My Top 3 Tips to Practice Self-Care When Traveling

Respect your body and start listening to it! The easiest way to do this is by practicing self-care… even when traveling! Today I’m sharing my top 3 tips to practice self-care when traveling.

This post is sponsored by Vital Proteins. Thank you for supporting the brands that make CitNutritionally.com possible!

One of the core principles of Intuitive Eating is to Respect Your Body. After all, it’s the only one you have.

We’re all unique individuals with our own personalities, quirks, tastes, and bodies. I don’t know about you, but I don’t expect everyone to laugh at the same jokes, so why do we expect everyone to conform to the same ideal body size… whatever that “ideal” decides to be for the decade.

I think this principle of Intuitive Eating is one of the hardest to grasp, but it started to make sense when I thought about shoes (duh!)… As a size 6 ½, I can’t fit into my cousin’s size 5 shoe, but no one makes me feel bad about it. So if we can’t fit into someone’s ideal clothing size, why does society make us feel bad about it?

Well, enough is enough.

To learn to respect my body, I started practicing self-care a couple of years ago, and it is now a key component of my work with clients. Self- care helps you learn to be gentle with yourself. To listen to what your body needs and respect it. It’s not a spa day every once in awhile, it’s a consistent practice of self-love, by doing the things that make us feel our best.

Because taking care of our mind and soul is just as important as our body. These 3 aspects are interwoven, and essential for overall excellent health.

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I’ve got my self-care routine down to a science, pretty much. Sure, there are times when I think I’ll be alright if I skimp on sleep and skip my workouts… and then I find out that’s no bueno. For the most part, when I’m at home, I’m able to schedule me time to do what I do best (check it out here, in case you’re curious!).

But what happens when you’re traveling?

Lately, most of the trips I’ve taken have been for fun – out of town weddings, our honeymoon – noooo complaining here!

However, it can be tough to take care of ourselves when we’re out of routine. While I think getting out of routine is great to stay flexible, challenge yourself, and even spark creativity, I do have some tips up my sleeve to keep some sort of routine – or routine activities – when routine is nowhere to be found!

Here are my top 3 tips to practice self-care when traveling:

 

1. Keep 1 Meal Consistent

In case you couldn’t guess, one of my favorite aspects of traveling is exploring local food culture. Even when we were just in Philadelphia (basically 1 hour away!) for a friend’s wedding, I was loving the local pretzels (sorry, no cheesesteak here) and food hall experience.

However, traveling and new time zones, plus eating new foods, can definitely put your digestive system through the wringer! To feel your best (because that is what self-care is all about), keep 1 meal (or at least part of a meal) the same as your usual routine.

As much as it sounds ideal to throw your best-for-you eating habits out the window because you’re away, your body may start to rebel. (Especially if you have any baseline digestive woes, like yours truly).

I think the easiest meal to keep consistent while traveling is breakfast.

You can usually always find eggs and whole grain toast, oatmeal, or yogurt in any hotel or convenience store, or you can pack some go-to ingredients to create your favorite chia pudding.

Even when we were in Hawaii for our honeymoon, I packed my Vital Proteins Marine Collagen packs to throw in my coffee or a smoothie, so I had a protein boost first thing in the morning, similar to what I do at home. Keeping breakfast consistent really helped me feel my best while away from my usual comforts.

I also made oatmeal packs for the plane in case we had nothing else to eat. These were a life-saver for our 10+ hour flight when I couldn’t eat anything else (safety first, food allergies!). Just combine rolled oats, cinnamon, and your favorite dried fruit in a ziploc baggie. Don’t forget your Vital Proteins Marine Collagen for a protein boost, and then you can add hot water wherever you are. I never travel without these packs in case of an emergency!

Try them for yourself (affil link)… 

Plus, you may be eating some not-so-usual foods. For me, garlic and onions galore! And that meant my stomach was going cray cray.

I can joke about it now, but it was honestly a little uncomfortable. Therefore, starting my day with some of my go-tos helped my body know we weren’t so far from the norm.

2. Move Your Body, But Without Pressure

Staying active usually helps us feel better. After a long flight, it’s easy to feel like the tin man, so gently moving your body while on vacation can help ease aches and pains from sitting for an extended period of time.

This doesn’t mean you have to go to the gym.

Here are some of my favorite ways to stay active to take care of myself while traveling:

• Go sightseeing on foot (you get to know the city better!)
• Go for a long walk to watch the sunset on the beach (that’s what we did nearly every evening on our honeymoon (see below)… plus, it turns up the romance!)
• Participate in a hotel exercise class. Our hotels offered water aerobics in the pool, morning vinyasa classes, and much more!

3. Throw Your Itinerary Out The Window… if you feel like it!

Major confession right here: I was afraid about going on a tropical vacation with my new hubby! We are doers and go, go goers (OK, him more than me!). So going to Hawaii, known for their gorgeous beaches for 10 days was a little daunting. But don’t worry, we found EVERYTHING there was to do in Maui and Kona and added it to our itinerary.

Once we got to the Big Island, we threw our entire itinerary out the window.

No coffee plantation tours, no helicopter rides (whew! I was too nervous anyways!), and no volcano hikes.

We did absolutely NOTHING aside from lay by the pool, eat delicious food, and take leisurely walks along the beach.

We slept in, got room service for breakfast, and only did exactly what we wanted to do: nada!

And let me tell you that I’ve never felt so good in the past year!

We need time to decompress to feel our best. To get in touch with ourselves (hello favorite moment of the day journal!), and just chill.

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Sometimes I feel like vegging out on the couch is wasting time as an entrepreneur, but because it was our honeymoon, I gave myself permission.

But I also learned that I need those permissions much more frequently than I realized over the past couple of years. Now, doing nothing has become a priority so that I can take the best care of myself possible!

It’s so easy to think that if you slow down, you’ll miss out on something. Although I don’t always listen to myself, I’m telling you that you’re not. You’re doing what YOU need to do to show up for yourself, first and foremost… which then helps you be better for everyone and everything else in your life!

So the next time you’re traveling, show yourself some love!

Tell me: What’s your go-to self-care tip when traveling? Share with me in the comments below!
XO

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