I am joined by MetPro Director of Coaching, Megan Omli. We will be discussing ways to continue your health journey even while you are traveling. I need people to know, Megan, that you were the queen bee of coaching. You are the one that keeps us all in check. They are getting the experience and tips. Thank you so much for joining me.
Thank you for having me. I'm glad to be here.
I am glad you are here. This is a topic requested by one of our members and clients. They wanted to know, “How do I travel and still stay healthy?” I want to start by setting up we are going to talk about different kinds of travel. We've got business travel and family travel. What's different between those two things, and why do we need a couple of different sets of tips?
I love this topic. I am a travel enthusiast. Incorporating MetPro during travel is something that I've done a lot personally. It's important to walk through it. The biggest thing before we get into the differences between the two is you've got to think about it ahead of time. If you just go into it willy-nilly, you are probably not going to be successful or if you say, “I'm going to go into this. I'm going to be 100% perfect,” that's not what's realistic. You are probably not. Regardless of how perfect you want it to be, things come your way. Being prepared and thinking through it as much as possible is important. I'm not saying like stress and stew. What I'm saying is to be cognizant of what it might look like and prepare.
The difference between travel for business and travel for fun first is one might occur more often than the other. Business travel, if you've traveled frequently for business, you are going to need a different set of game plans than if you travel infrequently for business. If you are traveling with your family, you are going to need a different set. The reason for that is when you are traveling for business, often, you are either by yourself or with a coworker. You've got some flexibility in the sense of you are taking care of yourself instead of taking care of you, your kids, your wife, husband or whatever it might be.
You got to take what they want. If your coworker is like, “I want to go over here to Chuck E. Cheese and have a piece of pizza,” you are going to be like, “Have a good time. I'm going to go over to the Texas Roadhouse, I see, grab a salad and a steak.” You can divide and conquer, whereas, with family, you might be stuck with Chuck E. Chees choice. That's the piece of it. Those two things are why you need two different wavelengths and different thoughts.
Are there any things that are going to be high level for both or do we need to start from let's talk about business first, then we will talk about family?
High-level for both is I like to look at the frequency of these events. If you are a business traveler and you travel less than five days a month, your game plan might look totally different than if you travel 10 to 15 days or more a month. The same thing with family travel, let's say this is a family event, and you are going to Disney World for the first time in 5 years, and you do this once every 5 years. That's going to look different than, “My kids are on the wrestling team, and we travel every other weekend or every weekend.” High level, you have to differentiate the two because your level of pre-planning and execution will look different. Let's go into the business side of things if that's okay. Let’s tackle that first.
Let's say you are a frequent business traveler. If you are somebody who is traveling 10 or 15 plus days a month, you are going to have to figure out how you do MetPro most of the time on the go. You are also going to have to have this period of transition when you get home to be successful too. What does that look like? There are a few things that you can do as far as pre-planning before the travel or things you can consider are to make sure you book a hotel with a gym that might have a big continental breakfast or kitchen in the room, or at least a refrigerator. If you've got a refrigerator, you can make do with that.
I know gyms at hotels were closed. Now that's more open or you might have a plan of a little space in your room to have a place to do some bodyweight work. For a common business travel, those things can go ahead of you traveling. Taking those things into consideration is important. Some other things are, if you are traveling by car or if you get to your destination as a business traveler and you have a car, hit the grocery store. That’s the first place. We are going to talk about people who business travel 10 to 15 days a month. You can go. You can pick up a couple of apples and pre-packaged 1-ounce nuts.
You can grab some oatmeal or yogurt for breakfast and pop the yogurt in the fridge. If you've got a microwave, then you can grab the oatmeal. If you can get a lot of that too at continental breakfast, and then carry your snacks with you. Everybody usually carries a bag or briefcase. There's got to be some little break in your meetings. You can sneak away and eat something quick and little. I wouldn't take a thing of yogurt and chia seeds to try to mix together and then spoon in your mouth in between meetings.
That's where that portability comes in.
Being realistic about it too. Grocery stores can be a big asset, especially when you are on the go frequently. The other thing I would say is business dinners crop up a lot. For somebody who travels that frequently, they are probably doing a little bit of binding and dining with clients.
When they are doing that, they don't always have the freedom to pick the place either. They are going wherever they are told to go.
The biggest thing I can say about that is don't make dinner your largest meal. If you can have your afternoon snack prior to that dinner, that can make a world of difference. You are not going to go into dinner starving. There might be nerves wrapped around this dinner. Who knows? Depending on the situation, steer clear of ordering things with sauces and breaded or fried items, trying to order things that are grilled or more fresh. Have that veggie.
If there's not a meal part that's appropriate to you and what you can have, then choose to have a side of veggies with that. That can be a good way to tackle those dinners. Keep up on your water. That's that business traveler who's traveling frequently. You've got the room or some things that can make that setting easier. You've either got a gym or a place to do your bodyweight workouts. Maybe you bring some bands, then you've got some easy meal things.
Especially these travelers that are frequent, what do they do about weighing food or themselves while they are traveling?
There are a couple of things you can do as far as weighing your food. Don't stress about this. Don't take your food scale into a restaurant. Do not say my name if you do. We do not make you do that. You are weighing and measuring your food at home. You know what this looks like. Maybe you are on, and off-cycle and have more than you are typically accustomed to. It's going to be okay if you eat a little bit more on occasion, don't do it intentionally all the time. It's going to be okay if it's not 3.5 ounces on the nose of protein. Eyeballing that based on what your food looks like at home is the way to do it.
We have concierge coaches. When somebody is traveling frequently, are there tips that people can ask their concierge-level coach for help with while they are traveling?
Absolutely. If you know the places that you are going to be dining or staying, and you want your coach to take a peek at a menu or walk through like, “Would this be an appropriate thing for me to eat?” They are there for that. Make sure to check in with your coach on that. One other thing I didn't cover that you asked was, “What about my body weight? I can't weigh myself. What do I do?” There are little travel scales.
If we are going back to talking about somebody who's traveling 5, 10 or 15 days plus 1 month, you are going to probably want to grab one of those little tiny travel scales. If you are a concierge plant, ask a coach, they've got a good rec for that. You can find those things on Amazon. Those can be helpful to keep track of things and yourself in check. If you are somebody who's traveling less frequently, don't worry about it. Keep yourself honest, get home, weigh yourself as you get back into your routine, and that will be fine.
Also, reminding people that when they do get back from travel, if you have been eating out, which is normal, even if you did everything 100% correctly, you are probably going to have at least some water weight that's going to show up that's not a crazy thing.
It's not a crazy thing at all, and people get discouraged, “I gained 4 pounds.” Let's say you flew for that trip, you've also got some water retention from that or some dehydration going on from that flight. Don't put stock in the scale on day 1 or 2 home. If you get back on track, day one home, probably by day 3 or 4, you are going to see most of that come back off unless you were bad, then it might take a couple more days. There might be a little weight gain there. I have been there before. We talked about those business travelers who are gone a lot. Let's talk about those who might travel 2 to 5 days a month.
Your game plan might look a little bit different because it's not all the time. It's not super frequent, “I can't request that my company always give me a hotel that has a kitchen. It's not feasible as little as I travel.” That's okay. My biggest things I would say are, make sure that you get your MetPro breakfast, get your afternoon snack on point, and then the rest is going to be okay for a couple of days or maybe you are somebody who's in and out overnight. You don't have time to get to the grocery store or control those things. Shoving a couple of apples and almonds at the bottom of your bag so that you've got a snack can make a world of difference, then hitting a Starbucks or Dunkin donuts and grabbing a banana.
You can almost always find a piece of fruit. Trying to start breakfast and breakfast is a big one for me. It sets your blood sugar for the day. You are going to feel a lot better if you do that versus having a coffee and a donut because, by 10:00 AM, you are going to be like, “I'm in this meeting but where am I?” You are going to be on that crash, and it's not going to be pretty. Set the tone for the day is great, and then afternoon snack. Don't go into dinner too hungry, and then pay attention to your water intake. Those three things for people who travel frequently can make a world of difference.
It occurs to me that maybe not everyone who's reading is familiar with MetPro and how we do things. I want to give a little bit of information. The MetPro Concierge Coaching provides you with a fully integrated platform to explore your potential with a trained specialist like Megan. She works with you directly to achieve specific goals, such as fat loss or athletic performance. We work with executives, professional athletes, the entertainment industry, and anyone ready to transform, all the people you talked about.
