Built for Life
A CrossFit 184 podcast where longevity, happiness, and real community come together. We will be sharing stories from inside community, highlighting our members an giving you practical tips to live a healthier and happier life!
Built for Life
Episode 7: Road Trip Tips
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Jump in the car with us on our trip back home from Knoxville!
Travel doesn’t have to wreck your body. In this episode, we dive into simple habits—hydration, movement, fueling, and routine—that help you stay on track and feel your best, so your vacation actually feels like a vacation.
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Time for your your next family vacation. It's time for you to get on the road and take your family to the beach. And you're going for a five-day trip.
SPEAKER_01Oh what?
SPEAKER_00So you load everybody up in the car and you say, you know what? It's gonna be a road trip. Load everyone up and you start driving, you have a 15-hour drive to get to your destination.
SPEAKER_01Oh wow, here we go.
SPEAKER_0015 hours to the beach.
SPEAKER_01Woof! Okay.
SPEAKER_00So you're driving and driving hour by hour, you feel worse and worse. You know, the first two hours everyone's hyped. Well, the first 10 minutes. Everyone's super hyped up, excited, road trip, singing along, dancing along, and then after about 15 minutes, everyone gets real tired real fast. But you get there. You fast forward, let's fast forward to the you get to the beach, you reach your destination, you're exhausted, you're beat down, you're tired from spending the last 15 plus hours in the car. But now you're on vacation. And it's Monday morning, you wake up for your first day of vacation and you feel like trash. You're tight, you're sick, you're stressed, you're tired. You just want to chill. So you kind of suffer through your first day of vacation on day two, you start feeling a little bit better, and then by day three, you finally get to start enjoying vacation. You enjoy your vacation, your time with your family at the beach for day three and four, and then day five comes, you're like, man, we gotta drive back. So then you start getting to that stressed-out, anxious kind of state again, like, man, I'm driving the drive, driving the butt drive. Then you spend 15 hours driving back home, and then uh for two days again, you just feel beat down and trashed and feel like you get hit by a truck. But you got an awesome day and a half of vacation where you where you're going strong. Where you felt great.
SPEAKER_01Going strong.
SPEAKER_00And you're kind of wondering if it was really worth it. That had that happens to so many of us. And we want to talk today about some tips and tricks you can use when you're doing a road trip so you can feel your absolute best when you get to your to your destination, make the most out of your time, and not just feel like you're spending the first two days recovering from the road trip, and then you're spending the first two days when you get back home recovering from the drive music.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, so that'll kick us off. Welcome back to the Crescent 184 podcast built for life. And um that is so true for so many of us, and I think even if it's not a road trip and we're flying, or it's even just a few-hour drive, it can really throw off our schedule. And it just throws your body off. Yeah, like it's it's is extra stress. I know, man, for myself, it's like you're packing for three kids and for yourself, and then you're also trying to make the house not a disaster. So when we come back, it's not like super stress mode. You know, you can come back and relax. It there's there's a lot that goes into trips and vacations and that sort of thing.
SPEAKER_00So even leading up to leading up to the trip when it's time to go, it's not a very enjoyable time. No, it's because you're stressed and anxious about getting everything that you need into into the car and and packed up and ready to go, and then you're also anticipating the long travel days and possibly how how bad you're gonna feel the first day or so so of vacation.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, so um feel like we've been on enough trips too. We've definitely learned some tips and tricks, and they're not brand new, but these are ones that work for for ourselves and for our families.
SPEAKER_00They're really they're really simple things.
SPEAKER_02So, what's what's one of your favorite favorite ones?
SPEAKER_00So absolutely, man, I I I put movement and movement and hydration as very close ones and twos, but number one would have to be to stay hydrated and to prioritize your electrolytes. Even if you don't feel like you're sweating or working out or doing hard training, you're still like under mental fatigue and mental stress and mental energy, and you are getting more and more dehydrated. And we don't typically reach for the the element or the electrolytes when we're traveling, we'd go for for coffee, coffee and caffeine. So staying hydrated would be my number one tip, number one thing I I focus on and prioritize when traveling on the road.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, and I would pack them up and bring them with you and um make sure you have lots of them because you'll definitely drink them while you're on vacation too. But I think one thing, especially when I uh ride in airplanes, I'm like, oh, it's only like a couple hour flight. Like, I don't need water. I'm okay. But then I'm like, oh my goodness, I just also got to the airport two hours early, you're there for a couple hours, all of a sudden, like six hours could go by without really drinking water, which isn't my normal. Like, I I do drink, I'm not the best at drinking water, but I do drink water every few hours.
