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Where fitness and outdoors meet. In this space we chat all things hiking, exercise, wellness, adventure, motherhood, and metabolic health from a female perspective! Get ready to learn + be inspired to live your fullest, most adventurous life!
How to Reset Health After a Vacation
Hi, my name is Brady and I'm a long time fitness professional and Midwest girl turned mountain living hiking addict. In combining my knowledge of fitness and passion for hiking, I've helped hundreds of women get lean and strong for the trails. Think of this as your one stop shop for both education and inspiration on all things female wellness, trail talk and adventure. Hiking, female metabolism, motherhood, nutrition, travel and fitness are all topics you'll hear discussed here. If you are outdoorsy and active, looking to level up your health, unlock your potential and become inspired to live your most vibrant life, you're in the right place. You're listening to the fit for Hiking podcast. What's up everybody? Welcome back to another episode of the fit for Hiking podcast. I am so happy to be joining you guys today. It has been kind of a crazy month for me personally. I've been traveling to Central America, mainly Mexico and Guatemala, so my parents live in Antigua, Guatemala. And if you've been following along for a while, I actually have an episode with them here on the show of their experience moving to another country very, very different from the United States, um, when they were 50. Right? So like completely starting over. It's a really awesome episode. So you can go back in the archives and check that out. But, um, we come to Guatemala every single year and we try to do like at least a month or two since we both work remotely, my husband and I, so it's just been such a great experience. This has been our first time bringing our youngest daughter, Quinn, and it has just been such a great trip and we're wrapping it up. We're heading home tomorrow, so I'm feeling a little bit bummed because we really have such a great routine here. We love the culture, we love the people, we have a great community when we visit, so it's always a little bit hard to go back. But this topic has been very top of mind for me because not only did we, you know, travel for the past month and we were outside of our normal routines back home in Colorado, but we also did an all inclusive trip in Mexico, and my parents watched the kids. It was our first time doing something like this since having kids, so my husband and I have not done a trip, just the two of us at all since our baby moon for our first daughter. So it's been four years and it was amazing. But it also brought up a lot of kind of old feelings around these tropical, beachy, all inclusive type of trips. Because I really haven't done a trip like that in so long. Typically we're doing hiking, adventure type of active vacations, and so it kind of brought up some old feelings that I used to have around trips like this, when I was really deep in the trenches of struggling with body image and like, binge eating and being in these bad cycles. And so I wanted to talk about how to do a healthy reset after a vacation, because, you know, there's always going to be travel in life. A lot of the women in our program, especially, are very adventurous. They love to travel. And so we're always dealing with the concept of how do you travel healthfully, but also how do you come back from that if you have had kind of an unhealthy trip? Right. Like there's just going to be trips where you are splurging more, you're indulging, you're not able to keep up with your normal movement routines, and you kind of just feel blah at the end, like you don't feel like yourself, you feel bloated, you don't feel comfortable in your body, and you want to kickstart that reset process and just kind of get back to your baselines and feeling normal and feeling good. So I want to talk about how to reset your health after a vacation and what that really looks like, and just keep in mind that what you do 90% of the time will determine your health. Okay, so I am not saying that like one week of vacation is going to derail you by any means, but you might feel not your best. Okay, so that's what we're addressing today. Um, and so depending on how your trip went, you might not even feel like you need to do this right. If you've been on like a big hiking trip, you've been super active. You weren't really overindulging. Great. You may just want to ignore this one, but if you've been on like a beach trip or a trip where there's tons of buffets and food accessible and you really don't feel like you ate your best or were your most active, or you just don't feel good after a travel day, whatever that looks like, then this one is for you. Okay, these are some easy tips that you can implement right away to lean out again. Feel better? Get rid of some of that bloat. But resetting really doesn't require extreme detoxes. That's not what I'm talking about, but it will require some tweaks and sacrifices to get back to the baselines where you feel comfortable. Okay, because splurging every day just cannot be the norm if we want to be lean and healthy. I'm all about balance. I'm all about having, um, you know, moderation. But we can't be, like, overindulging, saying yes to everything every single day and expect to feel amazing in our body, right? That's just not the reality. Anybody who's achieved a lean physique knows that, yeah, it doesn't have to be miserable, but you are going to have to say no. Sometimes you are going to have to practice. Sacrifice and moments of what other people might call restriction. Okay, so that's what I'm talking about here. Especially this first week. You're going to have to sacrifice a little bit. So let's talk about what this looks like. Number one is immediately cutting out alcohol and sugary beverages for the week, especially if you've come back from a trip where you are drinking a lot or just having a lot of like, sugary cocktails. More alcohol than normal. Extra drinks, even if they don't have alcohol like