How to Have a Guilt-Free Vacation WITHOUT Undoing Your Hard Work

Micheala Barsotti:

Hey, everyone. Welcome back to another episode of the 5% Way Podcast. Paul and I are so happy that you’re here and we’re so very grateful that you choose to listen to us each week. If you happen to be new here, welcome. We hope you’ll stick around and listen to us more. And as always, if you find this episode valuable, make sure that you share it with a friend.

This really helps us towards our goal of reaching more people and spreading valuable information to help all of you achieve true transformation from the inside out so that you can show up as your best self. And before we dive in today, I want to take a quick moment and share some positives that we’re celebrating, specifically within the community. And that is that today marks one year since the start of the 5% community. Paul, how crazy.

Paul Salter:

So crazy, yeah. I just dropped a little video in our community, celebrating and announcing the news because most people, obviously weren’t as aware as you and I were. But it’s been quite a fun, interesting, and challenging journey to say the least. And if you told me this is where we would be 12 months ago, I probably would not have believed you and I’m sure that you probably feel the same way of like 14 months ago when you and I started talking about this, if you thought this is where you would be a year later, you would be, “Yeah, right. That is not even close to being true.”

But it’s just that been incredible and I’m so grateful for you and all of your support and belief in me and sharing of our collective mission and value. And then of course, incredibly grateful for every single one of our members from the newest who… The last five that just joined in the last week to the first 27 that took a chance on you and I in our initial cohort. Just incredibly grateful for the love, support, positivity, and energy each one of them is brought in for their own transformation that they’ve had.

Micheala Barsotti:

Yeah. And I just want to quickly share, because one of those first 27 members that came in initially, Nicole, she just commented something that was just so powerful, and I think it would just be so great it to share. So you obviously posted your video, just thanking everybody for being here and just recapping the past year. And her response was, “You and this community have literally changed my life in the most positive way imaginable. I’ve experienced every emoji this past year and grew from each one. This stop was my last ditch effort to lose the weight and little did I know that weight loss was the most minor positive when you stack up all the takeaways. Who knew? Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. A hundred times over”

Paul Salter:

Incredible.

Micheala Barsotti:

So empowerful. Yeah.

Paul Salter:

Yeah. And I’ll shout out, Tony real quick. So Tony was a one-on-one climb of mine, many years ago. Then he was a customer of mine, I created a six month done for you blueprint form. And he just couldn’t get enough of me that he was the very first person to sign up for the 5% community, to hand over his money and say, “I believe in you,” and he was the first one that started the domino effect to where we are, 12 months later, just about to eclipse the 100 member mark, which is just simply phenomenal. So kudos to you Tony, we sincerely appreciate you and all that you bring to the community.

Micheala Barsotti:

Definitely. Yeah. Any other shout out to wins, you want to talk about before we dive in today?

Paul Salter:

Not a win, but it’s a win if you do this my fellow listener. On Saturday, March 12th, just 48 hours from now, Micheala and I are hosting our first live training, teaching you how to build your own sustainable nutrition plan so that you can confidently and effortly eat with ease to feel, look, and be your best and it’s at 10:00 AM Eastern Time. We’re going to send you a bunch of resources, cheat sheets, blank templates, so that by the end of this live training, which is complete with Q&A with Micheala and myself, you’ll literally have your own sustainable nutrition plan that uses the same methodology and approach that both Micheala and I have used to serve thousands and thousands of people over the years.

And we are legitimately capping this live training, it’s our first one and we want to make sure that we can cater to every single person in attendance in some form of a one-on-one capacity. So we do have a couple spots left and would love to see you there. So we’ll drop the link to register and reserve your seat in the show notes. And remember it is Saturday, March 12th, in 48 hours, depending on when you’re listening to this, at 10:00 AM Eastern.

Micheala Barsotti:

Cool. All right. Well, let’s dive into today’s topic because today we are talking all about navigating nutrition while on vacation. And I’m really excited for today because this is a big one. For so many of us, the stress of eating on vacation can honestly just take away the joy of the trip itself and that sucks. This is something that I struggled with hard for years because I was so caught up in diet culture and the toxic cycle of restriction, just denying myself of food, and then when I would get in these situations like vacation, where I was presented with all the options in front of me, I would completely overdo it.

