Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth - 2775: How To Make Progress While Traveling

Episode Date: January 19, 2026

 How Do You Make Progress While Traveling An important note for young trainers, and the importance of having a strategy to be successful when you travel. (1:51) Two things to focus on if travel is a regular part of your life, and trying to get fit or maintain a level of fitness. (4:25) 6 Ways You Make Progress While Traveling #1 - Short workout every morning. (5:52) #2 - Walk after meals and during breaks. (11:18) #3 - Bring protein shakes. (13:11) #4 - Eat your bodyweight in grams of protein and eat it first. (15:00) #5 - Fast if no good options. (17:16) #6 - Focus on what's important to avoid rebound. (21:05) Related Links/Products Mentioned The DoorDash Diet Guide – Mind Pump Get 20% off Kion at getkion.com/mindpump ** No code needed automatically applied at check out! ** January Promotion: Code NEWYEAR50 at checkout for 50% off the following programs: MAPS Starter, Transform, Anabolic, and Performance! Mind Pump Store Mind Pump #1555: How to Stay on Track With Your Fitness While You Travel Mind Pump #2080: Get Jacked With Bands! Mind Pump #2137: The Best Suspension Training Workout Plan for Beginners Mind Pump Podcast – YouTube Mind Pump Free Resources  

If you want to pump your body and expand your mind, there's only one place to go. Mind Pump. Mind Pump with your hosts. Sal DeStefano, Adam Schaefer, and Justin Andrews. You just found the most downloaded fitness, health, and entertainment podcast. This is Mind Pump. Today, we're going to talk about how you make progress while traveling. Also, we have a DoorDash Diet Guide that goes along with this.

In it, we break down options with DoorDash. The best ones. The best ones for cutting, for bulking, building, shredding, macros. All of it's in there. It's a free guide. If you want it, go to mpdor-dash.com. Now, this episode is brought to by Kian.

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That's it. Enjoy the rest of the show. There are lots of hurdles to getting fit and staying fit. One of the biggest ones is travel, especially those of you that work. that require a lot of travel. The question is, how do I stay in shape or even more? How do I make progress while traveling with my fitness and nutrition? That's what we're going to talk about today.

New year, new travel season. I would say this is probably one of the more common things that you would have to prepare for as a trainer. Because obviously, a lot of clients that train with you tend to be affluent, fly for business a lot, or just vacation occasionally. And so, you know, nothing like disrupting a great routine and rhythm that you just got your client in after they hired you. Yep. And here comes a vacation or here comes a business trip and to derail them. Totally.

And so coming up with a plan and a strategy was something, obviously, as a young trainer, made the mistake of like, oh, we'll figure it out when you get back. That was not a good idea. Well, coach you from afar. Yeah. really planning it out and simplifying the hell out of it. Yes, totally. And I think that we, you know, because we all, our careers were built in Silicon Valley. And so we had a significant portion of our clients traveled a lot.

Probably more than most, I would say. I think you're right, Adam. You know, trainers typically have affluent clients. But when, you know, Silicon Valley, like a significant percentage of people that work here. Travel. Travel. And so this was a problem to figure out. Not only that's a good point.

And so, I mean, most of my clients traveled. I know. Like regularly. And like other clients, it took me a while before I actually distilled this down to a handful of big rocks. Yes. I think I overcomplicated this. So first, first mistake was this was, oh, we'll figure out what you get back. That was a big mistake.

Second mistake was, okay, I need to write up this like serious plan where, which most of them would have. They're busy. They're work. They're in meetings or they're on vacation. And so it took a while before I started to realize, like, okay, it's important that I give them a strategy to be successful while they travel, whether it be business or on vacation. But I can't overcomplicate it or overdo it because then I'm setting them up for failure. And so what I love about this episode or these points we're going to make is I really think distill it down to a handful of things. That's like, just focus on this while you're traveling.

