If you think its hard eating healthy and working out regularly while living in your own home when you’re your own chef- just try to imagine how difficult it is onboard a yacht when you share a room and have meals cooked for you by a culinary genius everyday. It’s certainly not easy. While it isn’t impossible to resist the sweets cupboard or stop indulging in all the delicious rich foods, here are a few guidelines to make it easier for you to stick with your decision to clean up your diet. We hit up Angela from The Glow Yachtie, a yacht stewardess who choses the healthy lifestyle while travelling and working onboard super yachts, to help us come up with some foolproof points.
An Active Life Style – Health & Fitness
1. Set your Goals! Make a firm decision about what “cleaning up your diet” means to you. Write down your goals and ambitions and look at them daily. It’s easier for you to consciously make healthier decisions when you have a set target in mind.
2. Change your way of thinking. If you think negatively on a change and constantly focus on how hard it is going to be, you are setting yourself up for failure. By having a more positive mind set, you will start to think of how you can make these decisions healthier instead of how you can’t. Mind over matter always wins.
3. Be Proactive! Take an active role in choosing your own snacks and some of your own food, instead of always relying on someone else to do it for you. If you have too, buy them yourself and keep a Tupperware of food in your closet.
4. Limit alcohol. I know its hard when you work in this ‘work hard and party hard’ environment, but choose your battles. If you have to go out because you live in constant FOMO (fear of missing out!) use soda water as your mix and switch out every other drink for water. Can’t see the whole picture? Just try to imagine yourself eating a big salad and snacking on fruit the next day when you’re hung over – it doesn’t sound too appealing, does it?
5. Drink Water, A lot of it! A lot of the times we confuse dehydration with hunger and tend to overeat when really all our bodies need is some ice cold H20. If you have a hard time with this, keep track of how much you’re drinking and set a goal to drink 6-8 glasses a day. Make a conscious effort to carry a water bottle with you everywhere you go.
6. Start Your Day Onboard Right! You’ve heard it before, and we’ll say it again ‘breakfast is the most important meal of the day’ so do it right. By swapping out a smoothie for your morning bagel, you’ll get a lot of nutrients your body craves to keep you going the entire day. Fruits, greek yogurt, water, chia seeds, hemp seeds, greens (The Yachtie Glow recommends Barley Grass Juice Powder to make your life easier). You’ll be surprised at how simple and effective this change is to your routine in staying healthier onboard.
7. Eat Smaller Meals More Often. Just because the clock doesn’t say its lunchtime, doesn’t mean you should deny your body food, just be smarter with your snacking choices. Don’t be afraid to eat more fruit. Fruit will hydrate you and provide you with vitamins, minerals, enzymes and the fructose every cell in your body runs on and you need to make sure you eat enough of it. Eating smaller meals helps your body run on a consistent fuel as opposed to going through spikes, especially if you have blood sugar issues. It will keep you going longer and over time your body will not feel the need to store everything from one big meal because it will be getting a continuous, healthy flow of food on a regular basis.
8. Make fitness a priority. When you’re eating healthy the urge to be physically active comes naturally – it’s a two way street after all. When you pull into a port, go for a walk or run instead of hitting the bar straight away. Don’t wait – by waking up and doing your workout first thing in the morning, you’ll jump start more healthy choices throughout the entire day. You’ve got this!
