#149: Maintaining my eating and fitness balance when I travel (and eat out at every meal)
It IS possible to indulge and enjoy yourself when you travel without coming home with that treaded feeling like you've gone 10 steps backwards with your health when you return home.
I’ve just returned from 11 days of travel through Sydney, Queensland and Melbourne and today, I’m going to share how I maintain my balance with my eating and exercise when I’m away (and eating out at every meal) with some super actionable tips for you.
This podcast will help you shift that 'all or nothing' holiday mindset that is so common and that I personally used to experience myself!
Links:
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Podcast on sleep:
#35: Can Sleep Loss Make You Gain Weight?
More podcasts on exercise:
#131: 7 simple tips to stay motivated and consistent with exercise and see the results you’re after!
#124: All your questions about EXERCISE answered! Weight training, fat burning, mistakes and more
More podcasts on travel:
#80: My Italian Trip (PART 2): Eating with Balance, Maintaining my Weight , Gluten & Food Sensitivities
#110: Tips For Eating With Balance When Travelling
Read This Episode:
In this episode, I'm going to be talking all about how I maintain my balance with my eating, exercise and my health so that I can remain weight, keep my bloating at bay and not feel like I'm 10 steps backwards with my health when I return from a trip …
I have just got back from 11 days traveling for work and pleasure. I had about 5 days in Sydney over Easter in Bondi, which was so much fun catching up with one of my best friends (with my sister who's just moved there) and then I had a day on the Gold Coast, which was so much fun!
There is something really exciting coming your way - I went to Queensland for one day to shoot a product. Basically, I've been creating something in collaboration with Morlife (the company that I've partnered with and have been eating for at least 6 years now). I'm obsessed with their Plantiful Protein. I've been eating that for 6 years and you can get a discount on that and any other product on their site using the code ‘healthwithbec’. You can actually see that there's a whole Health with Bec range which really shows all the stuff that I eat but I have actually been creating something in collaboration with them so it's like Health with Bec x Morlife and it's very exciting.
So I went to do a photoshoot for that and then I decided to spend 4 days in Melbourne (just on a whim) working and hanging out with a few other people that I've met there. That was a really fun 4 days of work and retail therapy, but it ended up being 11 days of traveling and 11 days of eating out at every single meal as someone that has really had to work hard on finding her own balance when it comes to travel …
I used to be someone that had the all-or-nothing mindset, so I would go away on a trip, eat and drink too much, not do any exercise and then come back feeling a couple of kilos heavier and really bloated. I found that it would just take so long to lose and it would make me feel annoyed that I felt so good before I left. I really have been trying to find that balance where I can still go away and enjoy every single moment - still go out for dinner but still come back feeling good.
Obviously, I have to start this episode by saying we are all so unique. In one part of this episode, I am going to give you a tiny bit of an insight into what a regular day of food looks like for me, but I don't do this that often, because I think it can do more harm than good.
We're also different. Some people might be doing far more exercise than me, so they can eat more. Some people might be taller and have more muscle mass and have a stronger metabolism so they can eat more. So please just take this with a grain of salt and use it as some inspiration to apply to your life, but not completely.
Please know that you might need a bit more, a bit less and you are only going to find what works for you with trial and error and seeing how your own body works week after week. It takes time to find your balance, but I really hope that the tips in this podcast will help you a bit when you next go on a weekend away, a trip away, if you travel for work or if you're going on a holiday soon.
Also, I'm sure a lot of these tips will actually help you with any other weekend or any other time where you feel like you're not really in that Monday to Friday routine where you're cooking food at home.
I've done a few of these travel podcasts - I did two when I was in Italy about a year and a half ago about how I maintain my balance in Italy (Episode #80: My Italian Trip (Part 2): Eating with Balance, Maintaining My Weight, Gluten & Food Sensitivitiesand Episode #110: Tips For Eating With Balance When Travelling). I've done one when I've been in Bali too, if you want to go back and listen to those ones as well (Episode #158: (Replay) How to indulge with balance and quit the ‘all or nothing’ mentality when you go on holidays) Yes this episode might be slightly repetitive but we all need to hear things over and over again for them to sink in and it's always good to hear things in slightly different ways as well. I know that this podcast will bring you a new perspective, even if you've heard my other travel podcasts but I know that I haven't shared this first tip before …
As a lot of you would know if you've been following me for a long time, listening to my podcast for a long time or if you've been researching health for a long time (or maybe you're not aware yet), sleep is key!
