In Spring of the last 3 years I have stepped off a plane in Europe, wearing stylish skinny jeans and a classic neckline T-shirt. 3 or 4 months later, I was sporting a budding double chin and elastic waistline “athletic” shorts.
Upon returning “home” I would slowly shed my substantial souvenir, slip back into my favorite jeans, and board another plane to carb heaven.
It is the holidays… perhaps you can relate.
Eating My Way Around the World
To say we eat our way around the world would be more accurate than to say we travel.
Upon arriving in France, there are croissants, baguettes, delectable snails drowned in butter and garlic, and perhaps a pastry or two.
Down the road in Spain, you must try the paella, pintxos, and pulpo, and wash it down with a clara or caña.
Are you really going to visit Belgium and not have a waffle or frites?
And in Italy there is the pizza, gelato, gelato, and (did I mention?) gelato.
Oh, and about 20 pounds of pasta…
…the day Jr was born I weighed about 72 kg / 160 pounds, which is roughly my high school weight. At present, I’m topping the scales at 83 kg / 183 pounds (already a significant reduction from a few months ago.)
Welcome to Paris
Changes
When things aren’t going the way you like, it is time to make changes.
Diet
I have a wicked sweet tooth, and love trying new foods, so plopping down in the middle of a new city is literally the kid in a candy store scenario.
This is no big deal in the short term – I eat all the things and then settle into a comfortable balance (pseudo-slow carby.) When we are in a fixed location for the long term, I have no issues with weight stability. But put me in a new place week after week after week and things get a little out of hand.
Self control issues? Maybe.
Although I’m more inclined to chalk it up to poor lifestyle design. Our ideal slow travel lifestyle has picked up speed, and we have been moving far too fast… faster than my waistline can handle, and faster than any of us would like.
Change 1: slow down a bit
Change 2: stop being an idiot
I ate the rest of it
Exercise
I was a 3 sport athlete in high school, so daily exercise has been a part of my life for as long as I can remember. My idea of a good time might include biking 900 km, no big deal.
When I was traveling often for work I would even crawl down to the hotel gym, hungover and jet-lagged. Ain’t nuthin like a good sweat to purge alcohol and adjust to a time zone.
Once we started traveling as parents, this all kind of went out the window. Unless we were in one location for an extended period, exercise was limited to walking (of which we did a lot.) I simply could (and did) ingest more calories than my body could burn.
Change 1: get off my ass – I’ve signed up for an Olympic distance triathlon and have been training
(The last thing I did before typing this sentence was swim 1,750 meters (1.1 miles.))
Change 2: Exercise is the first thing I do in the morning after dropping Jr at school (priorities)
Rode this baby over 1,000 miles this year
More of this
Life
Procrastination is fun, try it some time. But procrastinating a workout as a parent is tricky business… the instant you are ready to go for that swim or bike ride, nap time is over.
As such, I’ve scheduled all of my workouts to be during school hours, also known as business hours. The pool lanes are less crowded, and the bike trail is basically my own.
And since exercise is a normal part of daily life, Jr and I get to do it together. I do laps during his swim lesson, we ride bikes together, and we have already completed our first running race (600 meters.)
For father/son bike rides, the Trail-Gator Tow Bar is a sweet invention. Jr can ride as fast and far as he wants, and then I can tow him home.
For the more mundane parts of life, Winnie got me a Mi Band. It’s kinda cool. It seems I walk at least 10,000 steps everyday, and it tells me if I’ve been sitting for an hour (playing guitar or writing or whatever) so I know to get up and swing the kettlebell.
[instagram url=https://www.instagram.com/p/BnToA5dHYiC/ hidecaption=true width=300]
Final Thoughts
Age, bad habits, and poor choices have finally caught up with me. I’m not 25 anymore, and it was time to make smart food and exercise habits an integral part of normal life. Retirement isn’t a vacation from adulting.
Moderation in all things… including moderation. Perhaps 1 pound of pasta is enough, just after I get back from this bike ride.
Try intermittent fasting
Wise approach. Easier to make some adjustments now, get back in shape and then maintain your fitness as opposed to pulling a ‘weight loss miracle’ 100 pounds down the road…
Happy training.
HH
Awesome post Jeremy. Time to get my butt in a higher gear too. I’m checking out the Mi Band. Thanks!
It’s a cool toy, but 99% of change is unrelated to the Mi Band.
Great job exercising more. My normal schedule is to exercise right after I dropped Jr off. It works.
Diet is the key, though. Intermittent fasting really helps.
We’re in Thailand for 5 weeks and everything is on hold. It’s hard to say not to my relatives. They want to fatten us up.
