Coming Back From a Holiday: Why You Don’t Need to “Make Up” for It

Written by: Melissa Rivard, Clinical Naturopath, Nutritionist, & Health Coach

I just got back from a two week holiday with my husband. We had a wonderful brief visit with my family before spending the rest of the time in Maine, exploring the coast. We explored what Maine's coastal wilderness had to offer and we indulged in the local cuisine - usually variations of lobster rolls and tastings of craft beers. It was wonderful and full of connection.

Coming home now I am excited to shift back into routine without guilt and the historical inner narratives telling me 'I need to make up for the last two weeks by overcompensating with healthy behaviours'. Being healthy is not about being puritanical and overally rigid; it is not punishment for not having perfectly balanced meals, doing X workouts a week, meditating daily, journalling, etc.

Holidays are often a mix of joy, a little indulgence, rest, and sometimes even stress. They pull us out of our routines, and that’s part of their magic. But what I've done in the past and often see in my clinic with clients is the pull to “make up” for the holiday afterwards: cutting calories, over-exercising, or ramping up intensity unnecessarily so with exercise. The mindset is grounded in punishment for not being 'disciplined' enough.

Here’s the truth: you don’t need to compensate for your holiday.

Why Overcompensation Backfires

• Restriction can fuel rebellion or lead to fear. Swinging hard into deprivation after a week of enjoyment usually just leads to cravings, frustration, and eventually, swinging back the other way. It fuels 'all or nothing' thinking. You can still have healthy behaviours on a holiday (e.g. enjoying walks/hikes, getting good sleep when you can, etc.) and choose 'less then optimal' nutritionally dense foods during normal weeks when you need/want/have to - having a flexible mindset and continuum thinking will create a better chance of habits being more sustainable.

  
  

  Another thing that can happen with a mindset that is overly rigid with 'being healthy all of the time' is can lead to fear - 'If I eat that, I'll get sick'. This type of thinking can become very harmful to mental health. A healthy balanced diet can include processed foods and even ultra-processed foods from time to time. The key is to understand the baseline of nourishment you need to feel your best - be energised and have vitality.

  
  

• Exercise and nutrition should not be about punishment. A punitive mindset can create a very an unhealthy relationship with food and movement, which impacts mental health negatively and makes it difficult to build holistic, nourishing and sustainable practices that align with our needs.

  
  

• Overcompensation often leads to burnout. Adding self-criticism and overcorrection increases stress on your body and mind and often leads to burnout because the behaviours are usually more extreme and not sustainable.

  
  

• Life is a process and progress is not linear. You do not need to be smashing your goals 100% everyday. Process and progress ebbs and flows - it is not linear. Having breaks is part of this process.

  
  

How you can return from a holiday without the guilt...

• Return to your baseline. Your normal meals, your normal walks, your normal workouts. Consistency is far more powerful than extremes. Rest still matters - you do not need to overfill your week.

  
  

• Meet yourself where you are at. You may feel awesome coming back into your exercise routine - you may not. That's okay. Show up - meet yourself where you are at. If you’re still tired, prioritise sleep. Honour the signals your body is giving you instead of overriding them with.

  
  

• Check your mindset and - zoom out and remember life flows in a non-linear holistic rhythm. Health isn’t decided by one week away - it’s the patterns you maintain most of the time that matter.

  
  
  
  

Think of holidays not as a setback but as part of a balanced, flexible, healthy holistic life. Food, rest, adventure, and pleasure are part of being well. Coming back, your job isn’t to erase what you’ve done, it’s to reintegrate, gently, into the routines that support & nourish you.