SPEAKER_00Well, also, like if you allow yourself to slack off and slide and you say, Oh man, I'm not gonna drink that water today. I'm not gonna drink the element today because I'm traveling, it's gonna take your body some time to recover from that to get right back to your baseline. So it's a lot easier to pour the element in your water bottle, sip, sip on it throughout the day, throughout the drive, throughout the travel. So that way you may, you know, if you typically have 60 or 90 ounces of water, maybe you have half of that and you have half the amount of electrolyte that you typically have, but instead dipping down so low, getting so dehydrated, so off base, you only have a little bit gets you back right back to where you should be and where you typically operate.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. And you said, you know, you're not you're not working out, you're not doing the intensity, but travel days take so much mental capacity. Your body and mind is still working at such a high rate. And um I know a lot of us, if we're taking the road trip, we're like, all right, less liquids is possible, so we don't have to stop to pee. But what? Yeah, if he takes up on a road trip, we restopping every every hour and a half, every couple hours. Uh it's more than like when you're 38 weeks pregnant. But uh no, I I would say just take the extra five minutes, you'll feel a lot better than just not having to feel peace as much.
SPEAKER_00So what I love to do is alternate back and forth between caffeine and electrolytes. You know, so if you know you're having caffeine during your road trip and you know you're able to have have fluids and not have to stop to pee a hundred times in an hour, then have your have your caffeine and also have your electrolytes. Just make sure you're working them into the system. And you just have to be so much more intentional about bringing your own, like you said, pack it with you because when you go into the gas station to find high quality electrolytes is going to be very challenging.
SPEAKER_02Right. Well, I'm going into a gas station if you like grabs me into my number one. Is uh the biggest game changer for myself has been grabbing the fruits, veggies, and or protein first before grabbing what I want, which is like mini donuts or check specs. Like, who doesn't love a good car snack, but it does not leave you feeling too hot? I have arrived many places where I'm like, ugh.
SPEAKER_00I don't know why. It seems like once you take uh get in the car and start traveling or taking a road trip, it seems like you want to tell yourself that sugar doesn't affect you anymore.
SPEAKER_01It's like it doesn't count.
SPEAKER_00Doesn't count fried food and fried chicken and chocolate and ice cream. It's like I would almost look forward to back when I was competing and tracking and training. Yeah, I'd be looking forward to leaving town because I knew I would just gorge myself and crap and junk food and pretend like it didn't affect my body.
SPEAKER_01And it so affects you.
SPEAKER_00Like, man, why do I feel like garbage?
SPEAKER_02It could not be what I just ate coming up here. Um, no, so some tips, tips and tricks, because we obviously know like produce can be expensive when you're going to the gas station. So a couple different options that we like to run by is either allotting for a little extra money to be spent on those snacks, knowing that you're gonna feel way better, or packing your own. So even on this road trip, we have a little cooler in the back, threw some spindrifts in there, and then we both packed um about 200 grams worth of vegetables that we could snack on. So super easy. Just we're already in our fridge and what we needed. I think we I grabbed a banana on the way out, so already have some good stuff. But what's uh what's like your favorite thing to look for at a gas station?
SPEAKER_00I love the challenge of finding as much protein as I can inside a gas station, and it's not always easy.
SPEAKER_02What's been your best line?
SPEAKER_00You know, it's like when we go to the airport, especially, airport gas station is very similar.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Um a lot of people will line up at the Donato's pizza and get their their uh personal pizza, which is like 600, 650 calories. I love to go and get almonds and beef sticks and fruit. And really, like by the time you add up the the calories in that, how many grams of protein you have, you have your 200 grams of uh of fruit, like that's a that is a full-out meal. And it may be a little bit more expensive than the personal pizza, but not by much. And you got your protein in, you got some healthy fat with the almonds, and then you got your uh fruits and veggies. That's what I love to do.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, that's like such a great hack though, because I in everyday life, you know, if you're putting nuts and seeds in your diet, you're only gonna have a little bit, you know, a couple tablespoons, maybe a fourth of a cup, is like gonna keep you in your calories. But if you know like you're not gonna get a full meal in, like all the way almonds or pistachios or whatever nut you like, if you get one of those snack packs, would you say it seemed like five or five calories in those?
