Ep 20: How to Stay On Track with Meals, Fat Loss, and Fitness No Matter Where You Are
In this episode, we’re talking about what to do with your carefully-honed, consistent, so-far-successful training and nutrition plans when you go on vacation!
Summer’s here, and despite exorbitant gas prices and airfare, we can’t help but get away from it all, even for just a week or even a long weekend. Vacations are the perfect time to shut off those devices, relax with a drink in your hand, and enjoy that well-deserved leisure.
But that raises the question, should I continue my current health and fitness behaviors when I’m off jetting about in faraway lands (or even a road trip to the next state over)? If so, to what extent?
What do I do on vacation?!
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Transcript
This podcast was transcribed automatically, so please forgive any errors or typos.
[00:00:00] Philip Pape: Welcome to the Wits & Weights podcast, for busy professionals who want to get strong and healthy with strength training and a sustainable diet. I’m your host, Philip Pape, and in each episode, we’ll examine strategies to help you achieve physical self-mastery through a healthy skepticism of the fitness industry, and a commitment to consistent lifting and nutrition.
[00:00:31] Welcome to episode 20 of Wits & Weights today. We're talking about what to do with your carefully honed consistent so far successful training and nutrition plans. When you go on vacation, summer's. At least in the Northern hemisphere and despite exorbitant gas prices and airfare, we can't help, but get away from it all even for just a week or even a long weekend vacations are the perfect time to shut off those devices, relax with a drink in your hand and enjoy that well deserved leisure, but that raises the question.
[00:01:07] Should I continue my current health and fitness behaviors when I'm off jetting about in far away land. Or even a road trip to the next state over. And if so, to what extent, right around the time we were packing up for vacation down the Florida for a family reunion on the beach, no less a listener wrote in with that exact question, what to do on vacation.
[00:01:30] Let's talk about some ideas I had from one side of the spectrum to another, whether to stick with or partially put on hold your habits without being that weird visitor who carries their food scale everywhere they go. Um, and I'm kind of pointing at myself because I did that when I visited my parents last year, they were cool with it, but not everybody is.
[00:01:53] First up, we have a shout out to listener Dina who writes quote, I started following your podcast and love it. Your information is explained so well, and I've seen a lot of positive results with my weight loss and starting to see gains in muscle development. Macro factor has been an excellent suggestion.
[00:02:12] So here's my question. I'm about five weeks into my weight loss and seeing great steady results. I'm five, two and was 138 pounds. And now, after not being obsessive about cardio and tracking macros, I'm down to 1 33 over the last five weeks. I have a vacation coming up in two weeks and I'm developing a lot of anxiety about it.
[00:02:34] Gaining weight, losing progress, being unable to track food and losing current momentum. Do you have any suggestions for vacation things to keep in mind, ways to adjust goals, et cetera. End quote, thanks, Dina for the question and the positive feedback about the show. I love hearing this. I love hearing from listeners.
[00:02:53] Uh, it warms the cockles of my heart. When any listener gains value from this podcast, especially when it improves your health and your life. It just so happens that I thought about this topic quite deeply before our recent vacation to Florida, the quandary was, should I. Find a gym and train. Should I bring bands?
[00:03:13] Should I do body weight exercises or just not worry about it at all? Similarly, should I estimate and track my food? Should I stick to my macros? Should I plan for binges and events or just eat whatever I want and stop tracking the answer is yes. Any of these can work depending on your goals, your needs and what you can tolerate from a psychological stand.
[00:03:39] For some people giving it all up for a. Is a break. They need it's it's that break. They need to stay sane to stay refreshed. Just enjoy it, forget about all this, and then come back firing on all cylinders. But for others, any derailment from their carefully crafted process could be the slippery slope to further lapses.
[00:04:00] So, therefore I wanna lay out some strategies on this episode today, so that you can think about this ahead of time, and then I'm gonna tie these options to together for what you can actually do when you're on vacation. First and foremost, if you're not consistent yet at home, if you don't actually have a routine that's working for you right now, before you even think about vacation, it's going to be tough to carry any sort of routine or discipline to your vacation.
