I got back from Croatia last night. People call it a month “on holiday”. I don’t really see it that way. I just look at it as living somewhere else for a bit.

I do a lot of these longer trips, and the only reason I can is because I work while I’m away. Most of the time I’m in Airbnbs, I cook, I train, I work. Basically the same routine as home, just with better weather. This trip was different though. Half of it was in hotels, which meant a lot less control over food. I also only strength trained three times in the whole month.

And yet I jumped on the scales this morning. 89.6kg. Almost exactly what I weighed when I left.

Quick caveat before I get into it: I don’t feel as sharp as I normally do, and I’ll be doing a bit of a body recomp now I’m back. More on that later. But the scale not moving after a month like that isn’t luck. Here’s how I do it.

Protein first, always

You’ve heard me say this a hundred times, but it’s the one rule I don’t break, wherever I am. Airbnb, hotel, home, doesn’t matter. Protein comes first, before anything else. Especially at breakfast.

I don’t restrict myself. I balance elsewhere.

I don’t deny myself food. Most days out there I had an ice cream, or some kind of pastry. But I balance it elsewhere, and honestly it’s not that hard.

If I know I’ve got a heavy hotel breakfast and a big dinner coming, I skip lunch. I also don’t pile my plate up to the sky. I tend to go for lots of smaller plates, mostly meat, with a small amount of carbs on each. I like variety in my food, and if I’ve paid for it at a hotel buffet, I’m not holding back. I’ll have pudding. Sometimes two or three. I just balance it with a lighter breakfast or by skipping lunch.

Is a diet full of croissants optimal for health? Of course not. But these trips are exactly that. A break. When I get back, I’m always genuinely keen to get back to eating how I normally do, so that becomes something to look forward to rather than something I dread.

The message here isn’t “go on holiday and restrict yourself.” Forget that. Holidays will be out of balance. That’s the point of them. But you don’t have to go all-in from day one either. If I’m honest, my plate sizes creep up a little each day, so I try to start small and let it build naturally rather than starting big.

I don’t really “diet” as such. I tweak my carbs, fats, and timing depending on the goal, but that’s about it. I don’t diet for a holiday either. I tried that in the past, and all it did was set me up to sit down at a hotel buffet on day one, feel so restricted from the run-up, and go so big that I may as well not have bothered dieting at all.

If I know I’m heading to a bakery for lunch, I won’t have bread at breakfast. My carbs for that meal become the croissant later. Breakfast becomes eggs, maybe some tomatoes. Small trade-offs like that add up more than any single rule.

Calories are a bank account

I hate talking about calories. Not sure why, I just do. But they matter, so here it is.

Think of calories like a bank account you get paid into weekly. If you go a bit mad over the weekend and overspend, you cut back a bit during the week to balance it out. Calories work the same way. It’s not about what you eat in one day. It’s about what you eat 90% of the time.

It’s not even really about what you eat in a single week. The truth is you won’t put much actual fat on in a week, even if you go big with it the whole time. Mostly what you’re carrying when you get back is water weight. And that’s easy to lose once you’re home and back on track.

Move. A lot.

The other side of how I manage this is movement. 15,000+ steps most days. Not because I’m trying to burn fat, but because I want to actually see the place I’ve travelled to. I could sit in a resort for a few hours, but I need to get out and explore. Movement, in my opinion, is the real key here. Sit around eating and not moving for a week and you’ll feel terrible pretty fast.

On top of the walking, I kept my running schedule roughly normal. 30+ miles a week. That obviously plays its part too.

This isn’t the only way to do it

I’m not here to tell you how to live your life. Maybe you want to sit, relax, and eat exactly what you fancy without thinking about any of this. That’s a perfectly valid way to holiday. And the good news is, getting back into shape once you’re home is genuinely not that hard.

The recomp: getting back on track

Here’s what I do the moment I land, and it’s not complicated.

Days 1 to 3. Drop the carbs. Not to keto levels, but down to roughly 100 to 150g a day. Protein goes up, and I make sure I’m getting some good healthy fats in. This is where most of the scale weight gets undone fast. Most of it isn’t fat, it’s water. Every gram of glycogen your body is carrying holds onto roughly 3 grams of water. So a few loose weeks shows up on the scale mostly as glycogen and water, not fat. That’s exactly why it drops quickly once carbs come back down.

Food quality goes straight back up. No processed food. I’ve just had a month of that. Plenty of vegetables, high quality protein, real food. Not punishment. Just giving my body what it actually needs to recover.

Water. 3 litres plus. Every day through this phase.

Straight back into the gym. I get back under the bar as soon as I’m home and keep my cardio high throughout.

Depending on how far things drifted, this phase takes me 3 to 5 days before I feel tight again. If you’ve gone bigger than I did, it might take a bit longer. That’s fine. Within a week of being home, I’m nearly always back to where I started.

This isn’t something I get obsessive about. It’s just part of my travel routine. Go, enjoy it properly, come home, spend a few days resetting, then carry on as normal.

I’ve written before about not losing strength while cutting back training, and about minimum effective dose. You can find those here: