episode 239: the truth about what i ate on vacation
I just got back from 10 days in Switzerland and Italy—and let’s just say this was not a “protein and veggies” kind of trip.
Think:
Jet lag messing with my hunger
Chocolate for “dinner” (more than once)
Food noise cranking way up
Learning to roll with tiny portions, weird mealtimes, and zero snacks
Saying yes to gelato at 3 p.m. because it was the values-aligned choice
This isn’t about “staying on track” while traveling. It’s about using skills when routines fall apart—and knowing the difference between actually being “off” and just being human.
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239
[00:00:00] Hello. Hello friends. Good morning or good afternoon or good evening or whenever it is that you are listening to this. Um, this episode is coming out on Monday, August 11th, and I have just gotten back, um, from our family vacation to Europe. We were in Switzerland and then Italy for about like nine, 10 days on a family trip with my parents.
And it was awesome. Uh, we packed a lot in, we did a lot. This was a very active, busy trip. We only had one day where we had nothing planned. Um, I'm not sure I'd recommend that again. Um, but what I wanted to talk about today, which I mentioned on, um, Instagram was talking about eating on vacation. I did a similar episode to this three years ago after our trip to Greece.
I can't believe it was three years ago. And I remember talking a lot about skills, right? That I use the same skills, but the outcome of those skills, the choices I make as a result of using those skills is sometimes different on vacation or at [00:01:00] parties or on weekends or in various situations. But the process.
Is usually the same. Um, and that is, that is still true for this. And so I'm not gonna kind of talk about that same thing again. I will link that episode, um, in the show notes. SI wanted to talk about a little bit more specifically some things that came up for me that I thought were interesting. And I'm gonna be super honest and I'm gonna share some things that are gonna surprise you, um, that you are not gonna expect me to say.
And, but this is me being honest, right? Me coming on here and saying like, oh, like everything was perfect and wonderful and I ate all my protein and did all these things. Like, that's bullshit. That's not what happened at all. Um, I probably ate the least amount of protein over those 10 days that I've eaten in the last couple of years.
Um, for a lot of different reasons. I'm like rearranging my desk right now. I'm not sure why I'm feeling the need to do this as I am, uh, recording this podcast. So I'll kind of like go maybe like through the trip a little bit, um, chronologically it just, it's what makes sense in my head to do it. [00:02:00] So we flew overnight.
It's pretty much how you always get to Europe is you fly overnight and we arrived, um, you know, early in the morning on a Saturday and. During the day on that Saturday, we went out, we went and did like a chocolate tasting tour in Geneva, which was really cool. I really enjoyed it. And at a certain point, like we got back to the hotel and there like wasn't, at first I wasn't hungry, but then I got hungry and we were in the room and there was just all the chocolate in the room and so I just started eating it.
I was hungry and there was nothing else available. Right. So the interesting thing I was noticing is when. You get hungry and there isn't food available that's going to fill hunger, but there's other stuff available. You're going to eat it and you're going to eat a lot of it, and it feels shitty. Right?
This was like really good, high quality chocolate, and I was eating a lot of it. 'cause I was really hungry. I, I knew what I was doing. I saw myself doing it. I wasn't, I was getting pissed off. [00:03:00] I was getting annoyed. I kept trying to stop and I would wait like five minutes and then I'd still be hungry and I'd be like, okay, well I'll just have like another bite.
Um, and it was frustrating because what I, what I noticed over this trip is my appetite was definitely. Not off, but I was getting hungry at weird times, at kind of inconvenient times. And I'm sure it had something to do with the jet lag. Um, I don't remember experiencing that in Greece. Um, and I don't remember experiencing it.
I went to Israel for 40 days, like a year and a half ago. It was a really, really short trip. So it's like the jet lag, it was like so there and back. I do remember it happening a little bit there. Um, but we were, we were here for like a long time. Definitely enough time to adjust to jet lag. And when your appetite.
Is getting when you are hungry at times that are not really conducive to eating or you're not eating and you're not hungry at times when you are eating. It's frustrating and it's annoying. And so I had to kind of like work around that. Um, and there were multiple times where I ended up in situations where I was hungry when it was not a mealtime and there were no snacks around.