[00:04:30] just logically speaking, in which case it's probably not worth sweating over it and worrying about what you're gonna do on vacation. So if you have a few weeks or more before the trip, this is the time to take advantage of setting up good behaviors at home. So when you return, you have something that you've already established that you're used to, and then you could just pick right back up as if nothing ever happened.
[00:04:56] Another thing to think about beforehand, before you go on the vacation is potentially timing your nutrition, your training, your fat loss, your maintenance, your building phase with your vacation schedule, if possible. Um, it's a lot easier to eat beyond a high calorie plan. Let me tell you when you're on vacation, uh, then on a diet.
[00:05:19] You avoid strain too much for your goals that way, just by default, because you're able to eat more. Speaking of nutrition, let's get into some of the details there. You've heard the expression that food is fuel and that's true, but also we're human beings who enjoy. Eating food. We enjoy it in social settings, especially when we're on vacation.
[00:05:41] This is the time when people want to go out. They want to hang out, hang around. They want to have some drinks. They want to have some, maybe some dessert or nice dinner. So think of planning ahead for specific meals on your vacation, that will be special experiences. They can be considered treats or feasts, whatever you wanna call them.
[00:06:02] I wouldn't call them cheat meals because that implies you're cheating or strain from something. Instead we want to plan these in these are thoughtfully forecasted, higher calorie events. That's all. And then when you're actually there, so you've done your planning. You've said. I'm gonna pick a few dinners, maybe lunches, maybe going out for ice cream that are planned in.
[00:06:27] So I know that at other times I may have a little bit less or eat a little bit more protein, knowing that there'll be, uh, high, fat, high carb options at the event. And I'm gonna get my protein ahead of time when you actually get to the event and that food is staring you in the. uh, this might be the event or it could even be the continental breakfast at your hotel.
[00:06:47] I mean, really anywhere where somebody else is providing food. Ask yourself this question. Would I eat this as part of a normal meal at home? Would I eat this at home? If the answer's yes, then go ahead and make the choice and eat the food. If the answer's no, which is probably more often the case on vacation.
[00:07:07] Ask yourself why you wouldn't normally eat it at home and then make your choice. You can still choose to eat it, but you've taken a breath to consider the why behind it. Now if the place where you're staying on vacation has a refrigerator or better yet a kitchen, maybe it has a microwave, a stove oven, things like that.
[00:07:28] Go ahead and stock up on groceries for a few of your meals each day. I mean, I know it's kind of a bummer. You're on vacation. You don't wanna get groceries, but it actually might make it more convenient and save you a little bit of money and you could make a few meals every day as if you were at home pick easy meals like breakfast.
[00:07:46] You're perfectly fine. Just having the same thing every day, being consistent. And they're also not associated with big events or social gatherings. Those are usually later in the day, like dinner. So if you know, you're gonna have your oatmeal every day with some blueberries, pick it up at the grocery store and just have that for your breakfast.
[00:08:03] Uh, also don't forget to pack your. Protein powder or snacks like protein bars. For example, these are just nice to have in reserve as an easy way to get your protein while a vacation. Cuz sometimes it's hard to find enough protein when we're not making all the same choices. and it gives you an option.
[00:08:23] You know, if the choices aren't there, they're not optimal, or, you know, you're gonna go to a, a big feast that has a lot of high, fat, high carb foods, but not much protein. Well, there you go. You've got your protein powder. You could take a nice two scoop shake earlier in the day. Good to go. And then when you go to restaurants and this applies, whether you're on vacation or not, Always think about the simpler, the better, the fewer ingredients, the better.
[00:08:48] And I would look for things like lean proteins and vegetables, maybe salads, but, you know, sauces, dressings, oils, fats, that's where all this calories kind of sneak in, but you could still have a great steak that's, you know, charbroiled or grilled with some steamed vegetables, with some seasoning. Delicious.