juices or smoothies or sugary coffee scraps, etc. then yeah, you're going to want to take a break from these and focus on hydration. And this is such an easy way to bring your calories kind of back down to a healthy level. Because sugary drinks are one of the fastest ways to rack up calories. And this is definitely a struggle point for me because I love, like, sugary coffees, I love wine, I love like, you know, when I'm at the beach, I want to have a pina colada. So I'm not saying this from a place of judgment because I experience this too. When I'm traveling, I want to maybe overindulge a little bit on these types of things, but they do rack up your calories very, very fast, and they're not going to make you feel your best because you're spiking that blood sugar. And it's not necessarily going to help you sustain energy. So if we want to get back to baselines, we're going to want to cut those out. Start with just a week. And if you're feeling good and you're like, yeah, I kind of want to do this for longer, great. Ultimately, you shouldn't have to do a black and white approach long term where you're like, I can never have these things. But for that first week, yeah, you might want to just be like, seven days. I can do this. Okay. I'm just going to say no, because I've had plenty over the last week or so on my trip. Really focus on replacing those things with water. Okay, so for me personally, like I know what I'm going to be doing is I'm still going to have my coffee in the morning, my normal coffee from home. Nothing crazy other than that I'm just going to have water. I'm not going to have anything else, and I'm going to really try to hydrate a ton. Okay. So that right there is one of the best things that you can do. So start there. Number two is have a grocery and prep day. I cannot emphasize this enough even just in your day to day like weekly life, having a day where you're doing this a little bit is such a life hack. If you want to be set up for success the following week, but especially coming back from a trip, this is crucial. Okay, so after coming back from, you know, any sort of travel, take time to plan healthy meals for the week and prep necessary proteins, veggies, carbs to execute without difficulty and make sure you actually have the things that you need. If you come home to an empty fridge and just a bunch of random stuff in there, yeah, you're going to be like grabbing things out of convenience. And that's not the place that you want to be in when you're trying to reset your health. So it might not be able to be the first day that you're back, right? You got to catch up on all the things the laundry, the unpacking, I get that. But as soon as you can make this a priority, okay, this one thing can single handedly set you up for success the week that week versus flailing or just grabbing convenience items. Okay, so don't overcomplicate this. I want you to first start out by mapping out what you want your food to look like that week. So pick a few breakfast lunches and dinners. You're maybe going to repeat them a few times. So maybe you pick 2 to 3 that you're like, yeah, that sounds good. Maybe dinners if you want to do something different every night you have pick five dinners, right? But map it out, pick the items that look good, make sure you're picking things that are going to be high in protein, fiber, veggies, fruits, high volume meals that aren't going to be super high in calories. And then you're going to want to actually order your groceries accordingly instead of going to the store, do it online because this will really minimize, like just the mindlessly picking out items that maybe you wouldn't have otherwise gotten. But in the moment, your grocery shopping while hungry and you're like, oh, that looks good. It just simplifies it. If you order online and you can do pickup or you can do um, delivery, delivery is usually a little bit extra. So I typically do pickup and it just makes my week so much easier. So once you have your groceries, then you're going to want to actually prep your proteins and carbs for breakfast and lunches that week. Because typically dinners you're going to want to actually cook that, you know, in the evening, you're not going to want to have like, meal prepped dinners unless you have a weird work schedule. But your breakfast and lunches, you probably need kind of more on the go options. So you're going to want to prep those things. So maybe your hard boiled eggs, maybe you're making like a big egg bake in the oven. Maybe you're just getting some overnight oats ready and putting them in the fridge. Maybe you are doing Instant Pot shredded chicken in bulk, or putting over the stove like a big thing of ground turkey and ground beef, making a big thing of quinoa, a big thing of lentils. Okay, so just think about how you can make your week easier. And typically it's going to be having good, healthy protein and carb options on hand that you can just like kind of throw together a bowl for your lunch. You have your breakfast pretty much ready and you can just grab them and walk out the door. Okay. Anything you can do to make your week smoother, do it. Okay, set aside that time because I'm telling you, like after doing this myself and working with hundreds of women, this is one of the top tips that actually translates to success with nutrition that week. Yes, it requires a little bit of work. Everything that is worth doing is going to have a bit of a sacrifice to it, right? But if you want the results, you got to be willing to put in some time and effort. You can also go an easy route and just order something like a factor meals type of subscription. This is meals that are ready made and they're high protein healthy. Right. You can do that too. Obviously you're going to pay for it. But some of my clients and I've done that myself in seasons where I was just really busy. Love this option. It can be a really, really good option if you don't have time to be doing the prepping and cooking yourself. Okay. Number three is eating at home for a week or two. Okay. So I'm saying, like, you're not going out. You're not