I didn’t eat breakfast today but that was kind of an accident. Pre-parenting I used to routinely skip meals just because I was busy with other things.
Diet and exercise are good for long term health and longevity, but I would add that sleep should be everyone’s #1 priority when it come to staying healthy.
One specific study that caught my attention was done by the University of Chicago. They put 2 groups of people on a specific diet/exercise routine with the goal to loose weight. The only change between the two groups was the number of hour of sleep they will get each night. The first group got 8.5 hrs of sleep (which is consider as enough) while the second only got 5.5 hours of sleep (which is consider as being sleep deprive). The people in the 2nd group burnt 55% less body fat the the 1st group! Pretty interesting, right? (For more on that check out this interview of Shawn Stevenson: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Mtw3vBQYOg&t, and feel free to jump to the 25:30 segment to give into how sleep influence body composition).
I love sleep too. I got 10 hours last night, although my average is closer to 8.
That is such great news. I also read recently that sleep is when your body removes Alzheimer’s plaques from the brain, so now I have two excuses to sleep in.
https://www.sciencenews.org/article/sleep-brain-alzheimers-plaques-protein
When travelling, carbs are more readily consumed because they stay edible under a wide range of conditions, are not messy, are attractive to the sweet toothed and are widely available in comparison to most protein. My solution is a portable electric powered egg steamer which comes in a box small enough to fit conveniently in luggage. Hard steamed eggs are highly portable and not messy requiring no further processing or utensils for eating increasing the convenience of protein relative to carbs. Add tomatoes for on the go food.
Eggs are my go to protein as well. I’ve even heard of people cooking them with the hotel clothes iron
When I travel, all bets are off. That’s one of the downfalls of travel. Man, that paella looked gooood.
It was tasty.
Food is my favorite part of travel.
Check out Mark’s Daily Apple for the Primal Blueprint. He was a world class athlete and realized all that training was no longer working and searched for science based healthy life style. It ‘s a variation on Paleo and it works. Good luck!
My manager from back in the day was a big fan
Ah the battle of the bulge! I can relate — I’m not as thin as I used too be. A lot of it is age of course — a slowing metabolism and thousands of calories building up over many years.
One of my solutions was to eat out less. Restaurant food is sooo calorie heavy. They put huge gobs of butter in everything, bacon, cheese, etc etc. All the good stuff. It might taste great, but it’s super high calorie!
Good luck on shedding the pounds!
I love this post. I think staying healthy is the most difficult part of the accumulation phase. It’s been difficult for me to get into a consistent healthy routine, especially with eating healthy.
For someone trying to eat healthy, what are the first steps you’d recommend?
My brother just drinks coffee during the weekday mornings, then a light lunch with a regular dinner…and a normal diet on weekend … it works for him … I cut out sugar drinks … light lunches with veggies and meat … no rice or noodles etc… with regular dinners….weigh myself every morning to monitor things … lots of walking … few sweets … adjusts it as it suits you … CPO
Way to go getting back on the wagon! I think that exercise benefits my mind more than my body! The hard part of carbs, is that they are everywhere….. They are usually portable and durable which makes them great for travel eating.
Travel seems to be the enemy of routine and establishing a routine like working out after school drop off has been critical to maintaining my training frequency. Travel always throws me off my game as I struggle to work in exercise on trips. I have been doing CrossFit for five years and it can be soul crushing to come back after a lay off due to travel and find you’ve fallen so far so fast.
I enjoyed this post Jeremy, good luck on finding that healthy balance.
Interesting read. Good for you to be thinking about food and your health. While you don’t mention your lipid profile results, some day this may become an important part of your story. For me it was cholesterol. As an Olympic distance mid-pack triathlete in the 1980s I never had to worry about food. Just carbo-load for the next race. Fast forward to being 60 in less than a week and I’m happy to say that I just crossed the 3 month mark eating a whole-food plant-based no-oil diet. For me it was reading The China Study by T. Colin Campbell, watching Forks Over Knives and then completely changing overnight. To date my cholesterol has lowered over 100 points, I’ve dropped almost 20 pounds and I feel great. And am back to swimming, cycling and walking every day. I travel 6 months of the year and am currently in Australia. It’s easy to find just the right food to follow through on my plant based life. I cook at home more and don’t eat out as often. As my family doctor once said to me, “If you can’t grow it or dig it up, don’t eat it”. And of course the classic line from author Michael Pollan, “Eat food, not too much, mostly plants.”
What worked for me is to develop an intolerance to wheat. It totally sucks, but most tempting foods are out of the question for me now.