And we can get more granular when you're here. Yeah, and I think the important to start out with, we really have to understand the context of what's important here. And there's a couple things that you need to focus on if travel is a relatively regular part of your life and you're trying to get fit or maintain a level of fitness. And one is you don't want to lose momentum. So this is the biggest problem. The biggest challenge, if you're somebody that travels every month or every other month, which is not that uncommon, again, especially in a place like Silicon. Valley is, you know, you get in this rhythm and then it breaks the rhythm and then getting back into the room that just feels so difficult. So how do we maintain a certain level of consistency

and momentum so it doesn't turn into this on, off, on off, and then eventually just off, right? The second thing is if you're traveling, you can use fitness and nutrition in a way to improve the experience of your travel. So if you're working and you're having meetings or presentations, this should improve your performance. It should not take away from your performance. If you're traveling for work, that's your number one. Like, I'm not with my family. I'm working. I do this thing. I'm not going to do this workout and I'm not going to, you know, bring my meals with me. It's only going to make what I'm trying to do so much more difficult. So it also has to improve or add to what you're traveling for in the first place. And when you

combine those together, you come up with a really successful strategy. So the first thing is this. I talked about momentum, and I talked about improving your productivity or your performance while you travel. And what I, the, the way I approached this early on was totally wrong. The way I approached it was, okay, you're gone for a week. We're going to pick two days to do this like full-on workout. Yeah. And that never worked. Yeah. Yeah. It never worked. So you got to take an hour out of your day. You got to go to the gym. You got to do your thing. And it just was inconvenient. It didn't add to their performance at work. Only my most hardcore

dedicated clients would keep this up. It almost always was a fail. Yeah. Go ahead. Oh, I made the mistake earlier too. I was trying to get so specific. So I would research ahead of time what they had in the gym at the hotel

or the surrounding area to see if we could get them a pass to go to the gym. And it's just like, yeah, all these variables like make it so, you know, when they're in their meeting and then they have to go from one place and now they want to meet for lunch,

and then they want to go over here. It just never would line up, and I just set them up for failure. That's it. So here's what worked, and this was very effective, and it was you're going to do a short workout every morning. Every morning you're going to spend 15 to 20 minutes

doing a very short workout. And if you miss one or two, it's not a big deal. And actually what happened with my clients is they actually appreciated this because they found that they were more energetic make more productive anyway. Cognitive benefits to that. Huge cognitive.

It's a lot. Yeah. It's phenomenal. And so there's a few ways that we would do this. One, and this is the most obvious, is, you know, okay, well, hopefully, if you could pick a hotel that has a gym, let's start there. Sometimes they don't have this option. Sometimes the hotel they're staying at or where they're staying is not dictated by them.

But if it was, let's find one with a gym that makes it really convenient. And if not, a suspension trainer in bands. That's it. Very easy to take with you. It's controllable. I think that's really what I learned was just like the more you can go in with the controllables already thought of ahead of time and the simplicity of it, way more attainable to, you know, release them and know they're going to get the accomplished. Well, I also want you let's address the desired outcome of this period of time too. This is not when I'm trying to make huge leaps in progress with my client.

I just don't want to regress. That's right. And I care more, especially if it's a business trip, I care more about the. cognitive benefits. So really just some sort of movement. We've talked about at nauseam, the study that supports, you know, it takes one seventh the volume of training to hold and maintain the muscle that you built. So in a one week vacation or a three-day business trip, we're not going to lose all your muscle. And so really what I'm looking at is like some sort of stimulation so that we don't go backwards. and I care more about the cognitive benefits

and just movement overall. And so making it so easy, like bands or suspension trainer or like a MAPS 15 routine that they can do in a gym hotel is such a superior way to go about this versus Justin's point about organizing some one-day pass at a big commercial gym

they have to go do. And it's not to say that there's somebody who's listening that doesn't love to do that. That's your gym and that works for you. And I absolutely have to see. One percenter. Yeah, I absolutely had a client or two that was like that.