[00:09:09] So those are some strategies, some ideas to think about before you leave and while you're on vacation, but let's talk a little bit about tracking. If you are currently tracking your macros, if you're using an app like macro factor, um, there's a few big options. I'm gonna break it down into maybe three options.
[00:09:29] The first option is just enjoy your vacation and don't track it all. I mean, you can enjoy it either way. I know. You know, don't worry about it. Just try the intuitive approach and go by how you feel. Now, if you've been tracking for any length of time, let's say a few months, at least you probably have a better idea than you realize of.
[00:09:51] Roughly where you are for your calories, your macros for the day, how much a portion size of protein is, and a starch and vegetables, you know, how much, few tablespoons of oil or butter might be. So you can get within, within spitting distance of estimating with your eyes intuitively that that's what they say without tracking.
[00:10:14] And then you could just resume tracking when you get back on. You know, previous macros, when you get back home from vacation and let everything catch up again now. Pros of this approach is this extra freedom while you're on vacation, you just don't have to think about it. You don't have to track food.
[00:10:32] You don't have to have a food scale. You know, even if you're tracking, you could track without a scale, of course, but you don't need any of this stuff. And you might learn something about your ability to estimate and eat intuitively for. The future, you know, because this is a lifelong thing we don't wanna be tracking forever.
[00:10:50] Tracking is an awesome tool. It's great to use. You can use it for long stretches of time, but we don't wanna be so dependent on it that we couldn't, uh, succeed without it. The cons of this approach of. Not tracking at all is you might be the type of person that gets stressed out, thinking that you're falling behind on your goal.
[00:11:10] You might get a little setback because you know, sky's the limit. You could eat, whatever you want. The tracking is the thing that kept you grounded and, uh, making certain choices. And now you just have everything at your whim, and that could be a negative depending on your psychological approach to. So that's option one, don't track, option two is track your food, but just estimate, you know, plan, plan to have meals in a certain way.
[00:11:39] So that they're similar to what you have at home, even when you're eating out. You know? So even if you go to a restaurant or do takeout, or what have you, you're still going to eat the lean protein and the vegetables and the things you normally. , but you're gonna leave room for those fun family, feasts, those social events, or even drinking alcohol, if that's what you enjoy.
[00:12:02] So for example, you could have a light breakfast and lunch and then skip a snack and then have a giant dinner at a restaurant. Enjoy yourself. You could log that based on what you estimate get within about 30%, but don't sweat being too precise. So the pros of this approach where you are tracking, but you're just estimating everything is it does keep you closer to on track for your goals.
[00:12:26] And the negative is probably that. Now you still have the inconvenience of tracking. Now, granted tracking has become habit for you most likely. So maybe it's not that inconvenient, but the fact you don't have a food scale and you don't have the same control or choice over your food options. Um, don't get me wrong.
[00:12:45] You choose what you put in your mouth, but you don't necessarily have a choice of what's available to choose from. And then the third option is really to change your goal on vacation. So if you're dieting, um, this kind of ties to what we were talking about earlier about aligning your schedule, but you can say, Hey, I'm going to vacation.
[00:13:05] I'm just gonna change my goal to maintenance. When I'm done, I'm gonna go back to dieting. Now this is essentially a diet break. I mean, that's the term we use, right? And, and nutrition is a diet break. That's when you just stop dieting for a while, it could be a few days, a few weeks, maybe even a few months so that you have more calories to work with on, on vacation.
[00:13:26] and then go ahead and either track or don't track, but you're doing it with more calories available to you. So the pros are obviously less restriction on the amount of food. You can eat less restriction on maintaining your weight, and this could actually be a breather for you. This could help your metabolism recover a bit.
[00:13:45] It acts as a feed. It's a diet break that pushes your daily expi. The cons of this approach of going to maintenance is it's of course gonna slow down your progress toward weight loss. If you were in a weight loss or fat loss phase, it's gonna slow it down. Just a tad. We were talking about a week or two of vacation.
