Last week I went to LA and Vegas for a few days. With the mindset that I want to continue travelling quite frequently it is important that I keep my goals in mind during my holidays, otherwise I would go off track too frequently. So, I took some workout clothes and my yoga mat to ensure the workouts would happen. However, I didn’t track macros (only carbs for insulin) and I ate pretty much anything I wanted. By the end of the trip I felt really bloated, but satisfied and rested from being so strict. Now that I am home I am back to counting and monitoring everything. Pretty hard whilst it’s Christmas time but I manage it because of myfitnesspal and mysugr app on my iPhone. Christmas day will not be tracked, apart from carbs.
On the first day in LA I had planned a rest day so I didn’t do a workout apart from the playing around on muscle beach. I was so excited to be there even if it was freezing and really early in the morning.
The next morning I woke up in Vegas and went for a nice breakfast in Cocos Diner. I got eggs, mushroom, hash browns and coffee. I had been there a couple of times before so I knew it would be really nice. Straight after breakfast I did interval sprints from the restaurant, all the way to the Las Vegas sign and back to the hotel. The weather was crisp and cool so it was really nice to do the sprints outside instead of on a treadmill in a gym which I did in London a few days earlier.
And then of course when I got back I did some yoga. My post workout yoga sessions typically last around 20 minutes, sometimes longer but rarely less. Final BG was 5.2mmols.
Day 3 I did my work out about 30 minutes after a breakfast buffet. I ate the breakfast pictured left, which is not too much different from the one I would eat at home. Minus the bagel from the picture as I didn’t eat it in the end. Instead I ate a plain crepe with Greek yoghurt and blueberries. I had no idea of the carbs so I guessed for 30 and reduced the carb / insulin ratio because I knew I was going to work out shortly afterwards. Here is the workout I did, it was high intensity interval training that lasted 20 minutes. Note, if you do this work out and you squat low enough, you will be sore the next day.
There are 4 exercises; squat jumps, jogging with high knees, burpees and star jumps.
You go for a round of 60 seconds for each exercise with a 20 second rest, then reduce the working time by 10 seconds after each round; 60, 50, 40, 30, 20 and 10.
It sounds fairly easy but it definitely burns and makes you sweat.
I wanted to tie this Hiit workout in with a yoga session, which I did, but during the end of the hiit workout I felt low so I finished it and then checked my levels which were 3.2mmols. I didn’t have any glucose tablets or sugary drink to hand when I was in the hotel room and I was still very full from breakfast, but I had to eat again to be able to get my blood sugar back up and to continue the yoga part of my work out so I went with the trusty old banana which was around 20 carbs. I guess I estimated too much for that crepe at breakfast.
Amongst the planned workouts above I walked a lot, according to my phone it was around 8k a day. More so in Vegas than LA. The casinos are so big to walk through from the car park; it takes 10 minutes easy to get where you’re going and that is with a good parking space. I also went ice skating for the first time which was really fun and I only fell over once. Starting BG was 14.2mmols and end BG after only 30mins was 9.2mmols.
Overall I reckon I ate about 2000 -3000 calories per day which is definitely more than I eat at home, but the foods I eat at home are more carefully selected to keep me fuller for longer with less calories. I find that if I eat something that is really calorific I get hungrier because it’s like I have eaten fresh air. An example of this is a little slice of cheesecake that has 300 calories, I mean literally a bite, but at home I would use those calories more wisely and choose maybe pasta, vegetables and some meat free sausages. A small slice of cheesecake is definitively not enough to fill me up.
As I said earlier, I didn’t feel great after eating so much food. Initially, when eating a significant amount of food, even with extra exercise you will feel as though you have put weight on, you probably have but it is more likely to be water retention than fat gain. The body cannot process fat at such a fast pace so don’t worry straight away. Get back to your normal eating and all will be ok. I will probably weigh myself next week to see what those extra calories did.
Do you travel often? How do you keep up with your diet and fitness goals?
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Rowena x
P.S. – shout out to celineLasvegas.com which helped me choose some amazing activates.