And then, I would use exercise to try to compensate for that and cue that cycle would just keep going on and on. And I mean like, one, that’s no way to live, but two, when we talk about vacations and enjoying ourself and having fun, I don’t think anything about that cycle is fun, right? It’s just defeating. And so I’m really happy that those days are behind me, but I know for so many of you out there that this is the reality for you. And so, I want you to know that it takes time. It’s this constant process of being able to slowly detach yourself from all this nonsense that diet culture has drilled in us and we’ve been accustomed to believing for years.

But a lot of it comes down to what your method is in how you approach these holiday or these vacations. And I think that so much of it is stemmed from the fear of losing progress. We’re scared that during this week, whatever decision we make, we might ruin all of our hard progress that even working towards leading up to this point. Paul, can you relate that? Have you struggled with this?

Paul Salter:

Oh, a thousand percent. I still remember some of my early vacations when I was… I’d just kind of gotten over the body building bug. I was no longer competing, when I was stuck between a rock and a hard place, sometimes married to my fitness palace, faithful as ever, other times off the freaking deep end and vacation for me for the longest time seemed to be a trigger point, in that as soon as I got into the vacation setting, I either had two margaritas and chips and guac in my hand in a matter of minutes, or I was eating nothing but chicken, brown rice and broccoli.

It was completely an overwhelming sense of that all or nothing mindset meant, so many of us can relate to. And just like you said, Micheala, it took me just years of trial and error and that’s why I’ve been so excited for this episode, in particular, because between the two of us, we are going to share a lot of the things we’ve learned to help accelerate your own tract to getting to where Micheala and I are now from the mindset perspective and the emotional perspective so that you can save yourself some of the grief and heartache that we both went through.

Micheala Barsotti:

Yeah. I would say, I think for me, where I really realized how much transformation I’ve had in my own relationship with food and my mindset around, whether it be indulging, or traveling, or just how I navigate all of that was last year when I went to Mexico. And it was just when I got home, that’s when it clicked for me. It was like how I felt the day I got home, I had never felt like that before. I didn’t have regret, I didn’t feel like I needed to jump on, start a diet or a cleanse the next day. I just simply like, got back to it.

I had a blast on my trip and I never woke up one day feeling regretful of a decision I made the day before or guilty of eating something. So it’s just like, that was my light bulb moment that I’m like, “I have made so much progress with my own relationship with food.” And it’s just paid off because now I can truly go on vacation and enjoy the heck out of it.

Paul Salter:

And you just did that. So, yeah.

Micheala Barsotti:

And I just did it. So speaking on that, this is really fitting because I just got back from Mexico two days ago and the trip was pretty similar. I mean, I had a blast and if you know me and you know my lifestyle, when I go on vacation now, I mean, I’m definitely, I indulge a lot more than I do on a as you should on vacation. But I drink more, I eat foods that are different, but yet I also still keep some routine and some boundaries in place so that I am feeling really good. And that’s what I want to talk about today, because I do think it’s that balance of enjoying the heck out of the time that you have, but then also you still need to have some structure in place if you want to feel your best. You can’t just 110% say, “F it,” or you can, but you’re probably going to come home feeling regretful.

Paul Salter:

Yeah. There’s a difference between intentionally indulging, free of guilt and regret and as we like to say, “Eating like an asshole.” And although eating like an asshole can be fun in the moment, if you’re doing that every single meal or day on vacation, you don’t really leave vacation truly feeling recharged and refreshed like you’d hoped, you feel, if it’s not guilt and regret, it’s literally sluggish and absolute dog shit, because you did eat that way for so long. And yeah, I’m excited to really highlight the importance of the subtle, yet significant role that routine and structure plays as we navigate these wonderful periods of our lives.

