85. Vacation Vibes & A Recovery Plan - What I learned in Italy

In this episode, Stacy Heimburger discusses how to maintain healthy habits while traveling, focusing on the importance of having a recovery plan in place. She shares her personal experiences from a trip to Italy, emphasizing the need for mindfulness, self-compassion, and realistic expectations regarding weight management during and after travel. The conversation highlights the significance of planning, hydration, sleep, and addressing mental challenges related to weight gain.

Key Takeaways:

• Travel can disrupt healthy routines but can be managed.
• Having a recovery plan is essential for post-travel.
• Mindfulness helps in making better food choices while traveling.
• It's okay to gain weight during vacations; self-compassion is key.
• Hydration and sleep are crucial for maintaining health while traveling.
• Weight loss is not an emergency; take your time to recover.
• Planning ahead can enhance the travel experience without guilt.
• Be aware of mental chatter regarding weight gain.
• Self-care is important during vacations; enjoy the experience.
• Travel can be an opportunity for self-discovery and flexibility.

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This episode was produced by The Podcast Teacher: www.ThePodcastTeacher.com.

Transcript

Welcome back to the podcast, everybody. I want to talk to you about something. I recently went to Italy. It was a long-term trip that my husband and I had planned. We were there about 10 days. And I want to tell you how to maintain your healthy habits while traveling or what to do when you don't quite maintain them in the way that you hoped. traveling, good vacations, summer's coming. We need these things, but it can certainly throw you off your routine.

especially if you're really working on your health and weight loss goals and there's just Things that you have at home that you are like in your pocket ready to go Your tried-and-true favorites that make it really easy to stay on track for you traveling can really throw that into a whirlwind it can really just Throw everything into a tizzy, but I have to tell you

having a recovery plan in place was probably the best thing that I did. it's kind of a three-part plan when you travel, and that's what I wanna talk to you about today. So the first thing we wanna do is just actually pre-work. We wanna just be honest with ourselves about what our intention is for this vacation. Do we wanna maintain our weight? Do we wanna lose weight? Or are we okay gaining a little bit of weight? Now we were going to Italy.

We have a big pizza oven in the backyard. We knew we were gonna be making lots of pizza. We knew we were gonna be taking pasta classes, eating gelato. So I did not have a plan to lose weight while I was there. I really didn't even have a plan to maintain my weight while I was there. My pre-plan was just to try and be as mindful as possible. And I teach a concept called the velvet rope to my private clients.

And this is the concept of like, your stomach is a VIP room, okay? If we are trying to not overeat, we have a very limited space in there. And so what you're gonna let into your belly really needs to be tip top VIP. So I was gonna use my velvet rope strategy and mindfulness and just kind of see how it went. And I was okay if I gained a little bit of weight because I knew I had a recovery plan. So pre-work.

Stacy Heimburger (02:17.802)

is that we need to know what our goal is. And then number one would be making a plan, right? So I knew my goal was not to lose weight and I was okay if I didn't maintain weight. So then I had to make a plan. So my plan was to be as mindful as possible, try to only eat when I was hungry, and then to use the velvet rope philosophy, right? So this was, I was gonna eat pizza in Rome, because it was...

delicious and I was gonna eat the pasta that we made at the pasta class, but maybe I wasn't gonna eat something that didn't really taste good. Or if I tasted it and I didn't like it, I was not gonna finish it just to be nice to anybody or just because it was there in front of me. So if I was done, if my hunger was, like if my hunger signals kicked in and I was not hungry anymore, I was not gonna eat. I was not gonna eat if it wasn't the best. And I was just gonna try and be mindful.

and not just go hog wild vacation mode, the idea like I deserve a break, I should just eat everything. Okay, so that was number one. Number two.

what was I gonna do if that started to fall apart and I was having some off plan moments? Well, the idea was to bounce back quickly, right? So I had this like pre-plan, my in plan, like what I was hoping was gonna happen. And then I had a plan like what's gonna happen while I'm there if this all starts to go awry. And so part of mine was just try and be gracious and curious if I had the opportunity.

I really wanted to try and get good sleep and I wanted to try and focus on my hydration. So those were my sort of bounce back, sort of bring myself back to center was that I could always focus on hydration and my sleep. I knew we'd be walking a lot. So those are kind of the three pillars of lifestyle medicine, right? We want sleep, we want hydration, we want some movement. So I thought those would be okay. And so I knew like if it started to go off a little, I could go ahead and do just really focus on those.

Stacy Heimburger (04:26.39)

and get back in a good mental space. The big problem for me was how to deal with afterwards. I had a recovery plan, okay? My plan was to get back to protein and water as soon as possible, okay? I knew that by eating all of those carbs, as delicious as they were, and eating that gelato, as delicious as it was,

that it was really gonna amp up my hunger when I got home. So my recovery plan had to be really mindful about that. I couldn't just come home and say, I just won't eat for a couple of days, or I'll jump right back into whatever I was doing. I had to be just really compassionate about the fact that I was probably gonna be a little bit more hungry when I came home. I was gonna sort of be turned up, right? I had eaten more.

and I knew I'd probably going to eat more. I knew I was gonna be eating carbs. I knew I was gonna be eating sugar. So my recovery plan for the first week, I wasn't really gonna stress out about my weight on the scale. I was just gonna really tune back into my mindfulness, really cut out the sugar, focus on my protein, focus on my water. And then for week two, I could really get back to like, okay, my basics. Am I planning my meals?

