All Inclusive Without Going Overboard

by | Nov 10, 2017 | Blog

Hello from Punta Cana!

It was a fun day of swimming & exploring but I couldn’t miss my daily check-in with you guys! It’s just a wee bit late! Thanks for understanding!

I’d be lying if I said I didn’t recognize the potential disaster of an all-inclusive resort.

There was certainly a time in my not-so-distant past where vacation meant food & alcohol free for all. Add all-you-can-eat food & alcohol to the mix and it would have been a recipe for stuffing myself stupid, rapid weight gain and feeling a constant tension between wanting to eat all the food and hating myself for eating all the food. Yeah…I’ve experienced that a time or two!

However, I’m excited for the opportunity to really hammer home the idea of intersecting pleasure & happiness. Because honestly, when I over eat and drink too much, I feel pretty terrible. I don’t want to feel terrible for one single minute of this trip (or of my life!!)

What I’ve learned from painful and extensive experience is that when I over eat, yes, there are definite moments of pleasure & enjoyment, but I feel gross, uncomfortable and unmotivated. It sucks.

These days, I’m looking to seek both pleasure and happiness, but never one at the expense of the other.

Choosing pleasure at the expense of happiness means drinking & eating too much.

That’s not what I’m going for. At the same time, however, I am not looking to be a purist or perfectionist.

I’ll tell you specifically what that practice looked like for me today:

  • I drank black coffee throughout the morning – no need for early morning snacks at the airport
  • When I started to get hungry on my flight, I had a turkey/almond/cranberry EPIC bar
  • I had a second one a few hours later on the drive to the resort
  • I skipped the alcohol & desserts during the afternoon and opted for a variety of ceviches
  • I had a couple sips of my boyfriend’s cocktails – enough to realize they were tasty but too sweet and they’d make me really tired. No thanks.
  • I had a glass of wine at dinner
  • My entree was grilled mahi mahi and we shared a couple sushi rolls as an appetizer
  • No dessert. I thought about it, but there wasn’t anything (yet) that screamed out at me as a must have. However, I’ll be the first to say that there is a cocoa (real chocolate) speciality shop with a workshop (?!?!) and I plan to check that out tomorrow!

Was it a perfect day of clean eating? No.

Did I feel deprived or like I was missing out? No.

Did I stuff myself stupid and feel gross all day? No.

Plus, I moved as much as possible and tried to focus on enjoying experiences instead of items.

Create memories, don’t consume them.

That was my practice today. That will be my happy practice for the next few days.

What about a workout?

Didn’t happen. I was up at 3am, out of the house by 3:30am and then getting settled in. I did, however, spend a couple hours swimming and more than a couple hours walking around exploring. Good for me!

Plus, I found a few different fitness centers within the resort and I’ve already planned out tomorrow’s workout. For those who are curious, I’ll be doing 10×10 dumbbell thrusters & burpees. (That means 10 thrusters, 10 burpees times ten rounds.)

I’ll definitely keep you posted throughout the trip! Stay tuned, especially on my Instagram stories!

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