If you are getting minimal sleep for more than just one night in a row - if your sleep is really lacking and you're finding it hard to get quality sleep (people need on average of 6 to 8 hours a night), without good sleep, you can be doing so much exercise, eating so well and your health can still go to the down the drain in so many ways. It is the leading cause of so many risk factors for disease.
Focusing on your sleep is one of the most important things that you can do and sleep as it relates to travel is something that I really prioritise and it's actually one of the things that made me love travel so much too. Weirdly, whenever I travel, I seem to sleep better normally.
Now this is just a personal thing for me, but I think it's because I work from home. I am a very hard worker and when you're in your routine, like when I'm in my routine at home, I love to feel really productive and so sometimes the more productive I try to be, the less sleep I get. Anyway, long story short, when I travel, even though I'm still running the business for some reason, I am able to switch off a bit more because I'm away from my home. I feel a bit more removed, even though my business is online so I end up sleeping a bit better.
When you travel, if you get a really bad sleep or if you're not really focused on prioritising your sleep hygiene and you're feeling extremely tired, it's going to be far harder to make healthy eating choices and it's going to be far harder to feel like going to the gym. If you are sleep deprived you won't want to exercise, your body naturally craves far more sugary, carby, fatty foods to give you that quick fix of energy and your hunger levels go up as well when you're sleep deprived.
Focusing on your sleep is key and I've got a few little tips to share when you travel that can help -
I personally never like booking night time flights. By that I mean, a flight that's at midnight and lands at 4am or midnight and lands at 5am (or even 10’o'clock). Anything that goes over the night where you're only on the plane for 4 or 5 hours, you're not going to get a quality sleep. I always try to fly during the day so that I can land, settle in and have a good sleep because then I can wake up and actually feel motivated to go for a walk or go to the gym and make the healthiest choices that I can make. If I get a bad sleep, it's far harder.
The second thing that I do is make sure that it's going to be a sound-proof room and it’s dark with blackout blinds. That's one of my favourite things about hotels is the comfy beds and the silent rooms and the blackout blinds. It just gives me the best sleep.
In Melbourne, I've stayed at The Crown twice and if anyone goes to Melbourne, I couldn't recommend it more. They have got the comfiest beds, the comfiest pillows, the comfiest robes, blackout rooms and I honestly, it's literally made for sleep. It's the best hotel, so that's why I went there for a second time.
If I stay in an Airbnb, one of the things that I look at in the reviews is whether people are complaining about it being noisy or if people are saying that it is a quiet spot. I always love to look at the reviews and make sure people say it's quiet because if it's noisy, I know that's going to affect my sleep and in turn that will affect my motivation to work and be healthy.
I always go away and often I'm working so that's another reason that I prioritise my sleep because unless I get a good sleep, of course, it's going to make it harder to work as well, so that is key! I could go into so many other sleep tips, but they're just the biggest ones as it relates to travel. If you want to hear more about sleep tips though, I have another podcast all about that (Episode #35: Can Sleep Loss Make You Gain Weight?)
The next topic that I want to talk about when I travel is exercise and movement because we all know how important it is to keep that up. If you go away and you don't do anything, of course it's going to mean that you're not burning as many calories but more importantly, if you don't exercise for a week or two, it can really impact your ability to maintain that habit when you get home. When you get home, it's going to be far harder to get back into your routine so I truly believe it’s important, even if it's literally like 10 minutes in the gym or a 20 minute walk, as many days as you can when you're away.
Not every day of course - there were some days I didn't do anything. I think there were 1 or 2 days where I didn't do much at all but I really try to go because it maintains that habit for me and I've really seen changes in my physique and my strength since I've really been consistent, even if it's literally going to the gym for a 10 minute walk and just doing biceps. Honestly, keeping up the habit is so important!
The second thing that I want to say is that if I go to a hotel, I make sure that the facilities say that there's a gym, especially if you've only got like a night or two in a hotel, it's not very much time and I really find that the convenience of having a gym in your hotel, where you can just chuck your clothes on, go down (especially if it's raining), makes it easier to go and you will go far more likely.
I love when there is a gym in the hotel because that makes it far easier for me to go because the easier you make exercise on yourself and the less friction there is to get there, the more likely you're going to be able to go. That's been proven so many times by experts that I've listened to - make it easier on yourself and you're going to go, so I like to make sure that there is a gym in the hotel.
