Vacation is a time to kick back, let your hair down, and not worry about cooking a whole lot while away from home. You want to spend your precious time exploring the destination instead of making food. It’s understandable that you’d want to not put effort into thinking about food. However, if you don’t want to gain weight, you have to get proactive with your eating habits. You don’t have to put a halt to enjoying dining out as much as possible — just be more careful and don’t overdo everything.

One of the most common mistakes people on vacation make is underestimating calories. Restaurants are under no obligation to print out the caloric weight of their food, which leaves it up to the diner to figure it out. You’re far more likely to underestimate calories than overestimate. You wind up taking in more calories than you think. If you find yourself in a situation where you want to enjoy your food but not gain weight, use a calorie counting app on your smartphone by entering in the ingredients. It gives you a better idea of how much you’re taking in and lets you enjoy your food without the guilt. You want to return from your vacation the same weight you left, not more.

Take the quiz below from health IQ to learn more about how taking a vacation has the potential to help you gain weight. You might be surprised at how the change of pace and consumption of food and drink adds to your caloric intake.

About Health IQ

HealthIQ’s mission is to improve the health of the world. In pursuit of this mission, they’ve created over 2,000 quizzes and worked with innovative insurance companies to create financial rewards for health conscious people. To date, Health IQ has helped thousand triathletes, vegans, runners, and other health conscious people get an accurate life insurance quote that takes into account their level of health consciousness.  They hope to expand to other financial rewards in the near future.