SPEAKER_00It depends on the one, and not yeah, there's a lot of calories in this.
SPEAKER_02It's pretty high, so definitely like utilizing those the best you can. But I would say um, I've seen several gas stations that have really nice, even if it's just a little bin when you first walk in, like nice and iced grapes or a sorted fruit cup. Like that's kind of my go-to. I love a good fruit cup. I'm probably not gonna buy veggies at a gas station. I feel like fruit's a little bit safer. Um, and I do that at the airport too. I think I spent like eight dollars on a fruit cup last time I was at the gas station, but it was a a pretty good grapes. It's very expensive. There must be bougie grapes, I don't know, coming off the gold trees. Um, but I just can't believe how much better I felt. And I was okay with spending the extra few dollars. I think I told myself I like wasn't gonna buy a coffee out that day, you know.
SPEAKER_00It's also like a little bit of fruits and veggies with your like chicken sandwich, you know. So if if you're on vacation, you're on the road, and you want to enjoy something you don't typically enjoy. If you want to get the pizza or the fried food or the french fries and the drive-thru, awesome. But it and if you have fruit andor veggies before it or with it, it's gonna be a lot better than just having that food by itself in your gut.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Um trying to think of what else my favorite thing was. Oh, protein-wise. Um, what what's your favorite, what do you say was your favorite go-to protein source?
SPEAKER_00Definitely just the beef sticks, any beef sticks you can find. I mean, the the almonds have protein there as well. That some gas stations would have the hard-boiled eggs. Protein's gonna be a challenging one. Um, if there is a gas station with like a fast food joint in inside, you get the grilled chicken, is gonna be the best thing you can do, although you don't know what oil it's it's being cooked with. And then, I mean, you know, I always pack my own protein, so I'll I'll bring my protein powder. I've also practiced packed Ziploc baggies of just chicken breast. And I mean, it's not like a huge chicken breast that I'm packing, it's four or five ounces, which is like eight or ten bites. You know, it's it's just enough to to know that I'm getting my protein it.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I think packing the protein powder can be a huge game changer because that's like if we're not eating meat, protein powder is definitely the next thing we want to eat. And then it's going to be a good thing.
SPEAKER_00It's it's literally what it was created for, a supplement. Yeah, you know, to supplement your diet when you're on the road and there's not another choice around.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. So um, yeah. Yeah, I would say my my go-to is definitely the hard-boiled eggs. I'm not a huge protein powder person. Um, but I would I would definitely use it if I needed to.
SPEAKER_00Or if you got cheese. Cheese is a great option.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00She's gonna have some good protein. So let's move on. What's uh what's some other other tips that we have? So we have stay hydrated, prioritize your fruits and veggies andor protein, and then what else?
SPEAKER_02Um as best you can eat on a regular schedule. So eat at about the same times you usually would.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so that's something that you just had uh issue with this past weekend when we're in Knoxville.
SPEAKER_02Oh my gosh, yeah.
SPEAKER_00Tell us about that.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, it was just uh even on the way down here, like my meals were off a little bit, especially with breakfast. Um, kind of had my coffee first, and then I was like, wow, I'm really feeling this coffee. By that time, I usually would have ate like my four eggs and some fruit and that sort of thing. So like had to grab a sandwich, and then a lot of the dinners while we were at this retreat were later. Um, and I would just start feeling so trashy. I'm more of like a 5:30 dinner kind of person. Six is kind of pushing it if I don't have a heavier snack. Um so yeah, eight o'clock dinners, and then it was really, really tough for me to fall asleep. Like I could feel my body so exhausted, and but something just kept running. And it was definitely both nights that we had dinners later, the second night we were there. Um, it was more on time, and I had a great night's sleep.