Also, when I went to Queensland for one day, I didn't get time to exercise in the morning. My flight was at lunch time and then I knew I'd be arriving straight at the hotel, then I had dinner plans. I needed to smash out a whole morning of work before the airport, so I decided to not do my movement in the morning, which I normally do because I like to keep consistent with my exercise time and I usually go between 9am and 10am.
This is just another tip as well - I made sure that I chose to fly in my activewear because then when I arrived at the hotel, it made it easier for me to do a quick workout at the gym because for me personally, if you're used to exercising in the morning, it's hard to exercise in the afternoon when you're not used to it because we all do what we're used to. That's how habits are formed and your brain is a very clever thing. To make it easier on my brain and reduce the friction, I wore my activewear so that it reduced this decision fatigue about whether to go or not.
I got there, checked into my room and because I was already in my gym clothes and didn’t have to get changed or open my suitcase, I just went and I made it really easy on myself. That day I literally just did a 15 minute walk on the treadmill and then I decided to do the squat machine and biceps and shoulders. Quite often when I'm away, I'll literally just choose 3 different weight machines, set it to a heavy weight for myself where I can do anywhere between 8 to 12 (sometimes 13 or 14) reps and then I rest for 30 to 60 seconds and do that another two times.
That's roughly what I do with my weight and I'll just tell myself that I'm going to do 3 machines. Sometimes I do more, sometimes I just do 2 but it's better than nothing and since I've started doing that very regularly, I have seen my body change.
For me personally, I've learnt through my own habits and how I feel about exercise that the easier I make it on myself, the more likely I'm going to stay consistent. So, that’s the strength training that I did on that day and that's actually the strength training that I did on every other day of my trip too. If I was going to do a whole body weight workout, I just wouldn't do it at all, so I try to make it as easy on myself as I can.
If I'm going to an Airbnb or if I'm going somewhere that is a hotel with no gym (which doesn't often happen), I will really make sure that I do my research before I get to that destination, or if I have friends in that area, I will ask them where a close gym is in my area that is very easy to go to on a casual basis.
I just get a day pass (or something like that) because that means I know exactly where I'm going when I arrive and that makes me go as well. Then, what I do at those gyms is exactly the same as what I would do at a hotel gym - I just make it easy on myself. I do a 15 minute walk on the treadmill to warm up, then I'll fatigue my muscles on 3 or 4 machines. Sometimes I'll focus on just my arms. Sometimes I'll focus on just my legs and stomach and that's how it looks. It’s easy and I'm only in there for about 35 minutes.
For me, I find it doable and that's what helps keep up the habit when I'm away. Another thing that helps with exercise and I love this mindset so much (which I've talked about many times throughout my podcasts too) - it's extremely important to maintain muscle mass as you're losing weight and continue to strengthen and grow your muscles as you're maintaining weight, which I'm trying to do at the moment.
I've been in weight maintenance mode for quite a few years now, but one of my biggest goals is to always have strong muscles because the stronger you are the faster your metabolism is and the easier it is for you to lose/ remain weight. There's so many other benefits to weight training too - it really helps you have strong bones, it prevents falls and it's really helped me change my physique as well in a positive way.
So that’s what I personally do on the strength side of things when I'm away. On average per week, I try to make sure that my upper body is worked out on the weight machines twice through the week and my lower body is worked out twice through the week. I really try to fatigue my muscles as much as I can as well. So I was going every second day on average and trying to do that.
The next part of how I stay on top of my exercise and my movement when I travel is steps. I'm sure you experience this when you travel as well - you don't have a car. Quite often you're just walking to places. I would walk to a cafe to work in the morning, walk to dinner, walk back from dinner, so naturally your steps get up. I try to just walk as much as I can if something's close and it's not raining.
Also one of my favourite things to do is actually make my morning movement a walk. I had beautiful weather when I was in Bondi and I did the Bondi to Bronte coastal walk. If you are from Australia, you'll be familiar with it. It is so beautiful. One of my favourite things to do is go for walks by the coast so that's another thing that I do, I do long walks. I did 2 of those in the 5 days that I was there. One of the days I didn't exercise and then the other 2 days I did a little workout in the gym. When I look at my steps on my health app, my steps are far more when I travel and I really find that helps me maintain my balance as well because I am eating more when I'm away.