Micheala Barsotti:

Yeah. I was thinking about it too. I’m going back to the money analogy we always use. It’s, when you go on vacation, sure, it’s vacation you might splurge a little bit more, but you’re not just throw when the dollar’s around not caring at all. I’m sure you’re… I mean like David and I are still very mindful about how we spend our money on vacation, so when we approach our nutrition, why is that any different? Why do we go in with the F it mindset? Like, “Oh, we can just do whatever the heck we want.” Because at the end of the day, you still have a budget and if you go over that too much, you’re going to have consequences when you come home, or even just the next day when you wake up.

Paul Salter:

I love that. Because now it brings me back to my parents, when vacationed, they would always take out cash for the vacation. So they had a set amount and of course it was more than they spend at home in a week, but they still had some type of structure, or guideline, or framework that they used to navigate through, so they could expend and intentionally indulge, and spend their money how they see fit. But they had to still be a little bit mindful so that they didn’t literally burn through all their money on day two of the seven day vacation, et cetera.

Micheala Barsotti:

100%, yeah. And it’s the same approach with nutrition, you still have to have some kind of a plan.

Paul Salter:

Yeah. Micheala and I will be doing financial planning calls after this podcast now. Okay.

Micheala Barsotti:

Yeah. But ultimately the choice is yours of how you want to navigate your nutrition on vacation. Everybody takes or people can take different approaches, that’s totally up to you. You can go in with that full F it mode, but you might not love the way you feel afterwards. You could be 100% on track and more on the restrictive side, but I don’t think that’s going to make you happy either. So it’s kind of finding, I would recommend somewhere in between where again, you still have those boundaries in place, but you’re also still just enjoying the heck out of the moments.

Paul Salter:

Absolutely.

Micheala Barsotti:

Yeah. So I think and as you said, like it’s been a lot of trial and error, this was not something for me where I just went on vacation one time and boom, I had it all figured out. I spent many vacations where I was trying to figure out what works for me, but I have really found what works. And what I found is that my goal is to be nourished and satisfied on vacation. So these three simple strategies that I keep top of mind are what really helped me achieve feeling this way and so I want to kind of just dive into them. The first one being adding value wherever you can. This is a cool mindset shift because most of the time we go into vacations in that panic mode, thinking about what we can’t do, what we shouldn’t do, what we need to avoid.

Whereas instead, rather than thinking about what you shouldn’t have, think of like how you can bring value to your day. So maybe you’re focusing on a high protein meal, maybe one of your meals is going to have extra vegetables, you’re going to do one salad a day, that’s always one for me. Water, this is one that we can pretty much, we always have access to water, so I try to make it a goal that first thing in the morning, I get a good chunk of water in. Because especially like the trip I just had in Mexico, I drank way more tequila the rest of the day than I did water. So just trying my best to make it a point to get in that water first thing in the morning. I still didn’t hit my water goal every day, but it was just like, I started my day off with some and I tried to get it in and make it a focus where I can.

And for me on vacation, breakfast is like my quality meal always. And this might not be for everybody, but I’m not a big, I don’t really care to have pancakes or waffles or all those things. I know, [inaudible 00:13:24] are huge, but that’s just not me. And so breakfast is my meal where I love to have breakfast, but I can keep it really simple and light. And I like to, because I feel more energized going into the rest of the day. And so I really put emphasis on a higher protein and vegetable meal. And then my other two meals are a little bit more like, “Whatever happens, happens.” I’m just curious, what’s your take on that? I know you’re more of a breakfast guy, aren’t you?

Paul Salter:

Yeah. So it’s so interesting into here Because we are completely opposite. So I think this does an excellent job highlighting that there’s no wrong way to approach vacation. What you need to have is just clarity on how you want to structure your day and how you want to feel so you can structure it appropriately. So I am the opposite, my dream day vacation when I’m completely disconnected from email and social is copious amounts of coffee in the morning, I’ll chill and I’ll unwind, I like to read a lot and then I’ll go get my workout in.

