Episode 144: How to Stick with your Goals While Traveling

If we're here to make this a sustainable lifestyle, that includes travel for many of us.

Here's how to stick with your goals while you're on the road. 

Grab a copy of 8 Ways to Add Protein to Meals You're Already Eating right here: 8 Ways to Add Protein Guide

To schedule your free 1-1 Strategy Session visit:
www.MindStrongFitness.com

Transcript

Becoming MindStrong: 144: How to Stick with your Goals

0:00  
Welcome back to the becoming mind strong podcast. Today's episode falls under the category of repeat requests. Whenever I put out posts on Instagram, Facebook, emails and ask people, hey, what do you want to hear me talk about in the podcast? One of the heavy hitters that's been coming up time and time again

0:17  
is Rachel. How do I do this

0:19  
when I'm traveling, whether that's vacation, whether that's we have a lot of Ignite

0:22  
members who travel a lot for work,

0:25  
if I'm on the go, if I'm leading a busy lifestyle, how do I hit my macros knowing that I'm not always prepping my meals at home? So today we're going to talk about how to hit your macros when you have a busy lifestyle that includes traveling. Check it out you Rachel,

0:49  
welcome to the becoming mind strong podcast, the official podcast of mind strong fitness. My name is Rachel, and I'm the CEO of mind strong and we are here for two things. We're here for hope in a stage of life where it feels like we are doing everything right and nothing is working. I am here to tell you you are not broken. This is fixable, and I promise there is hope. And number two, we are here for truth in an industry that is designed to keep us confused with shake systems and point systems and frozen meals. I promise you it doesn't have to be that difficult. Someone can teach you the skill of riding a bike, someone can teach you the skill of knitting, and I can teach you to master the skill of nutrition. So are you ready? Let's rock and roll. You

1:47  
so in this episode, I'm going to give you some very hands in the dirt brass tacks of things I do when I travel. I want to start the conversation,

1:55  
however, with a 30,000

1:57  
foot view and a reminder of the things you hear me say time and again. If you hang out here quite often, this is never

2:04  
going to be perfect, right?

2:06  
Even if you think you are doing it perfectly, nutrition labels themselves have a 25% margin of error. So what I always come back to is, if we are going to be binary about this, because the nutrition world loves a binary, right? We're all in, we're all out. We're doing this perfectly, or we cave and binge I don't buy into that. But for purposes of right now, if we're going to be binary about this, and we call option A, the seafood diet, I see food I eat it, the shame and the blame, the guilt, the regret

2:34  
kicks in, or Option B

2:37  
is, I'm conscious of what I'm eating.

2:38  
I'm doing my best to get within

2:41  
my macro goal ranges for my personal body.

2:43  
It's great. Some days I

2:45  
blow it. Some days, one of those options is infinitely

2:48  
better than the other.

2:50  
So a lot of this goes back to I did an

2:52  
earlier episode about why 75% is better than 100 and that comes into play here,

2:58  
especially when we travel.

3:00  
This is never going to be perfect. When we're in settings where we're not in complete control of our food. We're never in complete control of our food. But you know what I mean,

3:08  
for purposes of this conversation, we are not

3:11  
the ones at home making our food, knowing exactly what goes into it. It is never going to be perfect, and this is never perfect. So it is always about being conscious, making smart decisions, aiming for those macro goals, knowing that it is not going to be perfect. Now, with that said, let me give you some more tactical advice. We have a lot of women inside ignite our 12 week program who travel a lot for work. Sometimes that's flying, sometimes that's driving back and forth between states. Sometimes that's Airbnb, sometimes that's hotels.

3:43  
When you travel

3:44  
a lot, the biggest challenge for 99.99%

3:48  
of people is protein right? Grab and Go, snacks, hotel food, airport food. Going out to eat tends to not be very protein based, protein focused. So whenever I travel, I always I don't care if I'm talking about a road trip, if I'm flying somewhere, if I have an Airbnb with a kitchen, or if I'm staying in a hotel, I am

4:08  
always packing snacks that

4:10  
are protein forward,

4:12  
because I know that the the

4:15  
whatever meals or grab and go snacks

4:17  
I'm getting at the airport or in the hotel lobby or whatever, They are probably not going to be protein forward, I will say, in the past few years, we've really upped our travel game. I found some

4:27  
protein chest quest

4:29  
chips at the airport a couple of weeks ago, and I was like, way to go airport. You're getting with the game. You can find protein bars now, if you're a meat stick kind of person, you can find those at airports.

