I Went Out Of Town And Lost Weight

In this episode, I’m talking about how I went out of town, ate out five times, and still lost weight. I’ll walk you through what actually made the difference, from the decisions I made before the trip to how I handled restaurants without trying to be perfect. If you’ve ever felt like travel, eating out or being out of your routine automatically means you’re going to gain weight or fall off, this episode will help you see a different way.

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Transcript

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It usually doesn't matter what you eat. It just matters how much you eat. Because how much you eat determines what your body looks like composition-wise. Welcome back to the Embodiment Lab. My name is Addy and I'm having one of those days. It's a Friday. Usually when I wake up on Fridays, my brain's like, freedom, let me just work from the couch and drink my coffee and do whatever I want. And you know, today's not one of those Fridays, ironically. I have had a surge of creative juices flowing through my brain cells. And it's been kind of crazy. I've created so many pieces of content today. Like I woke up, I had my to-do list, I had my day blocked out, I had exactly what I was gonna work on, exactly at the specific times that I was gonna work on them. And I have gotten so completely sidetracked because I am just like so fired up about talking about food and fitness and fat loss and all of these things that just get me so freaking fired up. So I think this is like the perfect opportunity to record a podcast episode because hello, we're gonna have another day where I just yell at you. I actually recorded the last two episodes on the same day, and I went back and edited those episodes and realized that I got so fired up that I was actually yelling, which was kind of funny. But like, I'm so dead serious about these things I talk about. I used to struggle so bad with the same things that you guys struggle with, with food guilt, food noise, restriction, thinking I had to eat absolutely perfectly, believing all the lies that the industry pushes on everybody, and all of that crap. And it made me have such a broken relationship with my body. And when I realized these things that I'm telling you, these things that I preach, these things that I yell at you, honestly, my entire life changed. Honestly, the biggest shift for me, for me mentally was just realizing that a lot of these things just really aren't that deep. Like we give so much emphasis on trying to do everything perfectly, and if we mess up, then we're a failure and nothing matters, and that's where we get into all or nothing thinking and self-sabotaging and all these things. But like when you realize that it's really quite simple and the things that you think matter so much actually don't, you become set free from the prison that fat loss and the way that you view your body has put you in. I actually described it to a client this week as you know, in Aladdin, there's Jeannie, and he has like those cuffs on his hands, like his wrist, that kind of represent like he is imprisoned by, I don't know, the forces that are in the lamp. He's a prisoner, right? And when he gets set free, they the cuffs let go. Those cuffs represent all of the beliefs that you have around food, around restriction, around eating perfectly, around never messing up, around if you eat this, you gain fat. Like that is that is one of the cuffs. Another cuff is on the fitness side of things, where if you miss a workout, then you're a failure. If you don't do a shit ton of cardio and burn off calories and burn as many calories as you possibly can, then you're a failure. All of those things hold you prisoner. They hold you captive and they make you feel like shit. If you do anything and you stray away from that, or maybe you feel like you fail and you mess up, and if you can't do this perfectly, then you're a failure. You've messed up. You are unable to ever lean out and lose fat and have the body of your dreams if you don't follow these rules perfectly. And they make you feel so guilty. Those are literally the chains, the cuffs on your wrist. And when you learn the truth about your body, how incredible it is, how much freedom you can have around food, how fun workouts can be. Like I love the gym. When you realize that and you have that epiphany, it's like those cuffs get released and you're broken free, and you have your life back, you have so much mental space back. It's insane. It's insane. And this is the transformation that I guide my clients through. That is why Embody You is so powerful. The women inside this program they don't leave the program the same woman. They are different, night and day different. And that is my whole goal is to bust the myths and the bullshit in the fitness industry so that you can know exactly what your body needs, how to take care of it, how to thrive in your body, and how to build a physique you are absolutely obsessed with. That is why I do what I do because my clients walk away from Embody You with the knowledge and the tools to be able to carry all of that through for the rest of their lives. So they never have to yo-yo or start over or feel guilty or mess up or whatever. They literally just live their lives peacefully, and that's beautiful to me. Wow. I went on a tangent. So, what I actually want to talk about today is I just got back in town on Monday, late Monday night. I was in Dallas visiting my mom for Mother's Day. I left super early last Thursday, and I got back late Monday. So I was gone for what is that, five days, and I actually ate out five days. I'm gonna break down what I did, and I'm gonna break down my results because they're a little shocking. So let's see, when I landed in Dallas, my mom and I immediately went and got sushi. So that was my first meal out. And then I actually went to HEB, stocked up on all my groceries so that I could eat my staples, you know, my snacks, my breakfast, I could cook at dinner here and there. If you go back and listen to my episode where I talk about how I handle vacations, that's exactly what I did this time when I left when I went out of town. Um, so I had sushi when I landed. I went to HEB, got my