Like it's [00:04:00] not like at home where like there's always stuff around or you can kind of always stop and get stuff. There wasn't always stuff you could stop and get based on whatever activities we were doing. Right. We did a lot of like. Very active. A lot of like walking, not like intense hiking, but like.
Hikes going up in gondolas and on trains and on cars and two hour drives and all these places to see all this stuff. And if you're hungry in like the middle of a two hour car ride, like you're kind of screwed. Um, and again, it's not like I'm used to like knowing what to buy or having a grocery store round to buy snacks and keep them with me.
I didn't do that at all. I did buy a protein bar like twice, and it was actually really good and I remember I bought one to eat in the moment and then I bought another one, and the next day I had it and I was like, oh my God, I'm so glad I have this. I was just not prepared. I was not prepared in the same way that I'm prepared at home, and as a result, I ate.
Large quantities of stuff that's very easy to overeat. 'cause it's what happened to be around and it just didn't feel good. Um, and so I just wanted to kind of be honest about that. 'cause I think it's, I think it's like a real, like it's, it's a real [00:05:00] life experience. Um, I think it reflects the fact that being on vacation is not like being at home.
You can not replicate the way that you eat at home, the way you eat on vacation, even if you plan and like do your best. It's just different, especially when you've got a huge time difference and there's jet lag involved and it impacts your body. Um, so I just kind of wanted to talk through it and there was really nothing I could do to like, quote unquote fix it.
It happened multiple times throughout the trip. It wasn't like it happened once on the first day and it stopped happening. It kept happening. Um, there were multiple times where I ended up eating 'cause we just, we had bought a lot of chocolate and we were given a lot of chocolate and so we had it with us throughout the trip.
So it was always in the room. Like that was the thing that was always in the room. And, um, we had used a travel agency, so in every hotel room they like, we got like fun, like snacks from them and they were like sweets. The last hotel, which was like, we were there for 12 hours, they gave us fruit, but every other place was like sweets and it was just sitting in the room.
Right. So I think it was such an interesting experience and like when you are really hungry. You will eat what is around. And if you don't have stuff around to fill to do the job of filling hunger, [00:06:00] then you're gonna eat whatever else is around and you're gonna eat a lot of it. Because that's just the nature of those types of foods.
And so it's not that there was something wrong with me, it's a that's what was around right? And so I'm gonna eat that and it's not gonna fill me up and I'm gonna feel the need to eat more. It's, there's nothing wrong with me because I ate. A candy bar or two candy bars, and I wasn't hungry. That's an issue with the food.
And so I had to keep reminding myself of that. And so I wanted to share that here, not like in real time. Obviously this is a week later or whatever, or I, we just got home yesterday, but it happened over the course of the trip. I wanted to share what that was like. Um, and kind of like some of the work that I had to do in my head.
Um, and it makes sense that I'm, you know, it was just generally out of routine with even the last couple days we were in, uh, lake Maggiore, which is in a lake in northern areas right next to Lake Como. It's kinda like late Como sister. Um, the hotel, I have this piece of hair on me. The hotel had one of the most beautiful and amazing breakfast buffets we've ever had.
And two of the three days, like I could barely eat because I was not hungry. Like I was so not hungry that the [00:07:00] thought of really even eating anything made me feel like not good. And it made me sad, um, because I was like disappointed to miss out on it. But then what happened is several hours later when there was no food around, guess what?
I got hungry. And so ended up then when we had lunch, like ended up eating like a lot of food and really tried to make thoughtful choices. But like I remember one day we went to Lake Como for the day and it was two hour drive there, three hour boat ride. Then we had lunch, walk around, a two hour drive back.
I remember getting to lunch. I had eaten some breakfast that day, but I'd eaten far less than I normally do and almost no protein. Um. There was no Greek yogurt. I didn't want eggs, so I had like a little bit of like the plain yogurt. And then there were some pastries I wanted to try. So I had a couple bites of different pastries and that's basically what I ate for breakfast.
