Ep #21: How to Have the Best and Healthiest Vacation – Part 2

Welcome to Empowered Wellness for Leaders, a podcast that teaches CEOs, entrepreneurs and sales leaders how to deal with the unique challenges of balancing a high-stress career, family, AND their own health. Here’s your host, Certified Executive Wellness Coach, Diana Murphy.

I am so glad to be here, and this is episode 21. You might not realize that, but I do because I love to celebrate different milestones and kind of look back. And I can’t believe that my podcast is an adult today. And it feels like it’s an adult today. And I am super, super proud of what I’m creating here. And I could not do it without the engagement of listeners, clients, and just that I know that you’re there on the other side of this beautiful royal blue mic listening. So thank you so, so much.

I really would like to give my podcast a gift. There have been a lot of reviews, like, where you’ve rated the podcast. Thank you so much for that. But would you take time to make a review? And there’s some instructions to do so if you’re not sure how, and to do that on the app logged in is the key. And if you’re a subscriber, then you’re in a position to rate and review. Now, if that’s not making sense to you, I want you to go to dianamurphycoaching.com/itunes. And that will give you all the information you need.

But the review process certainly is helping this podcast get to others that might be interested, that need it, that want it, but even more important than that, when I see that specific feedback, and I love feedback, it gives me an idea of what to create next for you. So let’s give Empowered Wellness for Leaders a birthday gift, and that would be submitting a review. And pretty soon I might even start some contests and some fun shout outs. I was doing shout outs at the beginning and I lost track. So I just want to thank you emphatically if you have left a review. Thank you so much.

Alright, let’s get on with it. This is really part two and last episode, we talked a lot – I talked a lot about what to pack for your vacation, setting an intention, really taking very good care of yourself, not making it too different in terms of food and exercise so that you don’t come home with the souvenir of five pounds and feeling gross, right?

And if that happens, no harm has been done. And in fact, guess what, my next podcast is going to be how to lose five pounds. So you’ve got it all taken care of. The reason I’m creating this second episode, and I think it even should be listened to before you go because again, it is about setting intention, and it’s all about bringing back a little bit of your vacation and integrating it into your life.

This is what I mean. I hear so often people saying that they need to quit their jobs after a vacation especially, because they realized how much rest they needed, they realized how relaxed they were, they weren’t as stressed out. And certainly, vacations or times away from our jobs can give us some insight that we might need to make a shift, in fact.

But so often that’s really not the case, and what I want to express today is that in all that coming back from vacation, the re-entry, the regretting that it’s the last day of the vacation, this can be a beautiful thing. This can be an opportunity for you to learn some areas in your life that you can integrate what you learned on vacation.

And you know, I’m going to lay that all out for you today on some very specific ways and give you some really good ideas. But the concept, it really is this: you can bring home Italy, the Tetons, the beach, whatever you have loved on your vacation, there is something there that you can bring a little piece of back home with you.

I have a saying, everybody is in Italy. I can count on two hands now people that I know personally that have gone or are in Italy right now. Now, yes, there sounds like there’s some envy there, but it’s really given me a neat opportunity because during my life, I had a lot of opportunity to go to Italy. My dad loved it, Italy, and sent us there and brought us there as a family.

Like, how spoiled am I? And I just love that I have those experiences and I do know that on some of these trips, I learned a lot about food and how to treat it in my life. It really did cause some of the shifts of savoring and enjoying food for the right purposes instead of being that massive overeater and being in diet frenzy that I was.

So I know that I’ve had some of that learning and I want to lay out a perspective that you can bring home what you most love on vacation with you. Alright, so we do live in this society of all or nothing. Like, we work so hard and then almost start resenting our jobs and then we can’t wait to play so hard.

And I think that’s wearing ourselves out. I think there’s a way to blend these parts of our lives that we can stop resenting our jobs because they’re seriously the way that we are able to vacation. It brings income to our lives, there’s a new way that we can actually look at our jobs and the value they bring to our lives instead of resenting them because we want to go on vacation so badly.

And the reverse is also true, that we can have a perspective that the vacation does not end the last day. There are parts of that that you can bring home into your life that are really important. So what can you bring home?

So I love the concept around wellness of eat, move, and sleep. They’re such key areas of care in our lives, and again, I’ve mentioned this book before, but Tom Rath wrote a book with all these tips on eating better, moving better, and sleeping better, and how important they were.

And that’s what I’m going to break up right now are what are those – in those three areas, what are ways that you can learn while you’re on vacation something that you might need to bring home. So sit back, listen, and get some time to understand what comes up for you and what’s important to you that you need to bring back.

So if it’s eat, move, and sleep, I think eating is such a big part of the vacation, let’s just get that over with and talk about that first. So one thing that I have noticed on vacations that I always long for when I get home is the way that when we’re renting a house or are away as a group, or staying at someone else’s home, I love gathering more than just my husband and I – we’re empty nested. I love gathering more people around the table.