SPEAKER_00If you're so used to eating the early dinner, like your body needs to digest all that food, your blood sugar is gonna come up when you eat, and then start to dip back down, and then your melatonin is gonna get released, and then you do your window, and then you sleep really well. And when that's thrown off like that, and you eat so late right before bed, then you just like you're staring and staring at the sea, like laying in bed and wondering why you can't see.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I was sorry. I even have my eyeball shut. Um, but it's also really great to try to keep your digestive system regular. So I know um on the road it gets kind of messed up just because you're in new environments and your body takes on that kind of tr uh change as needed, but for the most part, if you can keep your consistent food timing or whenever you would usually eat your meals.
SPEAKER_00That's also like what we tell people back home is like if you're gonna have a dessert with your with your dinner, it's like have it as close to dinner as possible. And like the same rules apply when you're on vacation. Like, if you're gonna have desserts and treats more so on vacation, same thing. Like, bring that treat and that dessert as close to dinner as you can. So that way you don't have those spikes and crashes, spikes and crashes in blood sugar. You keep it more steady over time.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, you or even with lunch, you know, eat lunch and then if you want your afternoon break.
SPEAKER_00Breakfast, breakfast treat, breakfast treat. I I will say too, like it kind of goes along the same thing, is I'm not I'm not afraid to fast on vacation and not a fast in the sense of like I'm gonna set my timer for 16 or 18 hours, and I'm not eating until that fast is done. But I know like last summer when we went out, when we're out west for vacation, after big meals, after you eat a lot, especially some junk food in the in the evening time, when you wake up and you're not feeling the best, sometimes I just like to let it pass and give it some time before I start feeding them more and more food. So I'm not afraid to fast and just to start eating while I actually feel like eating while I'm on vacation, not just because it's breakfast time.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. No, that's also it's like such a hard that can be a hard yes and no, especially if you're staying with other families and they're like, okay, this is breakfast time. Right. Or you're staying with somebody or somebody's staying with you. There's sometimes a feeling of an obligation of like, okay, if you don't eat now, like we're not gonna eat, which isn't really true, but just keeping it in mind, like you need to do what's best for your body in that moment in the morning. Um, and what was what was your last one? Your favorite one?
SPEAKER_00Tips and tricks.
SPEAKER_02Yep.
SPEAKER_00To move. Move as often as you can. And movement can be a number of different things. First of all, every stop you take at the gas station, at the rest area, get some kind of movement in. Because as you're sitting down, everything is shortening, everything is is just is just relaxing, your blood flow is not right going through your body. So if you get out of the car and you take a short two or three minute walk, awesome. Even better than that is doing like the bouncing up and down and the shaking of your hands, even some arm circles, some light stretching, that's all gonna keep that blood flowing. Um, because as you know, like especially if you work out or if you're active and you sit in the car for hours at a time and you don't move at all, when you get out, like you're hurting and you're stiff.
SPEAKER_01Oh, yeah.
SPEAKER_00So the more you can bounce around, jump around, swing your arms back and forth during every stop, the better off you're gonna be.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, that's that's super important, and uh especially if it's nice out, you know, it's easy to if you're at a place that you're hitting a restroom at, like take a couple laps around the restaurant, or um, like you said, just some easy light bouncing and some arm circles can go a long way.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I would say it's you know, it's not static stretching.
SPEAKER_02Right.
SPEAKER_00We're not holding movement, especially because we're sitting still for so long in the car in the car. It's almost the exact opposite of that is to increase blood flow and move, move, move.
SPEAKER_02Or even some of the joint prep that we do for general warm-ups, like high kicks, um skipping, that sort of thing, karaoke's.
SPEAKER_01Right.
SPEAKER_02Um, yeah, and then even, I mean, I'm not a huge workout person on vacation. I feel like it's very divided. And we have a divided household here. You like to definitely get a workout in on vacation, some kind of workout, yeah.
SPEAKER_00I like I like to uh hit at least one workout with intensity. You know, um, it's not necessarily for everybody or the right choice for everybody. And I often coach people, I say, when you go on vacation, just go on vacation and and enjoy it. And you know, you don't feel like you have to have this obligation that you have to, you know, hit Friano one day and then hit a 5k run the next day and do a one-round max back squad. Like some some times and some weeks and some trips, like it's okay just to chill out and do nothing at all and get back to it.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00But I I love to sneak in some kind of high-intensity workout, and I have a really good uh system and plan of how I do that.
SPEAKER_02Well, what's the secret? Chair S's secret plant.