Um, and I, Rick was really not hungry, so I couldn't even like stomach eggs. I could stomach a vanilla cream filled donut, but it could not stomach eggs. And so by the time lunch rolled around, I was starving and I [00:08:00] ordered AAU salad, which has protein. It has tuna in it, and a pizza. It's not a ton of tuna, right?
I ate the whole salad, which has like, it has the tuna, it has potatoes. Um, there was no egg in it. I don't know. Olives, green beans, tomatoes, whatever. And personal pizza. And I ate the whole thing. Um, and I was like, still kind of hungry afterwards. And we got gelato, right? Like, so it's. When you are traveling, you are, again, I said this earlier, you're going to eat differently.
And I used my skills as much as I could, but there's also gonna be circumstances and situations in which, like, you can't use skills because of the food that's around, because of the people that you're with, because of the timing. And you are just gonna have to go with the flow and do with what's in front of you and then walk yourself through how to respond to the thoughts that come up.
Um. I had, I would say, a pretty decent amount of food noise during this trip. I think because of this, because I'm totally outta my normal routine, because of the jet lag, because I was getting hungry and feeling not hungry, inconvenient [00:09:00] times. I definitely started like having a lot of noise in my head. And what's cool to me is that the noise was there and I didn't really listen to the noise, meaning I didn't.
Like react to it. I did not have certain foods like that morning, I said before, there were two mornings I didn't have breakfast. There was one morning I didn't have breakfast the other morning. I just really wasn't hungry. But there was a couple things I really wanted to try. So I kind of had them, but then I could not eat anymore.
So I had like basically zero nutrition. Um, and I totally just lost my train of thought. Um, oh, I know what it was. With the food noise. The food noise is like, you're eating too much of this, you're gonna gain weight. You haven't had enough protein. Like if you, if you have pastries for breakfast every day, you're gonna gain weight.
Like, that's, that's, you know, that's the stuff I was hearing. That's still how my bro, my brain is programmed. Right. I have done a ton of work. But when I am, when you are outside of your normal routine and there's any, which creates a level of stress, right? You're on vacation, there's still that level of stress.
You don't know what to [00:10:00] expect. The food is unfamiliar. You're eating up weird times, you're jet lagged, all of this, those are all triggers for turning up. The volume on food, noise, that stuff is still in my brain, right when I'm at home and my routine or. Much closer to my routine. It's easy to manage this, not like meaning it's going to, it's going to, the noise is gonna jack itself up and then I'm gonna have to deal with it.
And my choices are either to react to it and be like, cut foods out and get really strict with myself. Or to understand and acknowledge why the food noise, why the volume was up, and respond to it and work with it and sit with it and notice it. And extend some self-compassion, which doesn't look like saying, oh, great, just eat all the donuts.
It looks like saying, this looks amazing. This vanilla cream filled donut is like right up your alley. Have some share it with Danny, see how you feel, and then reevaluate. Right? So what I'm saying is that noise was there and I was able to respond to it, and I didn't let it, um. Restrict me from eating foods I wanted to [00:11:00] eat.
I got gelato. I don't even know how many times when we were in Italy, we were there for three days. I had gelato like I think like five times, right? Um, so I was able to enjoy and eat all the foods I wanted to. Alongside the food noise, and that is progress. That is a skill. The idea, the goal is not to just get rid of the food noise.
For most of us, that is not possible to get rid of it. It is possible to turn down the volume and it's possible to turn down the frequency. But again, when you are outside of your routine traveling, lots of different reasons that can happen. Not just travel, it could be illness, it could be stress at work, it could be uh, transition times back to school, finishing school, all these different things.
Holidays, the noise is gonna go up and then you have to be like, oh, why is the noise going up? It's not a problem with you. It's normal. It's a very actually normal neurological response. Um, those pathways are grooved very deep in your brain. They don't get [00:12:00] roved, but you have grooved new ones. But the old ones like to come back when stuff is stressful, that's normal.
It feels, there's your brain recognizes as safety and protection and comfort and familiarity, even if it's not serving you. So again, I really wanted to share this, to let you know like what my experience was. That is someone who has done. Many, many years of work on this, coaches this stuff for a living. I still deal with this.