And that’s something that you can notice while you’re on vacation. You know, noticing that you love that group dining experience. Like, even on cruises, and seriously, there have been some real fails in this, but you can be assigned to someone like, during the whole trip, and I don’t recommend that actually because you can really get with some people that are not on the same wavelength as you.

But my mom and I about every third night were – early in the cruise, definitely, we are all about meeting other people. And it is an opportunity that we do like just sitting down with strangers and meeting people from Canada or other places in the world and hearing their stories and where they came from.

And they’re all sectors of life. I mean, I think that’s so fascinating. And socioeconomically, certainly there’s a difference like when you’re on a cruise or on a nice resort, but I do notice that when I – what I love to bring home from vacation is remembering that I do like that group dining experience.

Are there particular foods that you are loving while you’re away? Some of them might not be as widely available when you get home, but I love bringing home – one of my friends – again, this is like, I’ve travelled with her a couple times. She will collect a cookbook that has been translated in English but was originally that country’s cookbook.

And she brings that home so that she can cook those native meals at home. And I’ve done this a few times. I think I have a Caribbean cookbook and something else that I can bring what we enjoyed as a – something from the region and bring that home.

But I want to dig a little deeper. Were there some ways that you ate or the timing, not snacking? Anything that you noticed while you were away that was very different, or even on the other side, that you noticed that food was always available because you were at a family member’s home and food was kind of pushed on you and you realize that you had to have maybe a few more tools to handle that if you’re trying to maintain your weight or that’s kind of an issue for you. Or that you’re so relived to get home because food isn’t in your face all the time.

But notice the things around food that you do love and want to bring home with you. It doesn’t mean – if you left Italy and have all this amazing food cooked for you and you get home, you don’t have to go to all processed foods or eating out all the time at cheap places. You know, what would it look like to maybe prepare a meal every week? The most favorite one you had when you were away, or cooked in a way, like picking out everything fresh that you know and tossing it around with pasta and opening a really good bottle of wine. Like, remember what really worked for you and why you were so lit up during the trip. Bring home that piece and create it at home.

I recommend to many of my clients that live fast, live furious, and are struggling with their weight, or actually struggling – they have a love hate relationship with food, I recommend a solo dining date where they savor and slow down with their food. And so this is what I’m really getting at. Take some time to really – if you’ve been on such a fast pace and had this opportunity to be in Italy or France or even just another place where somebody was cooking for you and you realized that you were enjoying food better, definitely take the opportunity to do that for yourself. So I assign that as a little homework if you’re missing that.

Do a food date with yourself. Savor every bit of it, light a candle, up level your dining experience by bringing things home with you or up leveling your dining experience.

Alright, moving. What did you love? I have heard from more than one person and I think it’s been my experience every European trip because there was so much walking. I have always lost weight, even in my most struggling years, I have always lost weight when I’ve been away on a European trip because it’s just so natural to be walking everywhere.

So that would be one thing that if you learned that being in motion more often, I’m quite sedentary at my desk, and my friend of mine and I were talking about this, and we were even curious, I’m wondering if I even walked more, just a little more or more times during the day, just short walks, whether that might be better than my super intense high intensity workouts, like HIIT workouts.

And we both are like, I’m kind of testing that because I love those high intensity workouts but if I do five or six of those a week, is that really good for my older body or do I really need to do that? Because when I’m on vacation and I’m eating great foods and moving slowly and actually on my feet all day, interesting, I start losing weight. It’s just fascinating.

So bring home activities that might be a little new. Another, it might be a more strenuous way. Were you really enjoying the hiking? Were you loving the canoeing? Were you loving some of the things you were exposed to like all the steps in Positano? Like, and realize, wow, I can do that or you realize that athletically, you couldn’t handle your trip as well as you’d like to and work something in at the gym and look at a new workout.

So again, be really curious about what you loved and bring a bit of it back home with you. One little story I heard, I was networking and there was this attorney that was really fascinated with the work I was talking about. I could tell that she was really frustrated with her body dropping weight, and we were talking about that, and she said, “Oh my gosh, I was on vacation and I was hiking like, nine miles.” That’s a lot, by the way.

And I just encouraged her – and this is what I’m offering to you. I encouraged her to bring that home with her. Yes, you can’t walk nine miles every morning and have a full work day always. And yet, maybe you could if you got up earlier in the summer.

But do you see how she was yearning for that and saw it as an all or nothing thing like I don’t have time to do that because it’s nine miles? Yeah, but her body is telling her this is something beautiful that she could do more of when she’s home.