Using the MetPro platform lets our coaches gather a complete picture of your metabolic rate, responsiveness, and lifestyle to craft and update your meal plan with precision and never guesswork. If you are busy and you travel or you simply struggle to find time to reach your wellness goals, our experts will support you with fully personalized times based on years of research and body transformation experiences.
Our clients receive one-on-one coaching that includes baseline testing and a completely tailored meal plan, a meal-by-meal game plan, a detailed analysis of how your metabolism is responding, a comprehensive explanation of each program adjustment and what you can expect next, as well as a comprehensive exercise plan that takes your goals, body type and access to equipment into consideration.
If you are looking for calorie counting that's simple or a generalized online course, MetPro Concierge is not for you but if you are tired of gimmicks and willing to shop and prepare your meals, then our one-on-one experts are ready to help you master your metabolism and transform. Going from that into now, we are going to talk about family. What if you are traveling with your family and staying at a resort it does have a kitchen? How is this going to change things? Maybe it is Disney World, and we are staying for a week.
Let's use that. You are in Disney World. You are staying for a week, out and about, in and out. You've got kids hanging all over the place. You've got cotton candy on your face, caramel corn, and ice cream. This one, specifically, might be a time where you go, “I'm going to throw all caution to the wind.” Let me preface that big time with where are you at. Make sure your concierge coach might know this about you because they are going to do some different things with you leading up to this trip that is going to matter on how this trip goes.
Number two, decide beforehand because you are going to be able to go, “I'm going to feel good about this. That is my goal.” Be okay with it. Know that, “When I get home, I'm going to have some work to do.” If you are four weeks out from running your marathon, this is not the right time to choose to do that. Maybe that trip falls like that. Some have to look a little bit different. That's what I mean by pre-plan. You have to think about this before you didn't do it. Otherwise, that cotton candy is calling your name when you are standing in that two-hour line. It is going to be hard to say no.
Let's go back. Let's say this is a trip where you are like, “No. We do this fairly frequently. I need to stay on track a little bit.” Pre-plan but the biggest thing when you get there is grocery shop or at least do grocery delivery. This is easy. Let's say you don't want to cart everybody to the grocery store. No problem. Get some sort of grocery delivery, so you have some fresh fruit, some nuts, a breakfast option, and then maybe something small for lunch.
I'm not saying, “Go get your sweet potatoes, chop them up, put them in the oven, roast some.” That is not going to work. If you think you can do that, maybe that's something where you've got a condo at the beach, you go there pretty frequently, then that's your prep. When you are on the go, you need to have simple probable portable items. Grocery shop, do that.
The next thing is to choose the two meals that you want to eat yourself as supposed to somebody who's staying on plan. You've got your snacks figured out because you've got that fruit and nuts. You are going to have breakfast. Let's say your family doesn't get up until 9:00 but you are up at 7:00. Have an option at the hotel so that you can kick off your day right away with your breakfast.
There's one meal. If you are going to splurge at lunch because you are going to be over by big thunder mountain and have that big old corn dog there, decides to do that but then have a game plan for your dinner of, “We are going to go sit somewhere at dinner time so that I can order a decent meal. We are going to come back to the room and have a decent meal. We are going to order takeout from somewhere where I can order more properly.” You might choose to flip-flop those things the next day but choose two meals a day that you can eat where you feel like, “I'm staying on plan.” With our business travelers, if you can, make lunch your biggest meal, not dinner.
I'm assuming that's because you are going to have all of those calories, and you wanted time to burn them off.
You want a moment to let your body. You don't want to go straight to sleep on that. We have this backward, frankly, in my opinion. Everybody sits down for their largest meal of the day at 7:00 or 7: 30, and then they want to go to bed at night. Let's shift that a little bit. Make lunch that big meal or that big carby burrito that you love to have. All this talk of all these bad foods.
If you are traveling, sometimes alcohol comes into play. What then do we do?
This is individual, and where it meets everybody is tricky. This is something to think through. Are you traveling with your best friends from home who you typically have a social hour with once a week or probably every night that's sneaking in there? If you've set your mind to it, you are not going to do that, and that's one of your goals for the trip, then stick with that. Choose the nights you are going to drink. A game plan, big deal. You can choose things that are less impactful. What I will say about that is maybe you order tequila and lime on the rocks, and that's it or maybe the next night, you are at an Italian place, so you are having that glass of wine.