doing meals out hardly at all. If you can get away with it. Eat at home solely for 1 to 2 weeks. Because when you're on vacation, you're eating out a lot. So not only will your budget be thankful, but you're going to help minimize some of that bloat and kind of just get back to your normal physique. Eating out does tend to increase bloating due to the added salt and carbs in those meals. Plus, we don't know how things are being cooked when we're eating at restaurants. How much fat is being used, what type of oils or fats they're using to cook? If you're trying to lean out again after travel, eating at home will play a role in this. So just kind of make that decision when you're going back home, talk with your family about it, whatever that looks like, and just say, hey, let's just cook for the next few weeks, we'll save some money and we'll feel healthier at the end. Number four is make long daily walks and non-negotiable for the week. Increase your needs. Okay. So that's your non exercise activity thermogenesis versus just sitting around. You've got to look for opportunities to move more. Don't just hope that it happens because unfortunately in our modern world we are sitting a lot. And you have to actively look for opportunities to move okay, because you're probably not going to have to walk to your job. You're probably not going to have to walk to go get food. You're not going to have to catch your own meals like we used to have to do. Right? So you're going to need to really look for opportunities, take the stairs pace while you're on the phone, like take a walking work call if you can, or catch up with your friend over the phone while walking, or meet up with a friend and go for a walk instead of sitting and having a drink, right? Um, use a walking pad while working. This one is huge. Ask your family to go for a walk after dinner every single night. This is a great way to minimize big blood sugar spike after dinner. Help with digestion and. You're going to get extra steps, right? So look for those opportunities. Make a daily walk. Non-negotiable. It's just a walk. Okay. You got to do it seven days that week. Make it happen. Number five put the added calories to good use and hit the hit the gym for some good strength workouts. Okay? Or home gym does not have to be going to a formal gym, but focus on your resistance training that week. Work on building muscle. Your diet and lifestyle adjustments that we've been talking about so far will take care of that bulky, nice feeling if you have your nutrition dialed in. If you actually are in a calorie deficit and increasing your need. So don't stress about that. You don't need to be doing all this extra cardio. That's not the answer that you may think that it is. Yes, when we feel bulkier or bigger or bloated, we're like, oh my gosh, I need to just go like, hammer it out on the treadmill. That's not necessarily going to get you the results that you want. Okay? So focus on building some muscle with that added calorie surplus that you're rocking from your vacation. Your glycogen stores are going to be higher. You're going to have some good energy for your workouts. So go put it to good use and then focus on really, really dialing in your nutrition, your sleep quality, your stress management, your meat. And that will make sure that you are not, quote unquote bulking versus leaning out. Okay, just 3 to 4 strength workouts is a really good place to shoot for. You don't need to be working out every single day that week, doing two days, doing fasted cardio, all this crazy stuff. Because what will that do? It's gonna make you hungrier. Okay? And if we're wanting to really get leaner. Then you're going to need to make sure that you are not eating in a surplus. And what can tend to happen when we are working out like crazy is actually backfires, because you end up eating all of that back and then some because you're very hungry or mentally you're doing the thing, or you're like bargaining with yourself, saying, well, I burned all these calories. I went to that bootcamp class, I did this crazy hit workout. Look, look what my watch says. I burned a thousand calories, right? First of all, those watches are never correct. The machines at the gym are never correct. So you don't want to live and die by those numbers. Also, when you're eating the calories back, you're just going to even out all of your efforts. You're going to kind of undo what you're trying to accomplish as far as a deficit. So all of that to say, you don't want to take that tactic, you really, really want to focus on just nailing your nutrition and doing enough exercise to maintain muscle to get your need up without increasing your hunger like crazy. Number six tweak your carb and sugar intake. Okay, I don't normally recommend this for day to day life as far as like cutting out all sugar and carbs because we want fat loss and weight maintenance to be sustainable, and when we're just trying to cut out food groups, this almost always backfires and people can't maintain it. Okay, So however, for the purpose of leaning out again or removing some of that bloating after being in a big calorie or sugar surplus during vacation, pulling back can make sense for that week. Post vacay. Okay. This does not need to be permanent. I don't recommend that it is, but during that first week back, lower carb intake and minimizing sugars can be helpful for just helping you lean out again and feel better. Also, vacations can sometimes make you think you need like a sweet treat with every single meal or like a sweet drink or a dessert after. So getting back to baselines with your sugar cravings can be helpful. Just kind of getting your body used to the fact that, yes, like having some sweets, maybe at the end of the day, um, in moderation, totally fine. But we don't need to be having a sugary drink or a massive treat with every single meal. Emphasize your protein, fiber, and healthy fats at your meals instead. And with your fiber, you will still be getting some carbon take. So I'm not saying you got to completely cut it out, but you really want to make sure that you're