So get creative. Is there a way that you can in many ways, bring home your vacation experience in terms of exercise? And what did you miss when you came home? I know for me, I miss my gym. I love group workouts, I miss my people. When I spent seven weeks in Florida, I literally – I could not wait. I almost cried when I walked into my gym because I missed those people so much.

So you know, get back to it. If you really did miss something, make sure you honor that by getting back on track. Don’t let the vacation mode disrupt you either, as you re-engage and get back home.

I want to talk about sleep and rest, the last one on the eat, move, sleep. I think most of us, if we are working really, really hard, when we go on vacation, we just – those first three days, we can’t wait to just sleep the whole time.

I really think that’s important to watch. Like, what did you love as you kind of recovered that first couple of days and let down, what was your ideal sleeping pattern? Because this has surprised me. I love getting up in the morning. But I also love going to bed late when I’m working during the week.

And in that situation, I want to share with you that I have learned that putting myself to bed early is absolutely a gift to my health. Because I love having time early in the morning before anyone is up. When I used to take trips to Lake Tahoe, in that first week of being used to Eastern time zone, I took advantage of it, I had young children and I would zip down to the dock in my sweatpants – it’s always cold there – and I would have this entire morning of refresh to myself.

And how did I apply that when I got home? I always came home and set my alarm clock earlier and made sure I went to bed earlier. So that’s just an example. You know, is there a right rhythm of sleep that when you’re left to your own devices – not recovering, not that first two nights, but what is the right amount of sleep for you? My suggestion to you would be to definitely honor that you know you need six hours of sleep, seven hours of sleep, even eight, and do everything you can to put yourself to bed at night.

I know I’ve talked about this and routines, and I’ve talked about morning routines, and I think there’s going to be a podcast here about putting yourself to bed and turning work off a little sooner, winding down with your family, loved ones, or a book, whatever is your routine, and putting yourself to bed earlier. And even like, 15 minutes earlier every night.

Did you love napping while you were on vacation? I used to judge napping. I think it was because I was in charge of the baby and I used to nap all the time before I had children, and I used to resent that my husband felt totally free to go take a nap. Now, that wasn’t helpful because I think if I had learned to take turns with him, he would have been fine giving me a nap too.

And I’m not as wired for naps, frankly. I do need to go and close my eyes every once in a while, in the afternoon, and that does really help me if I’m finding I’m really drowsy and I have five more things on my to-do list. But have you learned that you need a refreshment in the afternoon nap-wise? Go to your car. Seriously, go to your car and go close your eyes for a few minutes and set an alarm.

Honor what you learned about your body’s needs. And when we rest well, our brain is so happy. You will find you will be insanely more productive. So if during vacation you learned that napping or a certain amount of sleep works, honor it.

So I hope this gives you some great health tips on eat, move, and sleep. This is really again, a very practical podcast but I think it really can come out of giving ourselves a huge amount of space while we’re on vacation and again, it’s like that setting intention I mentioned in the first part of this episode last week. That you set an intention of really being present and enjoying yourself, and by doing that, you are going to – seriously, you are going to learn what you need coming home.

I have more for you. This concept I think – and I’m just reminding you of it. I really started the podcast here, is that we have this feeling sometimes when we’re in very, very intense jobs and environments, and even being a solopreneur, I will tell you that I have the opportunity to work 80 hours a week if I want to. And I think what I learned working less by keeping my mom a priority when I was in Florida, I learned that less is more.

This year, I crunched my numbers and I actually was coaching less hours but my business actually grew because of some of the other activities I was doing, some of the other ways I was generating income with speaking and workshops. But what was really fascinating is less was more for me. I do think I created other opportunities because I was not feeling like I had to work and coach at every moment.

Creating group coaching opportunities, and not to bore you with my own life, but really, I learned so clearly that less really is more for me. So that feeling of having to work all the time while you are home and then full on play while you’re gone really doesn’t work for us. We need to integrate play when we are home.

I do this. I’m going to have a whole episode on Fun Friday, but Fun Friday is a concept, and it can be an hour, it can be going out to lunch, it is a concept of really honoring all your commitments during the week and giving yourself that space on Friday. So maybe it’s getting done earlier with work and going home early because you really did get everything done, beat the rush hour. I actually believe Atlanta believes in this method because we have rush hour much earlier on Fridays. I’m sure most cities are very similar, especially when it’s very clear out and everybody can get home and golf or get on the lake.

But it is that idea, Fun Friday as a mindset is learning to bring play into your life. And again, that’s the theme of the podcast not only in health habits, but in the things that we learn. So can you bring home not only, you know, a mindset of integrating play, and I’m going to talk about that more in a minute, but can you bring home that positive easy-going mindset you had because you were resting on vacation?

Do you see what I’m getting at? We can think work is so hard and then we push ourselves and we grind ourselves into the ground. Or we can think work is necessary, these are things I love doing, I really do enjoy my business, and so I’m going to work until a certain time, turn off the clock and go on. And yet really fully on play when we have breaks.