That's a heavier hitter than maybe those hard alcohols. Maybe choosing to do the wine or the beer a little bit less frequently and choosing something a little bit lighter on the other evenings. This is going to be so individualized in what you feel makes you successful. It might be the fact that when you are home, you are drinking wine 2 or 3 nights a week, then maybe drinking wine 3 or 4 nights on vacation is an okay thing for you. It's going to depend on you and how you feel like your body reacts to those things. It's going to pop in there. Have a game plan because if you weren't at Disney World, you are going to have alcohol at the end of the day.
Especially if you go over to EPCOT, how do you go to EPCOT and walk the world and not have a beer?
You got to think ahead. If you know you are doing that, then make sure you are not doing something else or maybe you've skipped it the night before, or maybe you stuck to your meal plan that day before because you knew that the next day was going to be a thing. That's forward-thinking. That's planning.
That all sounds great but what about exercise? How are we doing this? If you are going to Disney World, there's a lot of walking but it's not like your heart rate is up. You are ambling. What are we doing with exercise when we're on vacation and obviously, vacation besides Disney World too?
I mentioned a couple of things. Let's say it's not Disney World. Let's say you are in Hawaii. The kids are going to surf during the day. You and your wife are going to sit on the lounge chairs and read books all day. You probably should get some movement. If you are up before the family, go and get that done. If it's something where you are like, “I'm sleeping in every day, so are they. We are starting our days late.” Maybe decide to get some bodyweight stuff done on the beach. Your MetPro app has great options for that. Trying to be cognizant of moving each day. If you are somebody who is not walking at Disney World, it is going to be above, and beyond your typical daily output, then that's probably enough for the day.
If you are somebody who, “I'm going to get 20,000 steps today. I'm not going to get my heart rate up. What does that look like for me?” That individual assessment and pre-planning, “How and where am I going to fit that in?” Even sometimes down to, “What am I going to do? Where are those home and travel workouts so that it's not like, ‘Quick. I'm up twenty minutes before the family. Now, I finally found something, and I have four minutes before everybody wakes up. I don't have time?’” Understanding where are you going to fit it and what you are going to do can be a big piece of that.
What if you said you made a lot of promises to yourself but when you got there, you didn't stay on plan. You give back. You've gained 10 pounds. I can do some damage in a week.
This is my big thing. Before you leave, make sure you've got some shelf-stable items at home for when you get home. This goes for my business travelers too because, let's say, you get home Sunday night at 11:00 PM. Kids have school the next morning at 8:00 AM. You got to get to the office, “I'm not going to grocery shop. All my offers for lunch are hotdogs and nachos.” You need to have something at home where you can go, “Shelf into my lunch pail and run out the door. I don't have time to get to the grocery store.” You might need to do that for 2 or 3 days. That is okay. What are those things?
Number one, you can ask your MetPro coach. If you are a MetPro client, we have a lot of options but I will name a couple here. This could be oatmeal for breakfast or eggs. Unless you are gone for a month plus, those eggs are probably fine. This for lunchtime could mean rice cakes, an apple, or even some deli meat that may be stayed fine or a protein shake if that's all you got.
Frozen fruit is another great one to keep. Shelf-stable items that are always going to be there, nuts so that when you get home, you grab them, and you don't have to say, “I couldn't get to the grocery store.” I disliked that one myself. When a client tells me, I'm like, “We have talked about this. You are supposed to have things on your shelf, so when you get home,” that is not an excuse for my clients and me. They know.
You must have the things at home for when you arrive home. That's a big deal with any sort of travel. I am constant. I am always making sure that I have stuff on my shelf at home. Sometimes I walk in, and I'm like, “My kid ate my prep meal. Awesome. I have nothing. I am out of veggies. No, I got this. I got some frozen veggies.” Those shelf-stable items are good for all kinds of things.
That's important because when you get back from vacation, you are still in a vacation mindset. Now you have the stress of the world. The vacation mode is over, and it's hard to make this happen.
It's depressing a little bit.
The last thing you need is the pressure of, “I got to hurry up and get to the grocery store.” Be prepared. This is my favorite suggestion out of all of them because when you get back, and you want to get back on plan, you are going to fail if you are not prepared, and then you are going to feel crappy about yourself in a few days.