groceries. I actually got a bag of spicy and Doritos because those are my gym. I was like, I'm out of town, I'm gonna have some fun, I'm gonna do whatever I want. Love it. So I had that. And then I think Friday I didn't eat out at all. Saturday, I went to the gym with a friend, and after that, we went and got canes because Florida does not have canes, and I needed to get some chicken, and their cane sauce is my absolute favorite. So I did that. And then Sunday I took my mom to brunch. We had the most fantastic brunch. I'm a big fan of an eggs, Benedict. Oh my gosh. I picked the best brunch place. I'm not gonna lie. I honestly think that a missed opportunity at so many brunch places is the coffee menu. Like some of them just have straight up black coffee and that's it. What are you talking about? Like, get creative. There are people who are coming here that freaking love coffee. Like, serve those people. This place had a coffee menu. So when I saw that they had a mocha Frapuccino, I was like, sign me up, give me one of those. So I have one of those, and then I flipped over the menu and I saw the list of the Benedicts, and I swear to God, I'm not even kidding you. This is so embarrassing. I gleated everywhere because I got so excited seeing the Benedicts. There were like seven or eight Benedict options, and I got so excited that I gleeted. Like I didn't even know that I did until I felt the sprinkles on my hand, and then like I looked around the menu and there were just it was everywhere. This is kind of team light, a little gross, but I'm just I'm I'm a Benedict girl. I love eggs benedict. I was like between two options of like a fried chicken Benedict and a brisket Benedict, and I went with the brisket. Oh my gosh, so good. So, anyways, that was Sunday. I had brunch and then Monday, this was not planned, but I had to be at the airport at gosh, what time? Like five, because my flight was at seven. And so up until that point, I had my breakfast. I had my snack. I think I had two snacks up until this point. So I'd already eaten three times. And then by the time that I got to the airport, I knew I was gonna be landing late. It was gonna be about 11 o'clock Eastern time, and I was in central time. So I was like, it's gonna be late. I probably should have another meal so that hopefully whenever I land, we can just go home, go to sleep. I don't have to worry about food. So I got Chick-fil-A and I had a Chick-fil-a spicy chicken sandwich. So that was my fourth time eating out. And then of course I sat on the plane and I felt myself getting hungry. And when we landed, I told Zach, I was like, I require chicken nuggets. I need something quick, I need something fast, easy, and open 24-hour, and McDonald's chicken nuggets were my only option. So I scarfed those down real quickly, went to bed. So I ate out five times. I also want you to keep in mind that I am currently in a growth phase. My goal is to gain muscle. My goal is to see the scale go up so that I can build my glutes. That is a sacrifice that I need to make. When I left, I weighed 140.8. When I came back, I weighed 139.8. And I'm gonna explain exactly what happened. So the biggest thing that I want to point out here is it does not matter what you eat, it matters how much you eat. You gain or lose weight based off of how much you eat. You don't gain weight because you went out to eat. That doesn't automatically make you go and store fat. It's the amount. So that's the first thing. The second thing is my maintenance calories are 2,500 calories. Right now, I'm in a surplus, I'm eating 3,000 calories every single day. Okay, 3,000 calories is a lot of food to consistently consume on a daily basis from home. Now I was out of town, out of routine. It's harder to be in a strict routine. I also didn't put a lot of pressure on myself to make sure that I hit every single meal and that I hit my calories every day. I just made sure that I was controlling the controllables, which was I could eat breakfast, I could eat snacks, and I knew I was gonna go out to dinner, and those were my controllables. I did log a couple of the days that I was there, and I would say on average, I consumed about 2,500 calories. There was one day where I didn't quite hit that, and that's okay. My goal was not to be perfect, my goal was not to be strict. My goal was to come close, was to make sure I was hitting protein and fiber and water and movement and enjoying my life while I was out of town. Also understanding that it's literally five days. Literally five days. And then you know what I did? I came home and I got right back into routine. I ate all six of my meals, I hit my calories, I went to the gym. Simple as that. Got right back into it. And now I weighed myself this morning four days later, and the scale is at 141.2. So a little blip in life doesn't completely throw you off. So the reason that I lost weight is because my maintenance calories are 2,500 calories. And I hit that a couple of the days, and I had one day where I was under that quite a bit. So I was in a little bit of a deficit for a very short amount of time. The reason why I'm able to maintain weight at 2,500 calories is because I've spent years building up my metabolism and building up the amount of muscle tissue on my body so that my body can handle that. So if you're over here like, Addy, I eat like 1400 calories a day. And if I even look at a cookie, I gain weight. That is your metabolism. What has happened is that you have probably unintentionally, without even realizing it, eaten less food or eaten not enough food for your body, and your metabolism has slowed down to accommodate for the fact that it's not getting enough food to support your body. It's basically conserving energy and hanging on to it, which is why if you look at a cookie, you gain weight. So they say, right? But that's reversible, that's fixable. That is something that I work with my clients inside Embody You to fix because your body is not supposed to react that way to food. If it does, your body's not functioning efficiently and in the way that it was designed to function, it's been suppressed. And we fix that. Now, a big reason why people go out of town, they go on vacation and they come back and they gain like five pounds is because you