This is still a real thing and that is normal. That's not a problem. There's nothing bad or wrong happening. I haven't regressed. I'm just a human being living with a human brain that functions the way a human brain does. Um, I'm looking over at my notes here, so, okay, another thing I wanted to talk about, jumping around a bit.
Is something I noticed that the portion sizes of food were different, smaller, which I don't think will come as a surprise to anyone, especially when you order a protein. Um, so there were a couple nights, where did I have the first [00:13:00] night? Oh, I got, we were in Switzerland. There's a lot of like. Meat, like a lot of gaming meat, a lot of lamb, veal.
I don't eat that stuff. Um, so I got a chicken breast, which I never order a chicken breast in a restaurant. It ended up being really good, but it was tiny. If it was three ounces, it was a lot. And I ate it and I'm like, okay, what's next? Um, and I think, I don't remember, did we have to start that night? I don't remember what we did.
Um, that may have been a night where I ended up eating a bunch of chocolate in the room. I can't remember 'cause it was like 10 days ago. But that was just something interesting that I noticed. Right. And I think again, it speaks to like. Portion sizes matter, right? Yes. Getting protein's important, but how much you are eating of a thing, right?
And it applies to all things, right? You're eating enough protein, are you eating too much of one thing? That's then making it hard to get in nutrition of, of another thing, um, right? Are you eating like a tiny amount of protein, which then means you're still really hungry, so you're gonna eat a ton of fries or pasta or bread again.
Not, not like inherently an issue, but if you're overeating those foods and then feeling [00:14:00] really full or weight loss is something that you're thinking about, right? This is where we're looking at, are you eating in alignment with values, right? Are you checking in? Are you paying attention? Are you noticing what's happening?
Um, are you doing some work in these moments to make choices that are aligned with how you wanna feel? So it was just something interesting. I noticed that definitely. Um. Be became, was became frustrating and inconvenient at times where I was like, I ordered like a meal. And I'm like, what? What the fuck?
Like three ounces of protein. This is a joke. Like I need like twice this at least. Um, and again, circumstances, I can't change that. I can't control that, and I'm not going to order another meal on top of it because it's like food is super expensive, right? So there's all these, it's very multi-layered. It's very, there's a lot of factors that impact this, and there are things that are out of our control and recognizing that.
Is part of responding to the food noise, right? I am not inherently the problem here. I'm not doing anything wrong. I'm responding to all these different inputs and all these different factors and variables that are [00:15:00] way outside of my control, and I'm not going to be able to eat again the way that I normally eat for many different reasons.
And so there's a lot of mental work that goes into situations like that. And I will tell you, these are situations where it's really easy to say, fuck it, right? All these things are outta my control. Fuck it. I'm not gonna bother to do anything and I will just order pasta every night or pizza every night, or I will just have ice cream after every dinner, whatever it is.
And that that's not eating in line with values, right? That is way out of line with values. That's just saying, fuck it, because I don't wanna do this work because I'm uncomfortable, because I don't have the skills to navigate this situation. I only know how to follow my meal plan. I only know how to follow my diet.
I only know how to eat when I have meal prep. I only know how to eat when I'm at home. That's a problem. Right, because this stuff doesn't just happen when you travel. I mentioned five minutes ago what happens at home when circumstances change or there's transitions for, there's lots of times in life where stuff gets out of routine and you have to know how to deal with it.
You can't [00:16:00] always deal with it by having food ready to go, so you often have to deal with it. What's what's happening in your brain? And responding and noticing, why is the noise going up? Why am I feeling this way? Why am I hungry? To be able to walk yourself back and connect the dots. So that you're not blaming yourself, which is gonna put, send you right into fuck it mode.
Um, and so I think I'm looking over at my notes here. Um, two other things I wanted to talk about right there was, it was the first day we got to Italy. I ended up being alone for the afternoon. Danny and Ben were in moods and I was pissed off at them and I ended up being by myself, which turned out to be great.
I was walking around the town of Straza, which is where we were, um, staying in Lake Madre. And I got gelato by myself. I was hungry. I needed something to eat. And there's like, unless you're gonna sit down at a restaurant, which we had already done for lunch, and we were having dinner in a few hours, there were no, this, this is a tiny town, right?