And then my post workout meal is breakfast and I am tearing breakfast up. I want the pancakes, the French toast, the donuts. I don’t want to see a vegetable. I’m going to still have my protein, but I want sugary, Uber, sweet goodness. And then the rest of the day I can get by on a protein shake in the afternoon and then a nice savory dinner with dessert, so I can do the steak or seafood and a little bit of carbs and vegetables, but breakfast, no, there’s, I’m not holding back whatsoever.

Micheala Barsotti:

So funny. Yeah. I mean, whatever works for you and that is the beauty of it, is that you choose what meal you want to be a little bit more quality, if you can and then what ones are going to be just food for the soul.

Paul Salter:

Food for the soul. I like that.

Micheala Barsotti:

The second one is honoring your body signals. So this is really important and sounds simple, but it is always easy to do, especially when we have all these tempting foods in front of us. But being able to check in with yourself for fullness and satisfaction during meals is huge. We use the hunger scale a lot. We talk about that within the 5%, even just on a scale of one to 10, trying to get yourself to more of a seven. When you finish a meal, you shouldn’t be like, “Oh, my God, I need to go lie down.” But you also shouldn’t feel like your eyeballs are searching for more food. We want to find that perfect content.

And I found myself a lot in Mexico where… so we stayed in an all inclusive and the meals were really small, so we got a ton of meals and my fiance eats a lot, so I ordered just random things that sounded good and I knew he would just eat the rest of it, but there were a lot of food in front of us at all times. And so I found myself trying to consciously remind myself to like, “Put the fork down for a second, just take a breather, check in where am I at?” You know?

Paul Salter:

Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Micheala Barsotti:

And also reminding myself that tomorrow, I can have more of these foods again and the next day too. And so because my brain was always more trained for so long in that scarcity mindset, I have to be extremely careful in these situations to make sure that I am checking in with myself and not falling back into old patterns because it’s very easy to do. Yeah. And then, I just want to make a little plug here too with the alcohol piece, because I know this is going to be very different for everybody of how they navigate it.

When I go on vacation, I love to like drink and have fun, don’t get me wrong, but we know that too much alcohol is going to leave you two, one feeling less than your best the next day, which is probably going to leave you to not making the best decisions all day long. I don’t know, anytime that I’ve drank too much alcohol where the next day I’m like wanting a salad. But so it’s just, it can be a slippery slope if you’re trying to maintain control over your week long vacation. And like the very first couple of days you go guns blazing with the alcohol. So for myself, again, like I said, I do love to enjoy, I love tequila, but I also try to just know my limit and I also try to mix in waters.

And then my last tip is avoiding the really sugary drinks, as tempting as they are it’s, those are not going to leave you feeling good, they’re higher calorie. And there are ways around it, I brought crystal light packets and electrolyte packets with me, so I did tequila, soda water, and would mix that with either of those two and they tasted very good. I had people every day asking me like, “What’s in your drink? I didn’t see that one.” I’m like, “Yes. Tequila special. But it works and it’s really good and it’s just a way that you can still enjoy yourself, have drink, but not have pack on all those extra calories and hang over with it.

Paul Salter:

Yeah. I’ll say my little nuggets here is I do the same thing, whether it’s branched-chain amino acids and electrolytes or Gatorade Zero, something always rehydrating at the end of the day, but I am very partial to the day drinks. So I’ll get my drink on earlier in the day so that I can still get a great night sleep, wake up refreshed, have my coffee time, get a great workout in, and then just simply hit repeat. So again, two different ways, all of them work, you got to find your sweet spot. And again goes back to gaining clarity on, how do you want to feel? Which gives you the clarity and awareness to implement the appropriate action steps to make that a reality.

Micheala Barsotti:

Yeah. I can’t believe I missed that because that’s actually like David and I to a T. We love to like drink enough fun during the day, but we love to be in bed by our normal times, so we’ll just like always peace out or slowly stop drinking and get home because it is so important for me to wake up the next morning and feel good on vacation.

Paul Salter:

Yeah. I think we’re both old souls in that regard-

Micheala Barsotti:

Ye. Definitely-

Paul Salter:

… times early bedtimes.