4:38  
So we're getting with the program, protein is becoming

4:41  
a buzzword, and hotels, airports, they're they're getting with it. And I don't want to risk that, right? If I'm flying in the middle of nowhere, I don't want to bank on the fact that that they have protein snacks as the time I'm recording this, I was in Belize not too long ago. There was not a lick of protein to be found in the gift shop. Tons of seafood at the right. Restaurant, which is fantastic. But on the days that we were going to travel, go on an adventure, see a tour, that was when I was like, Good looking out past Rachel, because I have a suitcase full of protein based snacks, because it ain't coming from the store on the

5:13  
on the resort grounds.

5:14  
So anytime I travel, I am always packing protein based snacks. I did an episode A little while back where I talked through my top five, but anything you know, protein bars, Protein Chips, protein powders, if you're okay with the more processed stuff. Dried Edamame is always in my my suitcase. Dried chickpeas, those more protein forward snacks that I can take with me. Okay, now that's that's how I fill in the gaps.

5:39  
That's how I make sure that even if I'm

5:41  
grabbing and going, even if I'm eating at

5:42  
restaurants, that I can rest

5:45  
assured that I might not hit my protein

5:47  
goal perfectly,

5:48  
and I am set up for success.

5:51  
The other element that I'm going to include on travel days is something that we've talked about in earlier episodes. We talk about it endlessly inside Ignite, and that's the concept of anchor meals. An anchor

6:02  
meal is very simply, a meal

6:05  
that you design your day around.

6:06  
So I'll give you a couple examples. If you're someone like me that loves brunch,

6:11  
I love brunch. Or you

6:13  
could use dinner. If you know you're traveling and you've got a work dinner that night, so you're going to go out to eat. Here's what you're going to do

6:18  
before you have stepped foot in that restaurant.

6:20  
So let's just use dinner for ease of conversation. Let's say tonight you you are flying out in the morning, and you have a business dinner that night, so I've packed my protein snacks, but I know this dinner is coming.

6:31  
What I'm going to do that

6:32  
morning, while I'm sitting at the airport waiting for my plane to board, is I'm going to guess. I don't know where we're going for dinner. It's my boss is calling the shots. I'm not looped in, so I don't know exactly what I'm eating. I'm gonna guess. Well, you know, usually when we're taking a client out, we go to like a new Americana place, and when we do that, I tend to get the salmon, okay, real quickly. If you need some help with protein, one of my favorite guides that I have out there is called eight ways to add protein to meals you're already eating, and it even includes a whole bunch of vegan

7:05  
and vegetarian options. You can

7:06  
go to mind strong fitness.com/protein,

7:09  
guide, or just use the link in the comments below to grab

7:13  
your copy. Now let's get back

7:15  
to the episode. So

7:16  
I'm going to go in my app, and

7:19  
I'm going to input what I might

7:21  
have for dinner. Now, maybe

7:23  
you land and plot twist.

7:24  
This client loves Italian, so your book, your boss has booked a different dinner.

7:28  
It doesn't matter. What matters

7:31  
is we are not wishing, hoping, praying and guessing.

7:33  
We're taking a guess

7:35  
knowing that we can tweak and adjust. Okay, so I'm like, Well, usually on these work dinners, I do some kind of salmon. I'm going to go on my app. I'm going to type in, you know, grilled salmon, whatever it is. And there's going to be about 10 entries, okay, some of them will be very wishful thinking. I wish there was two grams of fat and salmon. I can deduct that. That's probably not accurate. There's eight entries that say, you know, the dish is more around 14 grams of fat, 20 grams of fat. That sounds

8:01  
more like it doesn't matter. Doesn't have

8:02  
to be exact, pop it in my app. What else?

8:04  
Well, usually, if these work dinners, I have a

8:07  
glass of wine. If I'm being honest, I'm having to, boom. I'm going to, we know how to factor alcohol into our macros. I'm going to put it in early. What else, well, usually I'll get, you know, french fries on the side. Boom, put

8:19  
it in. Here's what we're now doing.

8:21  
We're taking out the open endedness, right? None of this is exact. I'm going to keep coming

8:27  
back to that, but I know

8:29  
I've accounted for some kind

8:30  
of dinner. It's probably not exact.

8:32  
It's probably going to need to be tweaked and adjusted later on, fine. And I've

8:36  
set myself up for success with protein

8:39  
based snacks that I can fill in throughout the day.

8:41  
So what I'm not doing

8:42  
anymore is saying I have a business

8:44  
dinner tonight. I blew it. All my goals are out the window. Why am I even doing this? I should give up. It's not realistic for my lifestyle.

