Susan in the middle of the table and the waiters just kept bringing stuff out and sitting it there, so we rotated it and took from each dish that looked appealing and put it on our plate.  I don't know what half if it was, but it was good and I ate a lot. Your friend will probably know what's what and what's fattening.  Fortunately, what we were served was limited in spices to suit western tastes.

Here's one example of a lazy Susan at our Peking Duck farewell dinner, with our fantastic guide Zhou Hong Ju on the left in white.  All pictures are screencaps of my lo-res 1999 VHS-C video camcorder.

This was our American group on Tienanmen Square, with me almost blocking Chairman Mao's picture above Tienanmen Gate, the entrance to the Forbidden City.

We 27 Americans cumulatively gave our guide Zhou (pronounced "Joe"), front left in a black hat, a $2000 cash tip at the end of our 2 weeks.  That was a little more than the avg. annual Chinese income in 1999.  By far the greatest tour guide I ever had.

Walking with Zhou on the Sacred Way outside Beijing going to the Ming Tombs and talking about people who don't want to have children:

 

[Longjohn ★]

Just now, Razors Edge said:

Generally, the best way to make delicious food is to add fat (lots of butter) and salt.  Sugar too, sometimes.

That’s pretty much what I said. I paraphrased it. The best way to make artery clogging kidney function killing food is to add fat and salt and sometimes sugar.

[Longjohn ★]

2 minutes ago, MickinMD said:

If she's going to be in a lot of restaurants like those I was in, she should enjoy herself then lose the weight after returning.

Like you did? 

[Razors Edge ★]

1 minute ago, Longjohn said:

That’s pretty much what I said. I paraphrased it. The best way to make artery clogging kidney function killing food is to add fat and salt and sometimes sugar.

I do wonder about the A -> B nature of fat/salt/sugar leading to artery clogging, obesity, kidney issues, or any other diet issue.  It seems way more varied than that to me. I do think, for the folks who see early that it DOES lead to bad outcomes, they need to nip it in the bud and adjust ASAP.  But I think many folks can eat a lot of that stuff and still be healthy - either through luck, moderation, and/or activity.  Other folks seem screwed no matter what they do. And far too many just stick with eating that way despite knowing it isn't the best system for them.  Probably worst are the folks who try but in a way that neither makes things better nor improves life in general - ie jumping on yoyo diets or replacing real sugar with "fake" sugar or processed health foods instead of un- or low-processed whole foods.

[Kirby]

Big "vacation trips" were at most a once or twice a year event when I was working, so generally I was focused on enjoying things and not too worried about rules.  If there was something fun I wanted to try, I did - especially if it was a local treat that would be hard to get at home.  But I tend to be a picky eater so I wouldn't be likely to try anything too exotic just because I don't think I'd like it.

For places with an abundance of food, I'd be more likely to sample lots of different things and then see which ones I'd enjoy.  But at some point, eating more is just going to make me feel sick, not happy.

 

[shootingstar]

55 minutes ago, Longjohn said:

Not the ones I gripe about how unhealthy these fancy chefs cooking is. Last night someone was making a butter sauce and it looked like they used many pounds of butter along with garlic and other flavoring. One of the judges said “I just want to drink that sauce. I got up and left the room.

She used to try different recipes she saw on cooking shows before we were married. They usually didn’t turn out well. Our cooking styles are very different.

When I was still in a home with a tv, I stopped watching food network shows:  it astonished me how unhealthy some of the dishes were when the chefs were showing off their cooking prowess.  Very unhealthy:  too much salt, soy sauce, butter and sugar.  Even when I read recipes online and magazines:  just puzzling sometimes.

What is her style of cooking that is quite different than yours?

[shootingstar]

36 minutes ago, Kirby said:

Big "vacation trips" were at most a once or twice a year event when I was working, so generally I was focused on enjoying things and not too worried about rules.  If there was something fun I wanted to try, I did - especially if it was a local treat that would be hard to get at home.  But I tend to be a picky eater so I wouldn't be likely to try anything too exotic just because I don't think I'd like it.

For places with an abundance of food, I'd be more likely to sample lots of different things and then see which ones I'd enjoy.  But at some point, eating more is just going to make me feel sick, not happy.

And @MickinMD

I tend to approach when on vacation trips especially outside of North America:  focus on ordering dishes that I know would not be served in North America due to cooking technique (braising, steaming are techniques not used as heavily in North America because of time for braising and steamed dishes to alot of non-Asian palates, doesn't have the dynamic flash taste of a stir-fry or sauteed dish).  Yes, "treating" oneself..which can accidentally mean too many times. 

This same friend returned from 3 wks. in Taiwan and she found alot of dishes in Taiwan served to their bike touring group (many Chinese-Canadians plus herself also), were braised or steamed.  A technique that is less common in alot of Chinese North American restaurants.  She already experienced this bountiful food recently.  

She herself is:  4'11" and approx. 108 lbs @66 yrs....more weight than I, 'cause she has more muscle re weight machines, pickle ball and stronger cyclist than I.  She is very small...smaller than I, in terms of clothing sizes.

[Longjohn ★]

She calls herself a Pittsburgh hunky. She has Hungarian, Russian, and Polish background. She lived in New Mexico for 22 years so she also likes Mexican food.  

[BuffJim]

Most of my bucket list destinations are on there for a combination of food, ocean/water landscapes and relative safety. In Europe it would be Portugal, Scotland, Austria and Croatia

[shootingstar]

1 hour ago, Longjohn said:

She calls herself a Pittsburgh hunky. She has Hungarian, Russian, and Polish background. She lived in New Mexico for 22 years so she also likes Mexican food.  

I see. At least she understands herself well and food preferences/habits too.

Dearie clearly pulled away from some traditional German dishes --he was tired of potato dishes 'cause that's what he had daily growing up. So we only occasionally ate lovely home-roasted fingerling potatoes..potatoes with more taste (less than 5-8 times annually).  We never cooked pork hock nor schnitzel at home. 

So yes, my stir fried veggie based dishes and his big huge creative green salads were very complementary home style cooking things together.  He was very creative in cooking...sorta after his mother adopted healthy cooking herself in her late 40's.  He did try fusion cooked dishes....without recipes, with use of Asian ingredients / techniques.  He made up his own yogurt-based salad dressing and....it tasted good!  No recipe.

His stuff tasted good, 95% of time, LJ.  I appreciated being with a guy to fuse our cooking styles together for daily living.

 

[shootingstar]

1 hour ago, BuffJim said:

Most of my bucket list destinations are on there for a combination of food, ocean/water landscapes and relative safety. In Europe it would be Portugal, Scotland, Austria and Croatia

Admittedly I prefer world cuisines that offer at least some seafood or chicken (if it needs to be meat) on the menu.  And not always potato.  I have beef at home but it's very lean and thinly sliced. 

[shootingstar]

2 hours ago, BuffJim said:

It’s a struggle, especially on cruises. Lately My appetite isn’t what it used to be, so not as much of an issue. Went on a trip to Maine a couple years ago with intentions to eat a lot of lobster over 4 days, but stomach was upset after eating Fried Oysters on 2nd day, and I couldn’t bear the thought of lobster 🦞 until after we left Maine. Grrr.

I tend to eat raw oysters...in Seattle.  There are 1-2 oyster farms near by. 

I do enjoy lobster which I rarely have 'cause of cost.