The key points that I want you to want you to take away from that is that I try to book a hotel with a gym to make it as easy as I can on myself or if it doesn't have a gym and I'm in an Airbnb, I make sure I know where a gym is ahead of time, so I know exactly where I'm going and what I'm doing.
It's going to be different for everyone, but really think about what you enjoy and what's going to be easy for you to do, even if you don't feel like it because naturally when you're away and you're out of routine, I find it a little bit harder to be really motivated for exercise, so I just do what I enjoy and what I know is going to be easy for me. That’s usually long walks by the coast or just long walks around (because everything's new and it's exciting to see).
All the general steps add up and then it's the small but effective sessions of weights in the gym. So I fatigue my muscles. I just choose 3 machines or 3 body parts and I do that. That's what helps me stay consistent.
This is a mindset tip also that helps me keep up my weights when I'm away. It's really important to grow and maintain your muscle mass and that's what I'm always trying to do. It's very hard to build muscle unless you have the calories to support it, so you need to be eating enough protein. Also being in a slight calorie surplus can really help you grow muscle too because you're creating new tissue.
To create new tissue and to build more muscle, you need extra calories to do that and this helps me feel really motivated to go to the gym and do weights. I am eating a bit more when I'm away because I'm eating out usually at every meal, and when you're eating chef-cooked food and things like that, it is just going to be higher in calories than what you cook yourself so I try to make the most of that by going to the gym.
If I do weights and I know I'm eating a bit more, that's going to give me a greater chance at putting on muscle and that actually helps me go. That's a really good mindset thing that I use, but also it's not just a mindset thing, it's just being very aware of the body and how muscle grows.
If you know you're eating more when you're away, why not maximise that and go work your arms or go work your butt or go work your legs because you will grow muscle? So that's what helps me keep up my strength when I'm away. I may as well just grow some muscle while I'm away too and that helps me keep it up. Obviously, when you're exercising, it's going to help you burn more calories and then that's also going to help with the extra food that you're eating and that helps you maintain your balance too.
Let's move into eating …
Now this changes depending on what kind of holiday it is. I'm going to be sharing tips about how I eat when it's just in the same country and it's a work trip - Sydney, Queensland, Melbourne etc. This is how I stayed on track with my eating and remember what I said at the beginning, this is just me! This is what I do and what works for me.
You might want to steal a few tips from it, take some insight but your best test with what is going to work for you is going away, trying some things, seeing how you feel when you get back and reflecting. Maybe you get back and you’ve gained 3 or 4 kilos. Ask yourself - what did I do? Too much alcohol? I ate 3 meals out and maybe I should have had breakfast at home? Maybe I should have done more exercise? The more you're conscious of this, the faster you'll find what works for you. It took me years to find my balance.
So, I'll share what I did with my eating when I was away - I did eat out at every meal. When you eat out at every meal, it's going to be higher in calories, even if you go to a restaurant and you order roast chicken and veggies. Usually chefs will cook the chicken in so much more oil or butter than you would at home and same with the veggies.
Whenever you go out for dinner, you've just got to assume that it's going to be a higher calorie meal and so because of that, I do a few things that help me not go too OTT on the calorie front with my food. I really try to do a few things that help me roughly eat a weight maintenance amount of calories for myself.
I don't count calories when I'm away. I've been doing this for so long, so I'm very in tune with my body but because I personally love dinner (for you it might be lunch or might be breakfast), when I go out for dinner when I'm away, I'm the kind of person that just loves having a glass of wine, I really do. So that's going to add extra calories too. When I'm at home Monday to Friday, I'll have wine maybe once a week through the week and then I'll have some over the weekend but when I'm away, quite often it's one glass a night and then some nights there'll be more than one, but let's just say at least one when I go out for dinner. I know that's going to bump up the calories at dinner time too.
It's my favorite meal, so I like to still choose the healthiest kind of options, but I also don't like to hold back on quantities or stress about it, so I just like to assume that's my biggest meal of the day and I might be eating anywhere around 1000 to 1200 calories.
For me, weight maintenance is anywhere between 1700 to 2000 calories, if I'm doing a little bit of exercise. Once again that's just me personally, I'm the kind of woman that has to really be conscious and this is why I'm sharing this too, because I hate it when people share what I eat in a day and they share that they have breakfast, a snack, lunch, a snack, alcohol and they're really skinny.