SPEAKER_00The secret plant. My fate my favorite kinds of workouts to do if I hit a hotel, uh, if I'm in a hotel gym or something similar, is I love to do full body movements for one and something that's five or six rounds. Five or six rounds is key. And what I like to do is I go straight into the workout as soon as I walk into the gym. And round one is like very slow, very lightweight, and or body weight only. So I'll give you an example. This is similar to what I did when we're in Dallas for the mastermind. I forget what the I did a hero workout, I forget what exactly what it was, but it had some kind of running in it, and then it had hang squat cleans in it, and then it had push press.
SPEAKER_01Okay.
SPEAKER_00All right, it was five or six rounds. All right, so round one, I walked. I walked on the treadmill. Instead of doing hang squat cleans with dumbbells, I did air squats, and then I used my arm just body weight for my presses.
SPEAKER_01Okay.
SPEAKER_00All right, and then round two, I picked up that walk, and now I'm doing like an easy, steady jaw. Real, it's still really slow jaw. Yeah, I'm using those first two or three rounds as my warm-up. So in my if it's if it's six rounds, the first three is kind of a warm-up slash ramp up, and then the last two or three rounds, I'm like getting at it, high intensity, hard pace, heavier weights. Right. So then you're not spinning, you're not trying to talk yourself into warming up when you get in there.
SPEAKER_02The ramp is usually pretty crappy anyway.
SPEAKER_00The easiest way to warm up is just to do your workout very slow, very light, ramp yourself up over time.
SPEAKER_02Nice, and that's really good for travel anyway, because I would say for myself, if I'm gonna go down to the gym, like the max I want to spend is like 30 minutes in the gym, you know, because you still have your buffer time, you're gonna get ready for five or ten minutes. It's gonna take you five or ten minutes to cool down. So that's like a 45-minute commitment. And that's about all I personally would want to spend uh when I'm on vacation trying to rest.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, you think you think of movements that's gonna hit full body because if you're only gonna hit one or two high intensity workouts during your during your week, you just want full body movements. But like that's a great way to get in and get out. And then yeah, if you want to cool down. At the end, you just add attack a couple rounds onto the back end at just body weight again or really slow. So you're doing the same exact thing for 40 minutes straight. The first few rounds are light, the last two rounds are light, the middle piece is your high intensity time to get after it.
SPEAKER_02That's awesome. I uh my first thought is actually just doing like the seven minutes of burpees. Minute one, really slow, minute two, pick it up a little bit and then uh just keep building up. Maybe actually do like three minutes of full out burpees.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah. And and uh if you need high intensity training, that's a great way to do it, or high intensity workout, that's a great way to do it. Yeah. And uh some people get full sometimes, like if it's a vacation or not a vacation, they they think they're they're active, or man, I was I was active all during my vacation, or I'm active a lot at home doing we talked about this a little bit with the uh with the last episode, but unless you're hitting that high intensity piece, that's what you're gonna lose really quickly.
SPEAKER_02So yes, yes, and that's this is uh specifically one way too, where if you don't want to get back to the gym and have that week of like, oh, I was on vacation, it's so important to hit at least two to three days of some sort of high intensity movement because then your body's not like in shock that next week. So that is a very good tip. Uh if you don't want to feel that way for sure.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah. The final thing I'll tie in with the movement piece is to move in the morning.
SPEAKER_01Right?
SPEAKER_00Move in the morning. I mean, that's something that we do often. That's something that we did here in Knoxville during our during our retreat with Joel. Yeah. Is like wake up your body with the sun, start moving in the morning, just a really light walk to kick on your circadian rhythm and be in check, be in sync. So that way your whole day is gonna be lined up and then you're gonna be sleeping well at night. Just get up and move instead of just lounging around from the break of dawn all the way through till it's time to go to bed. Just get up and take a walk.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah. Any other tips and tricks for us?
SPEAKER_00Man, I think that was all of them. We said stay hydrated, prioritize your fruits, vegetables, protein, move well, uh, eat at the same time. Eat the same. You know, um, keep your sleep sleep patterns the same. The sleep is a big one as well. Make your your uh your bedroom wherever you're staying in as comfortable as you possibly can, and also mimic it to to be very similar to what you do back home. You know, that can be a whole another episode on sleep, but I think that's all I got for now.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I think those are great, great tips and tricks and things you can actually take and do.