8:52  
Instead, it's cool. Here's what

8:55  
I have for dinner. It's already been quote unquote spent.

8:57  
It's already been pulled out of my macros. I've got these protein based

9:01  
snacks, so I know I can fill in as needed throughout

9:03  
the day. And now,

9:05  
as I'm traveling, as I'm grabbing

9:07  
airport food, as I'm grabbing things from the hotel or cooking something the Airbnb,

9:11  
I know what I have left

9:13  
in my quote, unquote budget, and I'm just filling in the gaps between the travel day to when I get to that dinner. I'm going to say it again, because this is where most people get hung up. It is never going to be perfect, and it doesn't need to be. It is. This is where, this is where it gets under my skin about diet culture, right? We are so brainwashed to think if I am not eating chicken and rice and nothing, quote, unquote bad and I'm not hitting my macros

9:38  
perfectly, why am I even doing this? I'm throwing cash

9:41  
down the drain. This doesn't work. I'll start

9:43  
again in two years, when I have a new job. There is zero truth to that, zero. Even if you think you were doing this perfectly, you are not doing it perfectly, because nutrition labels have a 25% margin of error. The name of the game is, am I being conscious of this? Am I getting

9:59  
as close to my macro? As possible, am I

10:01  
focusing on getting my protein, which tends to be the hardest part, especially when traveling. If you are checking those boxes, you will see results. Yes, it is true that the more exact we are with this, the faster it's going to go.

10:12  
And it is not a black or white

10:15  
A or B binary conversation. If you're someone who works from home and can pre make all your meals and can track your macros to the best of your ability. Great. You might move a little faster, and that is not a realistic lifestyle for a lot of us. A lot of us travel quite a bit. It's part of our job. It's part of our lifestyle. For me, it's it life.

10:35  
This is one of my favorite things in life,

10:37  
is traveling. So if I have to

10:39  
give up, quote, unquote,

10:40  
give up doing macros very big. Quote, unquote, perfectly,

10:44  
to be able to go sit on

10:47  
a beach in Belize for a week? Absolutely yes. What are we doing here if we're not living our life?

10:53  
To me, travel is one of the my

10:54  
favorite parts of being a human on this earth. So do I want to be in my rocking chair at 99 years old being like, well, I didn't go anywhere, I didn't have my dream job, I didn't travel, but man, did I hit my macros perfectly every day. Nobody's doing that, and you didn't even hit your macros perfectly. But if we can get to 99 years old and be like, Man, I tore that up. I had a dream job, I traveled the world, I vacationed, I unplugged and guess what? I did it in a body that was healthy, that was fueled, that had the energy to keep up with that. That's what matters. That's what we're here for. Right? I talk about this a lot because I think we get so caught up in the details, we forget the big picture. Nobody is walking around wearing a t shirt that says, I

11:39  
weigh X amount of X number of pounds.

11:41  
Nobody's walking around wearing a t shirt saying I lost X amount of weight. This is about how we feel. I use the rocking chair test 20 times a day when I'm 99 years old, reflecting back on my life, What decision did I want to make? How would I want to feel? And I could guarantee none of us are sitting there patting ourselves on the back because we tracked our macros perfectly in our 20s, 3040, 5060, 70s. Leading up to that, it's about, did I make a better did I make a difference in this world? Did I have family and friends who love me? Did I have a body that could support the life that I wanted to me? That's what this is about. I don't give a crap what that scale says. What I care about is that my body is healthy enough to keep me going, that I have energy to live a life that sets my soul on fire. How do I do that? Not by being perfect, but by being conscious and using these little hacks that help me do it while I'm living said life. So going on a rant there, because to me, this is why I work in this industry. This is what it is all about. It is not about the number on a scale. It is about the life that sets our soul on fire. So if you are someone who travels a lot, know that it's not going to be perfect. Just embrace the fact radical acceptance This is never going to be perfect. By the way, it is never going to be perfect, even if you didn't travel, it's never going to be perfect. So use anchor meals as needed. Maybe that dinner is a lunch instead. Same rules apply. Pack your protein based snack. Again, I have episodes about that. We've got free guides for that. Everything that can help you do the best you can. Make educated decisions. Focus on your water, focus on all the things we talk about here. At the end of the day, this is not a black or white all in all out conversation. It's about making smart choices and doing the best we can, and that that that is how our body responds and we see results. For more information on mind strong fitness, or to apply for a free one to one strategy session with my incredible all female team. Visit www dot mindstrong fitness.com, you.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai