Thread: India for 2 weeks - give up on SW or is there a way around it

This is most relevant to anyone who has been to India - I'm going out there for 2 weeks and wondering if I can stick to SW at all while I'm there? I'm vegan which limits me enough, and looooove Indian food, but am worried about gaining...my freind went for 6 months and lost so I could well lose, too, what is everyone's experience??

I've been to India twice (going again in March, very excited), the first time wasn't too bad but last time I found it really hard to stick to SW. I think the problem mainly was we travelled around a lot & tended to 'pick up' food along the way, we usually had our breakfast in the hotel, which can be, was going to say omlete (how the flip do you spell it!!!!!!!!) but you're vegan, ate a proper meal at tea time, but lunch was hard work. You will find though the Indian people are very helpful & as you'll know predominately vegetarian so if you ask for vegan food they'll accomodate you.

What are you planning to do whilst there? travel around or stay in one place?

All the restaurants do have a variety of foods, but for our lunch I didn't want to waste time sitting down to a meal, I wanted to sight see & culture. I can't remember what it was called but there is a lovely rice & fruit dish, (served warm) I'm looking foward to having that again.

Where abouts are you going?

I am off to Goa at the end of Feb for 2 weeks - my freind is putting on a music festival out there and I'm going over to document it with my camera and have a lazy slouch on the beach for a bit...Would love to go out for longer and do the trails, been a lifelong dream, but there is so much going on in my life that I just can't take 6 months away at the min to do it...so happy with 2 weeks though!

I think one of the things worrying me is that everything WILL be vegan (or most of it) - I'm used to NOT being able to eat anything (did a festival in Poland a few years back, lived off wild blueberries and vodka for 6 days...lost a LOT of weight, but had a good time!) but India will be full of all the sorts of food I like...most of it will be good but I am a recovering Bread addict (naan, chappati, brown bread, rolls you name it!) and am worried i will slip into old habits of eating bread type stuff with every meal. Will have to work on that one as I go along

How did your weight loss/gain go when you went before? I'm very active and will be exercising for hours each day (doing photography, walking, swimming, dancing etc) and when I used to live out in SE asia I didn't really care much for 3 meals a day so will be eating less often...(I used to get up and eat 'breakfast' at about midday which would be curry, then have dinner about 7-8ish which was more currry, with fruit inbetween - did me fine)
I am slowly beginning to think I may even lose, but not be able to follow the plan at all. I will log what i'm eating and originally thought the weight would pile on judging by others who went on holiday in group, but thinking about it I don't do 'beach' holidays lying about sunbathing...I'll be on the move. Plus I'm usually a cider drinker and they won't have much of that out there thankfully so I'll be drinking local beers which are nice, but too gassy for me to do any real damage with.

I gained just 2lb the 2nd time we went, which isn't too bad I suppose, it's just that everything seem fried!

I'm usually a cider or wine drinker, but when there I drink Kingfisher, the wine is far too expensive for me. Oh the bread...................................

Wow, how exciting a music festival, all in all I'm sure you'll do fine, it's not the end of the world if you gain a few lbs. Feb isn't too far away now & the weather won't be too bad whilst you're there, when we arrive it will be quite hot as it's not too far from the rainy season.

Heat dusnae bother me I used to stay out in Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia a lot which is pretty damn hot, all the time. Am looking forward to seeing the sun! Not looking forward to mosquitos though.

2lbs isn't bad at all!!! Good on ya! I'm not so worried now I can deal with something like that, will try and stay away from stodgy bread stuff.

You could go to India and try to stick to SW and maybe loss, maybe stay the same or maybe gain a couple of pounds, or you could go to indian and not stick to plan at all, and gain loads more than you would have if you maybe stuck to SW as much as you possibly could.

You never know until you try. At least you'll come back with no regrets like 'oh I should have just stuck to the plan..'

I think the only bit of control I am going to impose is on bread type stuff - as a recovering bread addict (800g loaf of tiger bread in one go, anyone?) this will be the worst thing, and the thing that will most likely trigger me into eating badly. I will still eat some though but i am going to try and limit it to not every meal, every day...just to have a little bit of control and restraint so I don't forget what its like to be aware of food. rest will be easy peasy

looking forward to it now

I'd stick to a lot of tomato based or potato currys, as these will be the most slimming world friendly. Having never been to India, the only thing that pops into my mind is currys! Have no idea of other foods apart from what I have seen here in Indian restaurants and take aways. Deffo treat yourself sometimes though, to some authentic naan breads and stuff! I couldn't go to a country I'd never been to before and not try some nice looking foods