There were no convenience stores. There was no run and get a protein bar, there was no run. And get a [00:17:00] Greek yogurt that, that's not a, that wasn't a thing, right? So again, circumstances. So I'm like, okay, I'm hungry. Meaning in a gelato. And I got fruity flavors that time 'cause it was hot and it was refreshing and it was great.
I sat down, I enjoyed it. Right. I was hungry and so it was everywhere. It was easy, it was convenient. It's what was there, it tasted good. It was refreshing and it's part of the experience of being in Italy. Right? Again, this is kind of a specific travel thing, but it's also can be specific to holidays. Um, or other vacations or dinners out where the food becomes part of the experience of that thing that you are doing.
And so is eating ice cream at three o'clock on a Thursday afternoon, something I would do regularly at home? Probably not once in a while. Yeah, for sure. But if I, if, if that had been at home and it was three o'clock, I'd gotten hungry, I would not have gotten ice cream. Right. I would've eaten something that would've actually filled me up the ice cream like.
Didn't fill me up. It kind of took the edge off enough to get to dinner, but that's not what I've chosen. That's not what I would've chosen had I been home. [00:18:00] But there are different situations and both are values aligned, right? If I'd been home at a three o'clock, I would choose something that's going to fill me up.
Could it be a Greek yogurt or a protein bar or whatever it is? That would be in alignment with my values in that moment. If I was really craving ice cream, I talked about this on social media a couple weeks ago, then I will go out and get the ice cream. In this instance, this is what was available. This is part of the experience.
That was what I wanted. That was values aligned, right? If I had said to myself, no, you can't have gelato. You're just gonna have to wait till dinner because eating ice cream at three o'clock on a Thursday is bad. It's a problem. It's gonna make you gain weight. That would be out of alignment with values, right?
So. There is no one choice. There is no one outcome that is right or wrong that is in alignment with values or out of alignment with values. It is so context and situation specific. You can never say that ice cream on a Thursday is good or bad. It is entirely [00:19:00] dependent on the situation, on what, what you're thinking, on why you are making that choice, and this is why this work is kind of complex and hard to like give a snapshot and get something like.
You know, punchy and capture your attention in three seconds on social media because it's just not that simple. Um, and it gets easier and easier to figure this out, and it starts to make sense. The more and more you do it, it, these are skills to be able to recognize what you're looking for and the choice that you're gonna, how you're gonna work through making that choice.
And it can happen in seconds, right? It's not this whole like 10 minute process. Can it be Yeah, sometimes. And when you first start out, it's gonna take more work, but then it gets easier and easier. Like, I was able to work this gelato thing very quickly. It was like a 62nd conversation in my head. Um, and so I wanted to share, like comparing that situation at three o'clock on a Thursday to what would I have done at home at three o'clock on a Thursday?
If I was hungry, I would not have had ice cream unless I was like really particularly craving ice cream, which doesn't really happen that [00:20:00] often. Um, I would not have had ice cream, but not having ice cream in Italy would've been the totally wrong out of alignment choice. Right. Just like. Yeah. Um, having the ice cream at home if I was hungry, would've been the wrong out of alignment choice because it wouldn't have filled me up.
There were a lot of other options that would've done the job better, and that would, I've probably would've enjoyed in that situation just as much. So again, I wanted to kind of show like how it's not the outcome, it's the circumstances, it's the context, it's the why. Um, and the other thing I wanted to talk about was steps, um, because being totally blunt and honest with you.
I was definitely aware of just how much movement I was getting, and now I, like it was all walking. I didn't know, I didn't go to the gym. I didn't lift weights, I didn't run, I didn't any of that stuff. And there were gyms at the hotel. Sandy and Ben went one day. Um, so this was not about like exercising per se.
It was being aware of movement one [00:21:00] because movement makes me feel good, right? Like so there were multiple days where I got up and went for a walk on my own because that is what my body is used to doing. And when I don't do that, I just don't feel like myself. I just feel off and I'll get irritable and cranky and just, yeah, I'm not a fun person to be around.