[00:14:03] You might even gain a little bit of weight. So what you resume when you get back, you don't try to make it up. You don't try to undereat when you get back, you just continue where you were before. Now, as far as measuring your body weight. Since we're talking about tracking, I would say don't worry about it on vacation.
[00:14:20] If wherever you're staying actually has a scale in the bathroom. Maybe it's a friend's house and they have a scale or a nice hotel that has a scale. I mean, it's really up to you if you want to track, if it's part of your routine anyway. now keep in mind that, uh, another person's scale might not have the same accuracy or calibration as your scale at home, but it's probably close enough.
[00:14:41] Uh, but I don't think it's a big deal not to track your weight. So you could just resume weighing yourself when you get home.
[00:15:02] Hey guys. I just wanted to thank you for listening to the podcast. If you find it valuable, you would be doing me a huge favor by sharing it on social media. Just take a screenshot, share it to your Instagram story or Facebook, please tag me so I can personally thank you. And we can talk about what you found helpful and how I can improve again.
[00:15:21] An incredible thank you for supporting the podcast and enjoy the rest of the episode. Let's shift to activity and training since you're on vacation. I just want you to enjoy being active, being in a new place, enjoying the experience, the adventure, and even walking more, if it fits with your plans. Now, when we stayed on the beach a few weeks back, I did plenty of lying around, but then I'd play some Frisbee with my brother or I'd go for a swim.
[00:15:52] Or I remember one day walking down the beach all the way down to this nice pier, walking back. And if you've ever walked through. Thick wet beach sand, because it had rained recently, as it does in Florida in spring every afternoon, then, you know, you have to fight for each step. Uh, it's kind of a calf exercise in a way.
[00:16:13] So that's, that's just general activity. I would say, enjoy yourself. And if you have the opportunity to get the steps in the activity, Go for it, but don't force yourself to, uh, but then we get to discussing training specifically, you know, weight lifting, resistance training. If you really enjoy training like I do.
[00:16:30] And you think it will be. Relaxing fun. Just natural part of your vacation. Feel free by all means, go to the local gym once or twice during the week and do a deload style program. You know, if you're going for a week and you normally do a five day program, I don't think you're gonna wanna spend five days in the gym while on vacation, but it's really up to you.
[00:16:54] My recommendation is make this a de-load week. Keep the session short, maybe 45 to 60 minutes and do maybe three to five movements at a high intensity. And by intensity, again, going back to basic definitions, we mean, wait on the bar, not, you know, oh, um, it's CrossFit. I intense. And I'm sweaty. Wait on the bar.
[00:17:13] without too much volume. So for example, if you normally do a, um, let's say a three day full body routine, or a four day body part split where you have one or two big compound lifts and two or three accessory movements. On the vacation pick two days that are spaced apart. And on those two days, do a short session of maybe two compound lifts.
[00:17:37] Keep the weight high, the reps low, and then maybe one or two accessories, just to add a little volume, get, get a pump, you know, a little extra activity, whatever it is. Now, if you feel like training will be a chore on vacation or highly inconvenient, or you just can't access a facility, then don't do. Just take the week off and you might actually find that the rest is what your body needed to recover.
[00:18:01] And to set you up for bigger batter gains with a Z, when you get back gains with a Z multiple Zs. Now if you wanna train, but you don't have access to a facility, then you do have a few other options, right? Cause we're, we are not the type of people to make excuses on this podcast and you, the listener is not that type.
[00:18:22] So I know that if you wanna train, you're gonna find a way to do it. So I'm gonna give you three options to do that. And I'm sure you can come up with more. The first is just to stay active, so play some sports. Go for a swim walk, a lot hike, hang out with your friends and family, do something adventurous and that'll keep you active.
[00:18:41] That'll give you, uh, you know, maybe not the same training you're used to, but a different stimulus and it'll be a lot of fun. The second option. is body weight movements, the classics, pushups, chin ups. If you can find a bar or, you know, a, uh, door frame that can hold your weight, that's not gonna break. Um, or maybe the side of a Tiki hut squats with a big rock in your hand.