Micheala Barsotti:

… need that. And then number three is, chose one satisfying food daily and this could be a whole conversation in itself. But what I mean by this one is like, when you restrict now, you can think you’re going to end-up binging later. So if you allow yourself to have the food that you’re craving, you’re much more likely to enjoy your time, eat the food that you want to have, and then you move on. But if you are trying to be “good”, but really restrict yourself that food is going to be top of mind and what’s going to happen when you do finally get your hands on it? You’re going to go white overboard.

So going back to the choosing one satisfying food, making sure every day like, “What are you indulging in?” I loved to have… I had dessert every single night on vacation last week, it was really good. I tried something new. I don’t have dessert often on a normal week, so I just, when I go on vacation, I like to have desserts. But yeah, and so it for you, Paul, you just mentioned like the breakfast thing, that’s your go-to meal, right?

Paul Salter:

Yeah. A hundred percent and everything’s sweet, I need maple syrup on it and yeah, I’m all satisfied.

Micheala Barsotti:

Yeah. I’m definitely, “Give me all the chocolate desserts and also dinner.” I just love to have, I’m definitely a dinner person. I feel like I love to have like the fun meals probably because I’m not much of a cook myself and I do keep things so simple that it’s fun to when I’m on vacation experiments.

Paul Salter:

Yes. I agree with that.

Micheala Barsotti:

And one point I just want to make here is differentiating vacation and travel because I have this conversation even with one-on-one clients a lot who do travel often for work, but not all travel means vacation mode or at least it shouldn’t. So for example, I’m from Massachusetts. I go home often throughout the year for three to four days, whatever it might be to visit my family. And when I go home most of the time unless it’s a specific occasion that I’m going home for or event, I pretty much stay on track with what I do. I call my mom ahead of time or I go to the store right when we get there and I get just some of my staple food items and I generally keep things the same, I try to stay on track.

My meals choices might be slightly different, but I still, I don’t go in with that mindset of like, “I’m going to eat dessert every single night and I’m going to have this big indulging meal every day,” because it’s not vacation it’s just kind of like it’s travel. And I think that’s important because depending on the person that you are, if you’re somebody who travels a lot and you treat every single travel like vacation, that’s stuff that could hinder your progress.

Paul Salter:

Absolutely. And I think you hit the nail on the head with like, vacation is very much a mindset. So every time you travel, if you’re in that mindset, you are going to find yourself in a counterproductive situation more often than not. And on that note too, I just wanted to share a couple mindset related aha moments, if you will, that I’ve accumulated over the years that have helped me better find that balance so to speak. And first and foremost, don’t have diet during vacation. I mean, unless you are dieting for some type of meter competition that is life changing, world record break, just don’t do it, don’t do it.

Every single one of my clients, our 5% community and fundamentals program members stops dieting at least a minimum of 10 days before vacation, but preferably two weeks so that we have time to bring food up. So they literally have nutritional wiggle room, so to speak to enjoy themselves without blowing their caloric bank. And it just doesn’t do yourself any favors when you’re sitting here in this scarcity mindset. I mean, Micheala just led an outstanding call in the 5% community on just how much the scarcity mindset plagues us compared to an abundance mindset. And going into vacation, trying to diet is just a lose-lose situation, nobody wins you’re extra cranky and hangry, everyone feels your negative energy and probably doesn’t want to be around you.

So again, no one wins do not diet during vacation. I have done it. I regret it. You always on top of that want to focus making memories rather than overmanaging and micromanaging rather your macros and nutrition, so keep that in mind. And then, second to that, one of the leading points that Micheala shared to kick this off is, you’re not going to undo all of your progress in a week. One week, one day, one meal, those things do not define you in the grand scheme of things.

If anything, if you do gain the clarity on how you want to feel and you find your own balance, that leaves you feeling great, energized, however it may be, you’re going to come back from vacation psychologically, and emotionally, and physiologically reinvigorated, rejuvenated, and ready to tackle your goals, dial in your consistency that much more because you’ve literally had some time to recharge your batteries.