I swear people lie about it but what I want to say is that I do have a slow thyroid, which I'm on medication for. I do have a naturally slower metabolism compared to some people and that is why I'm so passionate to do what I do. I do need to be conscious, so even if this doesn't sound like it's not a huge amount of food, please don't judge me. We are all different!
I do like to really enjoy myself when I go out for dinner, so I know that is my biggest meal of the day and because of that, I try to limit what I eat throughout the day and be as light as I can be. I'll give you a typical 2 days because it depends how I'm feeling on the day and what I'm doing. I had an equal amount of these kinds of days when I was away …
Day 1. I will wake up and quite often have my Before You Speak coffee (which is what I have every single morning in Perth - I've also got a discount code for that which is ‘healthwithbec’ at checkout), then at mid-morning, I will go to a cafe and work after I've done my morning movement. I'll usually have another coffee then, I'll have an almond flat white (that's just what I enjoy and that's what I have when I'm traveling, that's my coffee of choice).
I'll get an avocado smash (I am intolerant to eggs, I can have small amounts but I wish I wasn't because eggs are such a healthy option) but for me, I love getting an avocado smash on gluten-free toast and then sometimes I'll add some halloumi, sometimes I'll add some bacon or sometimes it'll just be the avocado smash by itself and that'll be my brunch.
That's usually at restaurants and that's usually a whole avocado plus the bread, plus a bit of halloumi and bacon, then a coffee. Most of the time, I'll get a punnet of berries too and that'll be my brunch. That’ll keep me going for quite a long time and that's all I'll have until my large dinner. When I travel in most situations, I actually try to have 2 bigger meals in the day, so I'll have brunch and dinner.
Day 2. Another typical day for me when I'm away is a coffee or two in the morning. I will have one almond flat white per day because I love going and working cafes and that's just what I love ordering there. So, an almond flat white and a protein shake from Morlife made with just protein powder and water. Most of the time (if I remember and I've been to the shops), I'll also add 2 tablespoons of chia seeds to really bump the fibre up.
I might wake up in the morning, have a Before You Speak coffee, go for a walk or go to the gym and do weights, then I'll come home and I'll have protein powder - 2 scoops of the Morlife protein powder. I get the Vanilla Fudge flavor. I'm obsessed with it because that keeps me full until lunch time. Also, especially if I've done weights that morning, that helps me make sure I get protein in to really help with my muscle growth.
That's a very small breakfast. Obviously it's a very low calorie breakfast. It might only be (if I'm adding chia seeds), a 200 calorie drink or if I'm just having the protein powder by itself, it's 110 or 120 calories. Some mornings it'll be that and then I'll get a beautiful salad for lunch made with something like poached chicken.
I love getting salads when I'm away and then obviously the night is going out for dinner. I don't often need to snack in the afternoon at all because the salad that I get is usually filling. I make sure it's got chicken in there (my favorite protein) and then if I can, I always ask for the dressing on the side just so that I can then add about 2 tablespoons myself, so that I'm fairly in control of it. If not, I don't stress. I really try not to be too strict on myself when I'm traveling.
So it'll be like, a coffee, some protein powder and some chia seeds, a salad for lunch and then a big dinner. On that day too, whether it's after lunch, mid-morning or mid-afternoon, I always love to get berries, so I'll have a punnet of berries and then I'll go out for dinner. So that's roughly how I eat when I'm away throughout the day!
Now, what about when I go out for dinner, how do I choose the best options there?
If you join my 3 Week Body Reset (or if you're in my 3 Week Body Reset), you get a ‘Dining Out’ guide with specific tips on how to make the best choices when you're out at restaurants, depending on the cuisine. So definitely make use of that because that's how I eat when I go out, but a few quick tips I'll share now is -
It depends on the cuisine, but let's say it's like an Asian restaurant, I quite often donate the rice (or I'll just have a small amount if there's a curry or something and I need to soak it up). I try to make sure that the table orders vegetables, whether it's sauteed or steamed and I will bulk my meal up with that.
Then I like to make sure some of the dishes are something like sashimi or things that are grilled and then 1 or 2 of the dishes can be a curry or something else. At least half of the meal, I like to be raw fish or grilled meats and definitely veggies on the table so half of my meal will be lean protein and lots of veg (however they're cooked) and then 1 or 2 other things. Obviously it's so hard because every restaurant's so different but that's just in a nutshell what I do.