am I drinking my water? Am I getting my movement in? And am I getting good sleep? And then I could start to take off any pounds that had found their way and a couple did find their way into my body. So I have to tell you, this is where the mindset stuff really was difficult for me because as a weight loss coach, even though I had all these plans in place and I had a pre-plan and a during plan and a recovery plan, like I had done all the right stuff,

And I knew the scale was gonna go up. It still was a little bit of a mind game, right? Like who, how can I be a weight loss coach and have gained weight, right? I've talked to other weight loss coaches when this happens. It's really hard. When your identity is someone who helps other people be healthy and then you've had this episode where maybe you weren't the healthiest, it really can kind of mess with you. It made it a little hard to stick to my recovery plan. So this is something

Stacy Heimburger (06:50.826)

Now I can analyze, like how did it go, right? I can say, okay, I knew this was gonna happen. I thought I had planned for it, but there was still a lot of mind chatter about it. And what can I do about that for next time? So I think that travel can be amazing as far as self discovery. I think it's an opportunity to learn how to be a little flexible without guilt.

I think it's also interesting to see if guilt slips in, like what are we gonna do with that? And then I think it's a great opportunity to be super mindful. And I do think I did that. I really enjoyed my time there. We went without the kids. They did not miss us. so we really did have time to ourselves. So I thought that that was a very useful thing. You know, I love mindfulness, okay? And self care. And I think that a nice vacation away can be both of those things.

So again, if you've got some big vacations planned this summer, what I suggest you do is just take a really honest assessment of what is your goal? Like are we maintaining, are we losing, are we okay if we gain a little bit? Warning to the wise, right? If we gain a little bit, be ready for some chatter in your brain. Be ready for a little negative self-talk and just be prepared. It's normal, right? We've been told for so many years,

that weight gain is like the worst thing in the world, right? Losing weight is good, gaining weight is bad. It's all just garbage. Who makes the rules, right? So the fact that I gained a little weight eating delicious food in Italy is, it's okay, right? So be mindful though, if you are okay gaining weight on vacation, if that's your like pre-vacation assessment, just maybe take some extra care on your post recovery plan.

Okay, so we make our goal. What is our plan? Just honestly, what's our honest assessment of this? Then we kind of plan, how are we gonna do that, right? What's the idea? I'm gonna be mindful, pay attention to my hunger cues. I'm going to velvet rope philosophy. Please adopt that if you like it. It's one of my favorites, one of my clients' favorites. And then have a really good post-recovery plan.

Stacy Heimburger (09:14.156)

I have to say, depending on where you're going, because I used to do some travel for work, if it's just a small trip and you have a hotel with a refrigerator, it is okay to bring your own food. Like if you're not going somewhere super special, if you're just going like to another part of your state where nothing is velvet rope worthy, pack some food, put it in the fridge. I have lost weight on vacation before. I just knew this wasn't gonna be one of them. But part of it was that, right?

I also want you to be a little bit compassionate in that travel all by itself. The stress of travel, the sleep change, getting dehydrated, all of those can make your weight fluctuate a little bit. like this is definitely not a time to freak out. But we've made our plan for during and then make our recovery plan. So the recovery plan, take into account.

Am I doing something on my vacation? Have I made some plan where I might be a little more hungry? Can I just jump back into my old routine or not? If I can't, what's my plan for that? Have I made a plan where maybe myself talk? Maybe I'm gonna have a little extra mind chatter. How am gonna deal with that? Maybe some extra journaling, things like that. When we get back, might be on the docket for that. And then just what's my timeline of recovery?

That's the other thing, right? We were there for 10 days. I'm not gonna lose all the weight I gained in a day, right? Especially my body loves to hold on to weight. It's like, I would do great in a famine, just so you know. So, like, what's your timeline of acceptability where we, like, really can put that food chatter and that negative self-talk to rest, right? Because on day one, I'd been home a day and the scale hadn't gone down and my brain wanted to start to freak out, I could say,

calm down, we were gonna give ourselves two to three weeks to try and get back to where we were. So have some sort of compassionate plan for a timeline when you get back and just don't freak out, right? It's always easier to put it on than it is to take it off. Weight loss is not an emergency. There is no timeline that is correct or right or like the world ends, okay? So traveling can be a challenge but it does not need to derail you.

Stacy Heimburger (11:38.278)

If you have a solid recovery plan, even if your plan was a little bit of a loud weight gain, we can come back from that. Just remember, it is okay if your brain's freaking out. We have a lot of past programming telling us that weight gain is bad. So it's totally normal that your brain's gonna freak out if weight gain was an allowable sort of part of this trip.

your brain might freak out, it's okay. You're normal, nothing has gone wrong. It doesn't mean the end of the world. Just know we've gotta talk it back or it is gonna talk you into keep overeating because that discomfort feeling, we don't like it, so we're gonna eat. Okay, I hope this has been super helpful for you. If you need help with a travel recovery plan, reach out to me. I would love to help. But I want you to just remember,

Vacations and going away are such good self care. Having a plan does not ruin vacation, right? Having a plan and being mindful before we start is just a good way to just keep track of what we're doing, what's going on for us. And then having a nice recovery plan that's super compassionate for when we get back. If you thought this was helpful, please, please, please share it with a friend.

and rate and review the podcast if you can, I'd appreciate it. Until then, I will talk to you next week. Bye.