And so I know they exist. But I know I made the mistake as a trainer. And I failed my clients a lot of times over-complicating this process versus really distilling it down. Okay, what is our desired outcome? Our desired outcome is that we don't regress this great progress we made. Okay, well, what does that take then? It doesn't take a lot of training and training intensity and volume.

It takes just a little bit of stimulation and some good choices, food and some movement. and we're going to be successful here. I would tell my clients just like this, very basic. I'd say you're going to do a push, you're going to do a pull, and you're going to do some type of a squat. And the squat could be a lunge. It could be a traditional squat. It could be some type of a deadlift.

Covers a basis. It could be a push to be a push up, an overhead press of some sort. A pull could be some kind of a row or some pull down with a band. That's it. Three exercises. Three exercises every single day is all you need to do. And there's another part to this that I found to be extremely valuable. When clients did this, they felt so.

good doing this first thing in the morning, then going to work and doing the meeting, that they actually developed a great relationship with this to where they looked forward to it. And that's everything, right? If this becomes, I mean, just to put it differently, if this is something you look forward to doing, you're going to do it. The way to do that is to make it benefit what you're there to do in the first place. Three exercises, that's a two or three exercises every morning that you're there with a suspension trainer or bands or the hotel gym and you're done.

at 15 to 20 minutes, 30 minutes, if it's the hotel gym, because you've got to walk to it and walk back. And you're finished and you get your day started and you're ready to go. You're not going to lose any progress. You're going to feel good. You're going to be moving. You're more productive anyway. It's great. And by the way, you can't push for progress and gains all the time even if you don't travel. So this is the other thing. People are always like, oh, I'm not going to push to make progress. Even if you didn't travel, we're not always trying to push for progress. You can't do that. Your body requires long periods of time where you're kind of maintaining with these short sprints of progress anyway. This just so happens, it'll fall

right into the, hey, I'm maintaining. Well, I think this attitude, this setup set you up for the next thing on your list, which is the walk after every meal. And I find that the client that gets up and just does the two exercises, kicks herself or day, and then they're more likely to be active and make those choices versus the client who, you know, slap in that day or decide they're not going to do anything, or it's an all or nothing. Either I get to the gym and I do that hour, hard work, or I don't. And then if I don't, I end up not being active throughout the rest of the day. And so I've found just getting them, setting the bar low where it's just like, hey, here's

the two movements we're going to do, either in your hotel room or with the bands, or if they actually have a, you know, a little gym workout that we can go down and do. And then they find that the rest of the day, they're already more active. That's right. That's right. So, again, you just go for a short walk after your meals and when you have breaks. And, you know, I got a great story around this. I had a client that would travel.

and part of his travel included, you know, or involved creating relationships or networking. And he actually found this to be extremely valuable for that. So they would have their, you know, their lunch or whatever with the, you know, with the company. And then he would take some as, hey, you want to go for a walk with me. And they would have like a little meeting, you know, in 10 minute walk around the hotel. You know, you don't have to go outside. Outside's great. But sometimes you're in a place where maybe it's snowing and rainy or whatever.

You go walk around in the convention center or the hotel, take someone with you. It's 10 minutes, by the way. We're not talking about a 35-minute walk. You do a 10-minute walk after your meals or during a break. Now you've added, you know, throughout the day, 20 to 30 minutes worth of walking. This keeps you moving, keeps you productive. It feels good.

And you could do the networking. You could do meetings this way. It's extremely beneficial. Yeah, all this is the antidotes. It's so sedentary when you're traveling just to get there, being in the airplane and then decompressing from that, being in the hotel. So, yeah, I think the opportunity you can to really, you know,

walk and get some steps in. It's going to great. You know, if you're bringing your suspension, training your bands, one of the thing you can bring is a protein powder. Very easy to pack, bring with a shaker cup. This is a very easy substitute for a meal

or to hit your protein targets. And oftentimes, in my experience, my clients would do this for breakfast. So breakfast was typically not the meal where the company would do the thing. It was typically lunch. Lunch was the meal when they're meeting with people

and they're doing something together. Breakfast was kind of on their own, and I'd have them bring a shake. And so they could have their 40, 50 grams of protein in the morning. It's very, you know, it's a little bit of food or it's barely any food. They have lots of energy. They hit their protein targets.