And that attitude, you can bring home after having a vacation. You can bring home that positive mindset, carefree attitude that we can develop very easily on vacation, and a creative outlet. That’s how I use Fun Fridays. I have discovered that there are different ways that I love being creative and being creative in any way that – you know, for guys it might be working on a car, it might be perfecting your golf game. It might be cooking. For me, it is cooking and wood working, or painting.

So this sounds so nerdy, right? So you might be embarrassed about what you’re learning that you love to do, but the concept of allowing ourselves to play, that Fun Friday concept really, really is helpful. Let me share with you an experience I had when I – and I might have shared this before so I apologize if this is a repeat, but I think it really applies here.

When I was hitting all my deadlines of creating videos for my opt in training as well as the first three podcasts that I developed, all these deadlines were at the same time. I was working at a capacity that I had not really ever in my business, and I actually learned to kind of just go with the flow and I was able to create a lot. And it wasn’t as hard as I thought, and what was really fascinating is what regenerated me after really two weeks of 10-hour days and working a lot of the weekend, I couldn’t wait to cook. And I found it just fascinating that that’s what I wanted to do because I used to kind of think that cooking was work.

So I was shifting my mindset here and I learned that my creative outlet when I’m really craving a break is to literally go find two recipes of foods that I really want to have, go and full on shop, enjoy the shopping experience and come home and cook. During that weekend, I physically was done. My brain was fried.

And I found as I cooked through that entire Saturday and made meals really for almost two or three days, not on purpose, totally just cooked what I wanted to. I didn’t even care if I could freeze them. I just was having so much fun that my whole countenance lightened up.

So again, like I spoke in the first podcast about doing art, like, my husband loves to draw. He brought that home every vacation and then times that he’s off, he doesn’t do it as much as I think he’d love it – like see, I think he should be doing it. But things that you notice like photography while you’re gone. Honor that and do that when you’re home. Maybe a creative outlet of cooking or a cooking class and learning more, or learning to draw, learning to dance. That’s a Fun Friday concept.

What are some creative ways that you really are craving an outlet? It is one of the most beautiful breaks of your brain. While you’re doing creative things, it will allow you to really, really get a break. A mental break. I have a fun example. I have a friend who does pottery, and I am a recipient of the most beautiful jar on my desk.

And her name is Marcy, and she’s the most intellectual, amazing, smart – I know she’s just wicked smart. And she does a pottery class whenever she can. And when she talks about this, I know that that outlet for her is really, really good for her and she talked about it last week. In fact, I will have probably a whole creative podcast based on a workshop I experienced with her.

And watching someone that I think is so heady and smart and intellectual, probably reads five books a month and hearing that she dedicates this time to do pottery and learn to do pottery just gives me encouragement because I just feel like it’s so important.

So is there something that you found yourself doing more that you need to remind yourself when you get home to do when you get home? Honor that. take a journal with you. This might be the way that you can honor those commitments, honor what you learn on vacation. Take a journal with you and just let it be.

Like, you can set an intention and prompts if there’s some things you want to work on but give yourself – again, this really circles back to the beginning. Give yourself space to fully experience your vacation, fully experience you. Get an opportunity where you can let go and let the brain release the stress and really find out maybe some ways that you have new hobbies, bring home a new perspective, a new way to eat, a new way to move, a new way to sleep.

What souvenir are you going to bring home? I hope that these two podcasts can be something that even if you’re not getting a vacation this summer. Like, I am getting a family vacation this summer. I cannot wait. I’m going to be going to D.C. and my son from Dallas is going to be meeting me there. So we’re all getting together, that’s my big family vacation, it’s four people. But we love cooking together and just hanging together so I’m looking forward to that.

And I know that there’ll be something to learn with that, right? So no matter what your type of vacation is this summer, or you’re working all vacation and you need to apply Fun Friday, let me know if you need some ideas. This is something that I’ve done since I became a business owner and it is just – not every Friday do I take off, but it’s something that has really, really given me life in the middle of my life.

Have a fabulous June week. I have so much more for you. Next week I am going to talk about losing five pounds. And what this is is a lot of my webinar teachings of getting started losing weight and this is about losing your first five pounds, your middle five pounds if you’re stuck a little bit, your five pounds from vacation if that happened. No drama. This is all about setting a plan, setting some steps of intuitive eating that help you move toward permanent weight loss.

Losing the five pounds permanently, losing the first five pounds to create momentum, or losing five pounds where you’re stuck in the middle. Like, you’re in the middle of your weight loss journey and you’d like to lose five more and get moving again, this podcast is for you.

I can’t wait to see you there. Thank you so much for listening. I love, love, love, that you’re on the other end of this mic. And I hope you have a fabulous and empowered day.

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