I'm not a fun person to be around for myself or for other people. And so part of it is that, um. And part of it is like, again, this is, this is some level of food noise. And I think this is also some level of truth. And I was not entirely sure that I was going to to say this because I think that it can come across the wrong way.
But
if you, you. Walking is very often easily built into European vacation. So like pretty much everyone I know that goes to Europe comes home and is like, I walked 15,000 or 20,000 steps a day. Right? So it kind of happens naturally and it did very much on these trips, um, because you get to see so much more when you [00:22:00] walk than when you drive around a city or whatever.
Um, at least that's, that's how I feel. Um, and you are also typically eating, usually more often different foods. Um, right. And so when you're eating pastries for breakfast every day and having gelato every afternoon, um, there's definitely some noise. There was noise for me around, well, am I getting enough movement in?
Am I getting enough steps in? And I wasn't pushing myself to do more exercise as a result of that, but it was there. I was noticing that, um, the steps kind of happened naturally and were built in as part of the experience. There were just. Walks and things and things we wanted to do. And the nature of like when we were in Zermatt, you basically, you walk everywhere in that town.
They have like these little, there's no cars there. There's like these little electric taxis, but you walk everywhere and I'm like, great. I love to walk. I enjoy walking. So it's easy for me to do that. Um, so I just wanted to share, like, I was definitely aware of how much I was moving, one for my mental health and [00:23:00] wellbeing.
And two, because there was some noise about it and it, again, it wasn't that I was reacting to that noise and saying, oh my God, you have to hit X number of steps a day. Um, but I think what I was starting to say before and didn't finish the thought is if you are moving more than your usual amount on a trip, because of the nature of that trip, the reality is it is going to give you a little bit more flexibility in terms of what you eat.
Without it showing up on your body. And that's not diet culture. That is science, right? If you are moving well above your baseline every day on a trip for a week, for 10 days, for five days, whatever it is, you are going to have more space to add in additional calories, um, which is kind of cool. And again, I hesitated to say that because I don't [00:24:00] want it to come off that like, oh, you're earning your food, or if you eat more ice cream, you have to burn it off.
Or if you want to eat ice cream, you have to walk this much. That's not what I'm saying. I'm just making a connection and really calling out the science of it. Right. I, I'm stating a scientific fact around our, how our physiology works, how we react to that and how we respond to that. I think it's just interesting information.
This is not the same as, oh my God, I wanna have ice cream. I need to walk more steps, or I had ice cream, so I need to walk more steps. This is simply observing and noticing that when you walk a lot more than you usually do, you're moving your body a lot more. Your body has more room to intake food without it having any impact.
Um. Whereas if you were walking at your baseline, you're eating more food over a week, over 10 days, you might have a little bit of weight gain. And there's nothing wrong with that, [00:25:00] right? That is not a problem. That is not bad. Again, this all comes back to to values. Um. Okay, so I just wanted to kind of share like some of the thoughts that were coming up for me and kind of talk about this in a pretty objective way because I think learning how to strip out some of the emotion and really be nuanced about the way we talk about some of these things, this movement, food relationship is important and helpful because there is science and physiology that backs some of this up.
Um, but it's very easy for it to kind of get twisted and for us to twist it around. Um, so I just kind of want, kind of wanted to talk through that and that's really it. I'm looking over some other notes, but I feel like I kind of, there's more I could talk about, but we're coming up on 26 minutes here and I feel like I kind of got to the big stuff.
Some other things I have notes about, like. I never really stuffed myself on this trip. I did not overeat. Um, I remember in Greece, I overate several times. I remember talking about I did not do this on do that on this trip, which I look back [00:26:00] back and I'm like, that's cool. Like, that's, that's cool progress for me.
Um, and we didn't eat lunch a lot, which contributed to like some of the appetite stuff and, and snacks and whatnot. But anyway, but again, like I eat lunch at home, so again, like just being out of routine. Alright. That's it. Um, I hope this is helpful. If you've got questions, wanna talk through anything, you guys know where to find me.
Um, and I'll be back next week. I.