Seafood, Sun, Sand And A Weight Loss Goal

Michele Neylon

12 years ago

I’ve been on holidays for the last week or so in Budva, Montenegro.

It’s a really lovely spot and it was nice to be able to “recharge” in the sun.

Of course no holiday would be complete without a mention of the food and its impact on my diet.

Breakfast in the hotel was pretty good. They’d a good choice of cold cuts, cheese, muesli and scrambled eggs. Some of the mornings I opted for cereal with some juice. The coffee, unfortunately, was pretty awful, so I’d usually end up making a trip to the hotel’s main bar after breakfast for coffee. Other mornings I’d “stock up” with scrambled eggs and a local sausage. It might not have been the healthiest option, but a good solid breakfast keeps you going for the rest of the day.

Lunch and dinner was quite varied. Budva has a lot of really good restaurants to suit most tastes. One of my favourites is Porto, which is down by the water. They have some absolutely fantastic seafood which you can wash down with some of the local wine.

Here’s a shot of lunch from last week:

Seafood brochettes in Restoran Porto, Budva, Montenegro

Seafood brochettes with potatoes. Probably not the healthiest, but it was absolutely delicious. Do I feel guilty? Maybe a small bit, but I’m also very aware of the fact that the overall “healthiness” of the food I was eating while in Montenegro was significantly better than what I’d eat here in Ireland. Most days I’d have had food made with fresh vegetables and possibly a salad of some kind. Going swimming almost every single day, walking quite a bit and generally getting outside and relaxing did me good. I also slept more than I would normally (the upside to not having either a decent internet connection, speaking the local language or having English language films to watch!)

After a little over a week away I came back to Ireland and weighed myself. Yes, my weight had gone up a bit, but once I switched back to eating “normally” it dropped a couple of kg in a couple of days.

I’m now back on my “old” diet (more or less).

But I’m also very conscious of my failures to date. Sure, I’ve lost some weight over the last few months, but the weight loss has neither been consistent or in line with my own goals. I need to “up the ante” a bit if I’m to “win” the “war” with my body. (Did I just write that? Oh help!)

So what do I need to do?

Eating habits are an obvious one. If I stick to the Tesco Diet my daily calorie intake will be around 2000 to 2300 calories. While that’s not “bad” it’s still not low enough to have any tangible impact on my weight loss. Sure, my weight will remain stable and possibly go down a bit, but if I “misbehave” I end up losing any of my gains (well they’re losses, but you get the idea).

I’ve been trying to find a lower calorie diet that works in a similar fashion to the Tesco Diet. So far I haven’t found one. In the interim I can always “play” with the options on the Tesco Diet options to reduce my daily intake, though that’s hardly ideal.

What else?

Obviously I need to exercise more. Well “more” night be the best word. The sentence might be better and more honest if I were to reword it to:

I need to exercise

Since I’ve an aversion to walking in circles I’ll be using my elliptical trainer more. I also need to use my weights as well. At the moment I’m able to do a 15 minute session on the elliptical trainer without getting too bored and pushing it a bit in terms of pace I’m working up a good heart rate and building up a sweat. Ideally I’d need to get those sessions up to 30 minutes, but I’m also very conscious of not overdoing it too quickly, because I’ll simply stop.

What’s the “end game”?

There’s no point doing all of this without a concrete goal. While I was in Montenegro I realised that the goal was something very simple, yet difficult to accomplish.

I need to lose about 33% of my body weight.

Now I’ve got a goal I just need to work towards it!