If it's a restaurant that's Italian or Modern Australian, I always gravitate towards and choose protein and veg. I went to a restaurant called Totti's in Sydney, which was so yum, it was an Italian restaurant. My friend Bella and I started with sharing prosciutto, burrata, melon and mortadella. It was so yum! Oh, and then we got the bread as well.
The second course was roast chicken and then we got some roast carrots and broccolini. That's a very Health with Bec main course - roast chicken, carrots and broccolini. I'm always trying to get 1 or 2 veggie sides and then one of the proteins to share. That's how a typical dinner for me would look at a restaurant.
Now, do I eat bread? When I'm away, yes! I'll have half a piece of it or I'll just have a small amount. When I was healing my gut issues in my early 20s, I couldn't. Even a bite of bread (because of the gluten) I couldn't do. Now that my gut is healed, I've learnt in the last few years through trial and error that I actually can have a small amount of bread without getting extremely bloated and feeling like I'm in pain.
If I'm drinking alcohol at the same time, I try to limit it. I feel like if I eat gluten and alcohol together, that can make me bloated. If I'm not drinking alcohol, I can usually have some bread and not get affected at all but that day I did have a little bit of the bread and I did have 2 drinks. I did get bloated after too, so that was just another lesson to me, but I do allow myself to have a piece of bread, or half a piece of bread, or just a small amount, because I know that I've been more conscious throughout the day.
If you were someone that's going out for breakfast, lunch and dinner and you're trying to make every one of those meals as healthy as you can, then my advice might be a bit different. I might say - skip the bread and maybe don't drink alcohol but that's just what I do. So I absolutely do enjoy a little bit of bread if it's there on the table and if it's possible, I just ask for gluten-free bread.
When I went to Queensland and I went out with my friend Clare, we had gluten-free bread and I had a piece of that to start with these beautiful 2 dips and then we shared the steak and the eggplant and that was so yum and I had one glass of wine. It's so hard to explain exactly what I eat because every cuisine is so different but that's roughly what my days will look like 80% of the time when I'm traveling but some days are different too.
For instance, on the weekend that I was there over Easter, there were definitely at least 1 or 2 days that were more indulgent and I let myself be more indulgent. I'm all about the 80/ 20 life so I try my best to be as conscious as I can and eat what I just said for 80% of the time, but there'll always be one weekend in there or 2 or 3 days throughout the trip (if it's a week), where it’s more than what I normally eat and that's totally okay too, totally fine!
That's exactly how I encourage you to eat when you're at home as well throughout my program. So for instance, on the Saturday that I got to Sydney I went out for drinks with Bella and a few people and we had a very light dinner that night. That's something that I like to do too! If I know I'm going out partying and I know I'm going to be having more than one glass of wine, I do try to make that dinner just a smaller, lighter dinner.
That night we got some sashimi, some calamari (which I just had a few pieces of) and some sort of veggie salad but it was a very light meal and then I definitely had more than one drink. So I try to have a lighter dinner if I know I'm drinking more because obviously when you drink a lot, there's a lot of calories in that too.
So, how can you limit the amount of calories that you're having from alcohol if you're having more than one drink?
My first few drinks will be wine because I love it, usually a Chardonnay or it'll be a Margarita with no sugar. Then I'll have vodka, soda and lime. Spirits are obviously the lowest calorie drink that you can have, so if you're really looking to maintain your weight and not gain heaps when you're away, that is definitely the best drink to choose.
Like I always say, it's really good to enjoy yourself too, so I wouldn't want to just sit down and have dinner and have a vodka soda. I'm happy to have vodka sodas at clubs and things like that, which we did after that, but when I'm having dinner, it'll be a wine or a margarita.
Then the next day was Easter and I went out for breakfast, lunch and we went out for dinner that day and I had Easter eggs, so that was a big day of eating for me and that's not the norm, but that's totally okay to do that a couple of times a week.
I had an avocado smash that morning, then we went to the most epic salad place for lunch, it was a big salad - chicken, heaps of roasted carrots, I didn't tell them to put the dressing on the side, it was just this big wholesome salad. The breakfast was big. The dinner was big and I had about 8 Easter eggs, so I do that as well and that is totally fine too. I really like to enjoy myself a couple of days when I'm away as well. I didn't exercise on that Sunday either.