don't really have any structure when you're at home with your eating, and then you go out of town and you have even less structure, and then you ping out. And then, yes, your calories are higher than your maintenance, which, if your maintenance is already lower because you haven't been eating enough calories for so long, then you don't have a whole lot of wiggle room. So if you are waking up and you're not really eating breakfast and you're waiting until, I don't know, brunch or lunchtime to go out with your family or your friends to this restaurant, you are probably arriving to that restaurant starving. And then what happens is you order the most delicious, wonderful thing on the menu, which like as you should, right? You should. It's vacation, live your life. But then instead of stopping when you're full and satisfied, you scarf down that whole plate, and then you end up eating beyond the point of where you're comfortable because your brain and your stomach have not caught up yet because you waited too long to eat. So then you're probably consuming about a thousand to twelve hundred calories in one meal, and then you feel so guilty because you're like, oh, I feel fat and fluffy, I ate too much, I overdid it, I messed up. And you wait the entire rest of the day to eat again, and then you know what happens? It happens again. You go to a restaurant or you eat dinner or whatever, the next meal that you eat, you overindulge again because you've waited too long to eat. Or you get the snackies and you eat uh chips and candy and popcorn and this and that, and your calories add up throughout the day. Whereas, if you were to consistently eat meals throughout the day so that your body is consistently getting satiated and getting what it needs, you don't let yourself get too hungry. You don't go too long between meals, you're able to consistently fuel your body and then when you do go out to restaurants, you're not going into it absolutely freaking starving, and you're able to control your intake a little bit and eat and stop when you're full and satisfied. That's how you moderate calories. You don't let yourself go completely berserk because you're starving. You don't let yourself get to that point, you're smarter than that. Another reason why you go out of town and you come back gaining five pounds is because you already live your everyday life with the idea of balance, of like, oh, I deserve some balance. I deserve to live my life and enjoy it and whatever. And then when you go on vacation, it's even more of that, but like maximized. You're constantly using the excuse of, oh, I need to live a balanced lifestyle. But that excuse is holding you back in your normal life, and then it's no wonder that you never reach your goals in your normal life, but then you go out of town and you come back five pounds heavier. A thought that always bounces around my head my whole entire life, honestly. But but especially since I've been a fitness coach is uh people thinking, Addie, you're a fitness coach. Why are you eating chips? Why are you eating this? Oh, you're gonna go back for a second plate. What are you doing? Aren't you supposed to eat healthy? Aren't you supposed to eat little? And to that I say I will never, ever, ever be the kind of fitness coach that eats absolutely perfectly, everything clean, everything healthy, never goes out to eat, or if she does or orders the salad or the healthiest thing, I will never be that person. I will never be that coach. I will never make my clients live that kind of life. Because if I can't simultaneously have a fat ass and a lean physique and also enjoy my chips and ice cream too, I don't want to be a part of it. There is absolutely a way to incorporate going out to eat and not giving a shit about what you order, just enjoying it and moving on. There's a way to still enjoy your favorite snacks, your favorite foods, your favorite whatever, your sweets. There is still a way to enjoy those things too and have your dream physique. And it's all in the amount of food that you eat. Simple. If you eat too much, you gain weight. You eat too little, you lose weight until you eat too little for too long, and your metabolism adapts to that and down regulates and you're burning less calories at rest, which is where most people are. My job as a fitness coach is to make your body more efficient at burning calories at rest so that your body is a fat-burning machine and you don't have to work so damn hard. And it's more enjoyable that way. When you eat at maintenance, you eat the appropriate amount of calories for your body. Your metabolism is a lot more efficient. You're able to burn more calories at rest. You have the ability to go to the gym and build muscle, which increases your metabolism, which helps you to burn calories at rest, which helps you to burn fat at rest, which means that you can go to the gym and you can build muscle and you don't have to be miserable. You can actually enjoy your workouts and have fun. That doesn't mean they're gonna be easy, but it's a hell of a lot more fun than spending an hour on the treadmill. This also means that you don't have to live off of salads and boring ass chicken for the rest of your life. There is flexibility, and it's all in your metabolism and how much food you're eating. When you give yourself more wiggle room with the amount of food that you eat by upregulating your metabolism and fixing the way that your body functions, then you have more freedom in how much you can eat, what you can eat, and how much balance you can have. Because you were never meant to be trapped in a body that blows up by eating a singular French fry. You were never meant to be tied to the gym, handcuffed to a treadmill, forced to burn calories by exerting so much energy every single day for the rest of your life. You were not created to live that way. So my job is to restore the way that your body works so that you don't have to live that way. Because I promise there's a better way. But I live it every single day, and my clients live it every single day. That is it for today's episode. I hope that you enjoyed it. I hope you found it insightful. If you enjoyed today's episode, please let me know on Instagram and I will chat with you in the next episode. Bye.