minimizing the high glycemic carbs. So the carbs that are going to just get digested super, super rapidly and go for the the low glycemic carbs. So healthy, complex carbohydrates like sweet potatoes, potatoes, quinoa, um, oats. Whole grains, things like that. Okay. And number seven, ultimately, you need solid routines before and after your vacation to get back to a baseline you're happy with. This only works if you are not just doing this as a like one time deal. One off efforts or one good week are not going to get you your dream body. You really have to be dialed in with this all the time for the entire year. Otherwise this is not going to apply. Okay. So having one really solid week can reduce bloating, improve how you're feeling, but you need long term routines to maintain results. Like I said at the beginning of this, what you do 90% of the year will determine your body composition. That's why one holiday or one vacation is not going to undo all of your results. But if the rest of the year you kind of are just half ass in it, you're not fully committed. You're consistent for two weeks and then off again for another two weeks, or you're good for a month, then you're off for two months. You're having these all or nothing mindsets around your nutrition, all of that. Then, yeah, like you will struggle because you're not putting in averages needed to get the good results. Okay. So remember that just because something is simple doesn't mean you don't need to be consistent. I talked so much about how this journey does not need to be overly complicated or restrictive or cutting through groups, things like that, but there are moments where you will have to practice moderation, a little bit of restriction, a little bit of sacrifice to get a body that you love and feel healthy in, always saying yes to everything, to all of the drinks, all the desserts, all of the food isn't healthy the same way that always say no isn't if you're always saying no to dessert, if you're always saying no to eating out with friends, right? You cannot do extremes and expect health, but also you can't expect a plus result from consistency efforts. So look at the averages here okay. Based on how you're living most of the time, if you can keep your weeks typically averaging somewhere from a B to an A, then you're going to be happy with your results. Some weeks might be a B, some weeks might be a C. There will be other weeks where you're like A+ crushing it, but you need to have realistic expectations for what your body will look and feel like based on your performance. This is where you've got to be honest with yourself, because so many times we get so upset and we blame hormones or metabolism or genetics or something like that. But when we actually look at our compliance from week to week in these different categories, that will matter. Like your workouts, actually resistance training and doing the things that will move the needle for body recomposition, daily steps, hitting a calorie deficit, um, actually eating micronutrients that will fuel your body. Getting enough protein. Things like that. When we really, really look at how consistent we are, we're at like a 50% expecting 100% results. That's just not realistic. Okay. So you got to be honest with yourself here. Um, and how you are living most of the time. But hopefully these tips will give you a good reset. I know I'm definitely going to be implementing these when I get back from my trip, because this has been, um, an interesting trip in that like, I've been very, very active. Still going to the gym. I got a gym membership here in Guatemala, so I've been walking a ton, so been doing a lot of my healthy habits. But I've also been willingly and knowingly indulging more than normal. Having more desserts than normal. Having more drinks than normal. Having days where I know I'm in a calorie surplus. Okay, so like I'm making those decisions consciously because this has been a really special time and I want to enjoy this time with my family. But I also know that if I want to, you know, be in my leanest, happiest physique, I'm going to have to really kind of dial this in again after my trip and get back to more of my normal intake routines. So hopefully you will find this helpful if you are in a position where you are just super struggling to be consistent with these things like you, maybe you know what to do. You've been listening to this podcast for a while. You've been getting all the information off of ChatGPT, but you're just not doing it. Like you're not following through. You're not being consistent. You're not honoring those promises to yourself and getting the results you want. Then we'd love to have a conversation with you and see if you are a good fit for our program. I will be honest, we are very full right now, but you can join our waitlist and learn about what that timeline looks like to get you started in our program. So if you check the links in the show notes, you can find our application link there. Once you fill that out, I'll be in touch. And there's no pressure, just a conversation and kind of see like where you're at, what your goals are looking like and go over what we provide so we can see if it's a good fit on both ends. All right, you guys, thank you so much for tuning in today. I hope it's been a helpful one. If you enjoy the show. Giving us a little shout out on social media goes a really long way. I appreciate that so much. Or leaving a rating and review takes just a quick minute and make such a difference for small shows like this. So I appreciate you and I will chat with you in the next episode. Thanks for tuning into this episode of the fit for hiking podcast. As always, I hope it leaves you feeling inspired and informed on how to take your health and adventure into your own hands. For more content like this. Be sure to follow along with my daily posts at Ponytail Underscore. On a trail that's ponytail underscore on a trail. You can also stay up to date on my new episodes being released at Fit Underscore for hiking, and find more free resources at Pony Tail on Etrailer.com. Happy and healthy Trails.