It's, I think this is a very valuable thing to travel with. Very easy to travel. If you, okay, so I have several pieces of luggage that I use the travel. One's like smaller luggage when I'm going somewhere short. I have a bigger one than for when I'm long travel. If you go in there right now in my room, you will find at the bottoms of those best.

and travel cases, I have creatures that habit protein oatmeal. Yeah. And it's just, I've trained myself to always have four or five that I just throw. And I just, I leave it, leave them in there. Just leave them in there until they go low and then I throw more in there and I keep it in there for this exact reason because it's something so quick that I can mix up and I can drink or in this case, eat really quick. And this is where I find shakes, bars, stuff like this really beneficial.

Totally. Obviously, on the show, we talk so much about promoting whole. foods and that's the goal. When you're traveling and you're on the go, having this stuff ready for you makes it a lot easier for you to not make that choice to go in and get the high calorie Starbucks drink or to drive through and go somewhere fast food. And so this is where I'm very pro utilizing shakes or protein oatmeal or things like that that's easy accessible for the client. Totally. And then when you do eat food, seek out the protein and eat it first. Almost every meal will allow for this. So you may be getting, you know, food presented to you guys.

You're in this big meeting. Here's the lunch. Seek out the proteins. Eat that. Eat it first. Aim to hit your body weight and grams of protein for the day. So if you know that requires 50 grams of protein, eyeball it, eat it first. Now the data on this is, I mean, we talk about this on the podcast all the time. But when you eat your body weight and grams of protein, it reduces the amount of total calories that you eat. It's very satiety producing. Protein itself, it's great for muscle. it's also great for fat loss. So in studies where their calories are controlled, one's high protein, one's moderate or low protein,

the high protein diets tend to outperform the other ones. So seek out that protein. So when you're at your lunch and you see the salad bar and there's a chicken and then, oh, there's some bread over there. You know, I'm going to get the protein first. I'm going to eat that. And then if I want some more food afterwards, I'll eat it. This is just, by the way, this is just good advice across the board

anytime you eat out. Anytime you eat out, seek out the protein. eat it first, aim for a large serving of it. And you would be shocked. People who've never done this before, it is remarkable how well this controls overall food intake. It's extremely effective. So my generic rule was eating out for breakfast and lunch,

you double the meat no matter what. If you're at a restaurant, like say like a steakhouse, you can order like the regular steak. But most places, this is the place that I think the clients have to be the most careful with is that most breakfast and lunch in particular, some dinners, but mostly breakfast and lunch. Servings of protein is only like four ounces.

So the rule was double meat, eat your veggies first. I'm not managing the recipe for that. As long as you did that at every meal. Double the meat, eat your veggies first. I'm not worried about the other stuff. And just make sure that every meal that you're doing that, they hit their protein intake. They get full enough off of that,

even if they had a little bit of chips or crackers or bread or a drink or whatever afterwards. They got satiated enough from just eating the high, protein. One, they had enough protein to keep the lean body mass that we had built. Two, it suppressed the appetite enough that when they got done with this trip, we didn't lose any of our gains that we worked so hard for. And then if there are no good options, unless you have a history of eating disorder, unless you're underweight, fast. If there's no good options, just don't eat. It's not a big deal, everybody. It really isn't a big deal. And here's what you may find, and this is what I find,

at least in the short term. If I'm traveling for work, it's typically a few days. For most people, it's no longer than a week. Fasting here and there in short periods of time, you tend to get improvement in focus and improvement in your ability to pay attention. You tend to have better cognitive performance. The data pretty much supports this. Again, there are cases where this may not be the case. But for many people, you tend to feel better.

