I brought some really cool souvenirs back from my recent trip to New Orleans. A funky dress I spotted at a boutique. A bounty of photos of alligators on my swamp tour. I also brought back something not so cool: two extra pounds.

I’m carrying the reminder of beignets and the hurricane cocktail I drank on the swamp tour around my middle, but I’m not alone. The average vacation weight gain is between .08 and 2 pounds, according to a study in the scientific journal Physiology & Behavior.

I had just settled into a groove of healthy eating and exercise after gaining about 10 pounds after the stress of the November election, so this is a setback. What now?

I chatted with Rosanna Gibbons, a registered dietitian nutritionist with offices in Baltimore County and Florida. She confirmed that vacation weight gain is common but not disastrous, as long as you don’t keep eating the same way after your suitcases are unpacked and put away at home.

“To continue eating erratically makes no sense,” she said. “Your thought process is, ‘Well, I threw the baby out with the bathwater. At my next meal, I have to get back on track.’”

Here’s the advice she said she’d give me if I were her client.

It’s likely temporary

“The foods you are consuming on vacation are higher in fat, heavier in calories and much higher in sodium,” Gibbons said. “Your body is a sponge, and that [higher sodium] betrays you on the scale, so the numbers migrate up.” Yeah, they do!

The solution is to drink a little extra fluid. “Your body pees out the extra water weight,” she said. Note: That fluid should probably not be another hurricane.

Fiber is your friend

Gibbons guesses that most of our delicious vacation fare is low in fiber, which helps in healthy digestion and is found in fruits, vegetables and whole grains. It is not, however, found in abundance in cheese grits, which made up roughly 45% of my New Orleans diet.

“We should examine our dinner plates and say, ‘Where is the fiber?’” when we’re back home and cooking for ourselves, Gibbons said. She suggests finding it in easy fixes, like throwing chia or flax seeds into your overnight oats or even leaving the skin on your baked potato.

Keep to a schedule

Eating on vacation, at least for me, is an all-day affair. On one particular day, I started with a fried catfish platter with hash browns for breakfast, fried rice and a beignet for lunch, beans and rice for dinner and a bag of chips before bed. It was delicious and over the top.

That kind of free-for-all is fattening and not sustainable in the real world. Gibbons suggests limiting your eating window in the first three days after you return. “Think, ‘The kitchen is closed after 8 o’clock,” she said. “You look at the last three days, and you feel a little crappy. The wheels came off. You’ve got to reset a little bit. You can do anything for three days.”

Gibbons added that we burn up to 60% of our calories before 4 p.m., so it doesn’t make sense to “back load” after that.

Don’t beat yourself up

Unlike some nutritionists and diet experts I’ve met — particularly in the ’90s when everyone was freaking out about fat — Gibbons actually likes food. “The word ‘die’ is in the name dietitian,” she jokes. “People think of me as a killjoy, and that couldn’t be further from the truth. That’s not my thing at all.”

In fact, she says, “I preach an abundance philosophy,“ meaning she wants her clients to find healthy things they enjoy eating, rather than feeling restricted. “There are solutions for everyone. We can have a very exciting, interesting journey every day.”

And on that journey, we’re not going to be perfect. “Give me 85% on track,” she said. “Then, if you goof, your body is more inclined to forgive you. B-plus, A-minus.”

That’s a grade I can live with. It also means my next goof has to be special and worth it. I might have to learn how to make beignets.