Micheala Barsotti:

Definitely. Yeah, it really is all about your mindset. I’m curious. We talk a lot in the 5% about daily non-negotiables, so when you go on vacation, your typical daily non-negotiables do those change up. What are yours?

Paul Salter:

Coffee. No. Well, definitely yes and no. Coffee, the same thing in the morning, I chug my 20 ounce shaker bottle or 24 ounce shaker bottle of water to start my day, some form of movements. So not every day is a hotel gym workout, it might be, if it’s just a beach day, I’m going to at least go on a 30 minute walk and get the ocean a ton. So I would say daily water to start the day, my movement, and then protein every single time I eat is non-negotiable and then either a big ass salad or big ass plate of vegetables at one of the meals.

Micheala Barsotti:

So we’re pretty much the same.

Paul Salter:

Yeah.

Micheala Barsotti:

The same. Yes. Absolutely. But I think that’s so important is going into your vacations or your trips and having those goals for your day or your non-negotiables just because no matter how the rest of your day goes, even if you have ice-cream for every other meal, you won the day in my opinion, if you did those couple of things. And so that’s bringing a little bit of structure into your day. And so it’s allowing you to still enjoy the hack out of your time, but you’re still checking the boxes of like certain things that are going to help you feel your best and likely help you make better decisions without you even trying to, because you feel good. And when we feel good, we make better decisions.

Paul Salter:

Absolutely. And I’ll leave the listeners with one more pro tip that’s truly a game changer, because if you are someone who’s very much in an intimate relationship with your food choices and feel really much in control and confident, you’re going to want to bring the level of structure that Micheala and I talked about to vacation while still mindfully and intentionally indulging. And one of the easiest ways to have the best of both worlds is to take your current number of the times you eat per day and reduce it by one.

So if you normally eat four times per day, make it a goal to eat three times per day, because if you still loosely have your total daily portion goals in mind, distributing them across three meals rather than four, means more wiggle room, bigger portions per meal, so now we get that psychological satiation box checked, which is incredibly valuable on vacation. And to be candid, the reason I eat three times per day now after years and years of eating five, if not six times per day, is because of the wiggle room, the psychological satiation I get from it.

So it’s kind of like I’ve taken these vacation principles and infused them into the other 95% of my life as well, because they’re just rooted in individualization, simplicity, and flexibility, which is how both Micheala and I build every single individual blueprint that we create.

Micheala Barsotti:

Yeah. That’s a really good tip. And the last thing I just want to say is making sure and reminding you to give yourself some grace and some space to mess up if you will, because we’re not perfect humans. And if your somebody who was like me in my past of dealing with a lot of restriction or an unhealthy relationship with food, overeating on occasion is just, it happens like you just, you move on. But so often we beat ourselves up and then in that moment we self-sabotage and then we continue to do it again and again. I can remember one night specifically, it was actually the first night we went out for an Italian on my most recent trip last week and we didn’t eat until 8:30 at night. I am a 4:30 dinner person and then my last meal’s at like 6:30.

So you can imagine how hangry I was by the time I got to dinner. I will say I bring protein powder with me always, so I did have a protein shake, but still it was, I was hungry. And so I definitely ate a little too much at the table and then will have [inaudible 00:28:12] dinner [inaudible 00:28:12]. I left and I’m like, “I’m full tonight.” But I kind of rather than beating myself up, like I would’ve in the past, I remembered that the next night when I was eating and it allowed me to pause more and relax. So it was more rather than beating myself up for something that I didn’t like that I did, I learned from it and then I just didn’t let it happen again the next night.

Paul Salter:

Yeah. [inaudible 00:28:34].

Micheala Barsotti:

Yeah. All right. You guys, well, I hope that you found this episode valuable today. I think we have a lot of good nuggets that we shared in here. And as always, we thank you so much for listening today. If you did find this episode valuable, we would very much appreciate it, if you shared it with a friend who might find it valuable as well. And if you have not already, don’t forget to us a genuine review and rating on Apple Podcasts or whatever it is that you listen to this. And other than that, we will see you next week.