So I'll give an example. If I went to a place that served, let's say breakfast, say I'm going to a convention and there's a big meeting of speakers. Sometimes I go speak at an event. So like, okay, come up. We're all going to have breakfast together before the event. It's all pancakes. And sometimes they provide food.

And what is it? It's a bunch of muffins and bagels and stuff like that. I'm going to skip. I'm not, there's really nothing here for me to eat. I'm just going to fast and I'm going to be okay. And I feel better versus when I eat the muffins and ate the bread and then I feel lethargic the rest of the day.

So there's no good options. Just fast. It's so funny. I didn't know this is what you met when you put fast. I went through, went through my head is what has happened to me the last couple times I've traveled is most places. now, even if they don't serve food or that's all they have is like, you could door dash to the hotel.

Yes. So I thought you meant by fast, they made like fast food to get delivered to you. And every city that I at least said that I've gone to so far. You know, this is a new thing because when I was training clients, they didn't have them. No. So this has now become this new option where I've been at hotels or these ends where they don't have any food or it's just like a bar and it's like drinks or it's just like muffin type stuff. And I'm like, okay, I just pull up and then DoorDash pulls what's near me. and then on there, there's always one or two options

where I can get a double serving of meat and we've talked about some of the most popular places online that have those things and then I just have it delivered to the hotel and I eat it like that. That's what I do now. That's so funny. You know what it is, Adam?

I was thinking of when I used to train clients and, you know, when I was training clients, you know, 15 years ago, that wasn't an option. Yeah. Now it's an option. That's what I do. So when I travel for mind pump, if there are no good options,

I dooredash. Because sometimes hotels don't even have great options, but there's always restaurants around. They'll deliver it to the front desk. You're downstairs and pick it up. Yeah, I didn't, so it wasn't until one of our trips where we're traveling to do interviews and stuff. And I saw somebody else do it.

I went, oh my God, I don't know. Yeah, at home, I knew that I was obviously used to that. I didn't even think that I did every time. Yeah, that's now become the thing. Where even if, like, the place doesn't have, like, it could even have food. If it does have options I like, I'm like, let me see what I can get just brought to me from right here.

And then I can be a little pickier about. what I want and then have it delivered. And so, yeah, that really we overcomplicate this a lot. And clients used to too. And I'm just as guilty as a trainer of overcomplicating this with macros and calories and stuff with that. It's like, man, if I can get my client to just move and be active during this trip that they're on, be aware of that they've either been sitting on a plane for a really long time or that they can easily just kind of lounge around, like getting them to be active and move. If I can get them to do just a couple of exercises, is to start their day every single morning.

And then if I could just get them to it, like I don't want to tell my client who's going to Hawaii hasn't been there in 10 years. Like you can't have any of these foods. You use all your macro. It's just like, enjoy yourself, but eat the protein first.

Like just do that first for me. And then do that thing. It just makes a huge difference on the success rate of that trip. And when they come back, it's not like I'm having to unwind all this damage, the muscle that we've lost,

the body fat that we've put on. They've remained active. They've maintained active. we're out and it's just a much better strategy. Yeah, which actually brings us the last point, which is focus on what's important for your travel, whether it's for business or it is for leisure, because if you make it all about the diet, all about the workout, all about, it turns into rebound, either it becomes all or nothing. Either you lose the benefit of the reason why you're traveling in the first place, you're so stressed

out, or it becomes an escape. This will sometimes happen with fitness fanatics when they go on vacation. it becomes less about the vacation and more about the food. Oh my God, I've been dieting to go to Hawaii. Now that I'm here, I'm just going to gorge and eat like crazy. So focus on what's important. And don't sweat too much the details, which is exactly, you know, kind of what you said. By the way, we have a guide.

It's a DoorDash diet guide. So on it, we cover popular places to eat. What's good for cutting? What's good for bulking? Best options, worst options. Macro breakdowns. It's a totally free guide. If you want it, all you got to do is go to mpdor dash.com and we'll send it right over to you.

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