189: How I Eat and Train While Traveling

**Nick Bare** (0:06)
Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to another episode of the podcast. Today's episode is titled, How I Train and Eat While Traveling. Now, this past month for me has been a marathon of travel, to say the least. And yesterday, me and the family just got back from completing the marathon. Some of this travel was family vacation in Florida. I had some travel that I needed to do for work. Earlier last week, I was in Fargo, North Dakota with a BPN team, visiting one of our retail partners, who is Shields. And then, I got back from that Shields trip, had a day in between, and then me and the family went back to the airport. We flew to Michigan. We spent a few days in Michigan with Steph's family, because that is where Steph is from, and her parents still live in Michigan. And we got back last night. Like I said, August, 2026, it was full of travel. But I stayed on top of my nutrition. I stayed on top of my diet. I stayed on top of my training and my workouts. And I just want to share with you guys how and why. I mean, why? Because it matters to me. My health, my fitness, my performance, it matters to me. Staying in shape, hitting my workouts, fueling my body. I show up better, stronger, more energy. And I believe I'm a better leader, I'm a better father, I'm a better husband. I'm a better contributing member of and to society when I am training, when I am pushing my body, when I am eating healthy foods. That's the why. Now, the how, how do I train and eat while traveling? And before I get into some of the tactics, there's a few things I want to say. First off, we have to, I have to, set realistic expectations while traveling. And I should also say that what I'm sharing, this is how I eat and train when I travel. I'm not saying you have to do this.
You know, I want to share what I do, and hopefully it helps some of you guys out. But if you don't agree and you don't want to do any of this stuff, you don't have to. This is all personal preference. So, when it comes to travel, I set realistic expectations, and I look at travel very differently. I ask myself, what is this travel for? Is it for business? Is it for a normal course of life event? Or is it for vacation, leisure, pleasure? The way that I approach a vacation with my family, in terms of training and dieting and nutrition, is very different from the way that I may approach a work trip. Where I fly in, I'm there for a few days, and I fly out. Or if we travel somewhere for a wedding, or a birthday, or anything like that, I will approach that travel, those events, differently.
So I approach and plan accordingly. Because one of the things that I've been beating a drum on for quite some time is that responsibilities should always outweigh routines.
The main problem with being unable to break your routine is that the rigidity can cause high anxiety, stress, decision fatigue, and an inability to adapt when life changes unexpectedly. When I go on family vacation, for example, my family, my kids, my relationships, my wife, my partner, that is my responsibility. Being present, being there, making memories.
My routines become flexible, and they have to adapt. But I'm not going to prioritize my routine over my responsibilities. At least not anymore. I've done this at one point in my life, and I can tell you, it didn't provide the joy and satisfaction and enjoyment that I thought it would. It made things worse. It came with, as I mentioned, high levels of anxiety and stress and decision fatigue and an inability to adapt to life changes, routine changes.
When we prioritize responsibilities over routines, we build structure and not cages.
There's a looser framework that allows us to keep making progress and to succeed. I shared this quote in a podcast months back, and I'll come back to it because I think it's really good. The mind makes a great servant, but a terrible master. A servant is problem solving. It sets and maps goals. It focuses energy. It's what a servant does. The mind makes a great servant, but when it becomes a master, the reason it's terrible is because when the mind is a master, it replays the same routine even when that routine stops serving you. It steals your peace, your rest, your joy, and enjoying the present. So, the key takeaway that I want to share with all of this in setting realistic expectations is know when to be strict and rigid with your routine and when to allow for flexibility and to adapt based off of the type of travel that it is.