Here is how I handled my trip to India earlier this year. I was hoping to maintain and I actually ended up losing weight (though some if not all of the loss was dehydration).
I tried to evaluate every eating opportunity and think about how special it really was, and use that evaluation to decide how to approach it.
If the food on offer was really not that special - say, a hotel buffet with fare no better (or even a little worse) than what I could get in the Indian restaurants at home - I ate sparingly, choosing dishes with care. I ate a little rice or a little roti, but not both - just as I would do at home. Similarly, the one time I went to a continental (Italian) restaurant. Urban Indians
love continental food; to them it is special and exotic. To me it's ho-hum and not at all what I was there for! So, I ate broiled fish and passed on the pasta and bread and similar items. I don't need to eat tiramisu in India just because it's on the menu. I've had it before, and I'll have it again.
If I was offered a home-cooked meal or some regional specialty that I really could not get anywhere else, I allowed myself a little more indulgence. I got a home-cooked meal in Kerala that was possibly the best meal I ate that whole trip and I was pretty shameless about packing it away!
But that was a truly unique opportunity to eat a home-cooked meal in a regional style that isn't available in restaurants in the US. (After I got home I learned some Keralan cooking, let me tell you.)
One of the hotels I stayed in - a high-end business hotel in Delhi - had a gorgeous breakfast buffet with all kinds of appetizing-looking breads and pastries. But breads and pastries can be had anywhere in the world. The fact that I was on vacation wasn't a sensible excuse to eat food that, while tasty and appetizing, really wasn't particularly
special. I ate light Indian breakfasts and plenty of yogurt and fruit.
Also, I did not drink
at all. I did not touch a drop of alcohol that whole trip. I didn't set out with that intent, but as I evaluated my food choices I found myself feeling every time that the calories in the alcohol would be better spent on food.
So try that - look at each food option and think, how special is this, really? If you are visiting a chain restaurant that you have at home, why do you have to veer off plan just because you are on vacation? Unless you are on a food tour of Tuscany or something, you can be judicious with your food choices without sucking all the fun out of your vacation.
Good luck and good strength.