I want to end with a few mindset tips, because yes, I've given you some practical things to do but like I always say, your mindset is the thing that's going to help you the most to actually want to choose the healthier options or to want to go to the gym.
I know I've shared a few as I've gone along, especially on the exercise front, but I have to say this and I did say this in the Easter podcast (Episode #69: 5 Easy Steps To Get Back on Track After Easter - Quick STAT) but get in the habit of telling yourself that it's not a holiday. For me it was a work trip too, so in my mind, this is any other week. I tell myself it's not a holiday and simply doing that helps you get out of that all-or-nothing mindset.
I also really like to forward-think and I know I shared this at the beginning but because I was a woman that was all-or-nothing, sometimes when I'd travel I would just go away and because I hadn't found my balance yet, I'd eat way too much and come back and feel a couple of kilos heavier and bloated.
I just started to get really sick of that. I'm someone that can just gain weight really easy and so many people are like this as well. It's so easy to gain weight when you travel. If you're eating out every single meal and you're drinking alcohol and do no movement, it's very easy to gain weight, especially if you're a woman, but it just takes ages to lose.
So I would easily gain maybe 2 kilos in a week and then take a month to lose that 2 kilos and I just really got over that pattern. So I like to always forward think and be like - how do I want to feel when I get home? Do I want to get home, feel good, find it easy to get back into my normal routine and feel confident and all of that or do I want to come back with gut issues, feel like I'm heavier and need to lose weight?
I honestly prefer to just keep up my activity levels and make healthier choices. Obviously, I still enjoy myself. I never feel hungry. I always eat a lot of dinner. I just prefer to make slightly better options and avoid eating things like heaps of chocolate, cakes or extra foods like that because I just don't see the point personally. I would prefer to stay balanced with what I eat and come back like half a kilo or a kilo heavier which happens too.
I feel like I've gained probably at least a half or a kilo but that's fine, that's easy to lose when I get back into my regular routine of more home-cooked food. I just think that's far better to still enjoy yourself, make slightly healthier choices and get back and not feel like you're 10 steps behind.
I always forward-think to how I'm going to feel when I get home and I'm like - is it worth eating all this extra food just because I'm away? It's not! The reality will hit when you get home and you'll feel crap.
The final thing that I want to say with a mindset tip (and this will help anyone on any day, it doesn't matter if you're traveling or not, iIf you are a binge eater or if you are someone that's prone to overeating and not being able to stick with your goals that you set yourself) -
One of the biggest things that you can really repeat to yourself over and over again when you're eating a meal … let's say it's breakfast and you finish and then you've got the urge to go get a cake, a cookie, order more food or just eat for the whole day, tell yourself - this isn't it! I've got a really exciting meal coming in 4 hours, it's nearly lunch-time! I've always got something to look forward to.
As soon as you're in that restrictive mindset, that's what causes you to overeat. This is why it's good to have a dinner booked, know where you're going for dinner or know where you're going for lunch. Know that it’s not that far away. That really helps to prevent you from overeating if you've always got something else to look forward to, and just telling yourself - this isn't it, I've got more food coming for the day. I don't have to gorge on everything that I see because there is another exciting time coming!
I want to end it by saying another reminder about us all being so different, we really are. There's obviously lots more that I do. I haven't talked about what I eat on the plane. I haven't done that for very obvious reasons, though. Lately, I’ve been flying business class and so it's not going to be relatable to my whole audience.I haven't shared what I eat on the plane for that reason and I've stopped sharing what I eat on the plane on my Instagram for that reason as well, because it's not realistic for most people to be able to do it.
Every single one of my business expenses is paid through my credit card, so I get so many points and I'm able to do it. Even if I don't use points, I really see the value for me and spending money on flying that class because I work and I do better work if I'm comfortable. So that's what I do, but that's why I don't really share what I eat at the airports anymore because I just don't want it to trigger anyone and I don't want it to not be relatable. I really like to share relatable information that every single person can use.
If you found this useful, please take a moment to leave me a rating and review on Apple Podcasts. It would mean the world to me. It's really how more women can find me and it really helps to support me because I do this for free. I don't get anything from it, so it means the world if I get some support back.
Another thing that you can do is take a screenshot of this episode and share it on your Instagram story and tag me at @health_with_bec. That's a great way to spread the word too! Also, make sure you're following me on Instagram where I share lots of health tips and behind the scenes of my life and business and how I maintain my balance. I'm always educating women on that too.