It's going to continue because you are going to get on the scale. You are 10 pounds heavier. You are like, “I have no way to eat well today,” that stinks, then it's like, “Tomorrow it's this crazy because I missed a week of life and the next day. Now I'm 3 or 4 days off plan, further than my vacation.” Nothing feels worse than that. It's hard when you've got a broken routine within your routine to try and get that back. Pre-planning, think about it. You know you are leaving. Make sure you've got some things on the shelf for when you get home.
If you do go, and let's say you want to do a mix of being mindful and being healthy but you still want to be in that vacation mindset. I'm talking about family travelers but you just want to relax. You don't want to have to think about everything. Is there a way to find that balance between those two things?
That can be important, especially if you have family members or a spouse who is like, “You are annoying. Ease up a little bit. I'm super type-A. I don't do things halfway.” I get that sometimes. It's okay. You can eat. It's like, “No, I can't.” Yes, you can. That's pre-planning and figuring out. A couple of things I always say is to have breakfast and afternoon snacks. Don't miss those two up. This might look like, “I'm having breakfast at 7:00 AM but then we are all going to brunch at 9:00 or 10:00.”It’s okay. Go and enjoy brunch. Do what you do but I'm not waiting three hours after I wake up to then eat because you are going to go to brunch starving, and it's not going to go good.
Planning those things that are not going to affect others during that time can be helpful, and being able to ease up at other times. Having that conversation with yourself about goal setting before you go is such a big thing of, “I'm going to have two meals a day on plan. I am going to do this even if at lunch, I have that massive burrito, and it's 4:00, and it's time for my snack.” It's okay. Get your snack because if you wait, you are still going to be hungry at dinner because your blood sugars blew.
That's important because I feel like the intuition that people have, including myself, is to skip the snack. You had this amazingly big lunch. You are saying, do not skip the snack even if you feel full. Eat it anyway.
That's my rule of thumb because everybody at your party with family travel probably ate that big old meal with you. Maybe that happened at noon. Everybody still at 7:00 is going to be like, “I'm full,” but you are on MetPro. You have been eating five times a day. Now to go just to 2 or 3, you are bound to go into dinner a little bit hungrier than others, and your blood sugar is going to have plummeted.
Making a good decision by 7:00 or 8:00, the example I gave you is seven hours later. It's too long, regardless. Having an option, even if it's got little, you are carrying applesauce pouches, I know you are. Even if it is an applesauce pouch and 1-ounce of already pre-portioned nuts by Trader Joe's, keep those in the bottom of something, grab it and have it at 4:00 or 5:00, and then have your dinner meal. That's okay.
It's important to say those things are also TSA-approved. You can take that on the plane with you. If you are less than 3 ounces of liquid, which the applesauce usually is those little packets that you squeeze, that's easy to take with you.
If they are 3.2 or 4.2 ounces and you are traveling with a kid, tell TSA, “It’s for the baby. Don't take it from me.” I had a TSA agent asked me at Christmas time, “Do you need twelve of these?” I was like, “I sure do. It's for the baby.” He was like, “Okay.” I'm thinking in my head, “That's for me and my husband. Baby is not having that. She's not even eating that yet. He doesn't know.” Anything is for the baby when it's over that amount.
These are a lot of good tips for travel. Is there anything that we've missed that you want to make sure people know about that when they are traveling, they thought through?
I know I've missed something, missed an occasion, and not covered off on something. The biggest thing I would say is to choose your goals before you go, set them, set your intentions, think hard about them and then do your best to execute them. If you get home and you haven't been able to do that, stop beating yourself up about it, let it go, and get back on track because the worst thing you are going to do for yourself is to continue to beat yourself up about what happened on that trip and not get a new footing and get back on track because now you are going to damage your progress ongoing. Get over it. Get back up. Get back to it.
Megan, thank you so much for your time. Can you give people your email address to reach out to if they have any questions?
I'm Megan@MetPro.co.
Readers, that is all. You can find all The MetPro Method episodes anywhere you get podcasts or MetPro.co/podcasts. Please be sure to follow the show, rate, and review that lets other people know what they can expect from the show. You can also learn more about MetPro at MetPro.co. I will be back with another episode. Until then, remember consistency is key.