[00:19:04] Hey, maybe this is a good opportunity for strong man training. Get creative. Uh, the third option is to bring some resistance bands, either the kind with handles or the, the classic, um, like mini bands or the weight lifting or CrossFit bands. And these give you a ton of ways to hit the same movement patterns you would with your weightlifting routine.
[00:19:25] And there's ton of guides online. Just Google it for movements and routines to use resistance span. last but not least. I wanna share what I did on our trip to Florida. This was in June. So it was a little bit warm there. It's it's nice. You know, nice time of year for nutrition. I just didn't track. At this point, I've been tracking long enough that I could eat intuitively I could get pretty close to what I want, but here's the kicker.
[00:19:53] I deliberately timed my last fat loss phase to end two weeks prior so that I could go back to maintenance ahead of time and up my calories. And this gave me some flexibility to enjoy myself and I did. I had to have Cuban food at least twice while I was there. Uh, and of course, ice cream, a few times, that's my vice and ice cream in Florida is, you know, match made in heaven.
[00:20:19] And I knew that I might gain a few pounds over that week. And in fact, on the scale, I probably gained about six or seven pounds, but a lot of that was glycogen and water cuz it quickly came off and I just simply resumed where I left. I switched to a building phase when I got home. So it was actually ideal, right?
[00:20:37] I went from a, a 16 week cut to a two week maintenance, upping my maintenance calories going on the trip, eating whatever I wanted, but, you know, I knew how to restrain myself and then going to a building phase when I got home. So it naturally trended into the new phase. Now I could tell on the trip by my hunger signal.
[00:20:58] Or, or lack thereof let's say, and the occasional feelings of bloat and digestive distress when, when I'd eaten or drunk more than usual. Um, and when I did that, I sort of tapered off the next day. Took it a little bit easy. um, or if it was my choice, I continued my hedonistic ways, but rest assured I didn't abuse this freedom and I just had a few select, very high calorie meals during the week.
[00:21:24] Um, planned it out, thought about it ahead of time, made sure to have enough protein on hand, et cetera, things I talked about before. For training. I coaxed my 70 plus year old dad and my younger brother just younger by a few years to go to the local big box gym on two different days, one upper body, one lower body.
[00:21:44] I just wanted to show them the barbell lifts. Hey guys, you do machines. Let's, you know, try something different. Um, And I think how did we do it? We used the free three day promotional pass they had, so we went one day and then two days later within that window, of course, then we're on their mailing list AF after that point.
[00:22:01] But, uh, as expected. Okay. I totally expected this. There was literally only one squat rack. There were a couple Smith machines. There were a million cardio machines and body building machines. It was a good dumbbell rack, but one squat rack. And it wasn't even the traditional rack with the vertical. Um, the vertical steel rod rods.
[00:22:23] I can't speak right now. It was one of those, uh, like triangular trapezoidal, contraptions. I can't really explain it other than it was not ideal for unring for a squat. You really had to be a little bit careful. But we spotted each other and we used good form and technique to be as safe as we could. We got it done.
[00:22:43] So we spent about a solid hour slinging, barbells, dumbbells, and trying some of the machines. What's fun about being on vacation at a different gym is you get to try some other machines you don't normally have. I mean, simple things that I. Wouldn't take for granted like, um, a seated leg curl, you know, I have a line leg curled home, so I said, well, now I can do it seated.
[00:23:03] That's great. Or a cafe machine, something like that, you know, just for fun. So we felt energized for the day. We had a great time. Well, at least. I did. I think my dad and brother maybe have regretted the decision, but we'll have something to talk about for years to come. Okay. That that's it for me. I think that covers the solid list of some of the unique challenges that I could think about when going on vacation.
[00:23:27] Uh, and I hope it answered Dina's question as well. I think it did. I hope some of these ideas and strategies are helpful for you the next time. Adventure calls.
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