The Strong Mom Podcast

Fitness Secrets For Busy Sports Parents

• Lauren Regula | Strong Mom • Episode 8

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Hey Strong Mom tribe, it's Lauren and Dave here to share how we juggle the chaos of parenting athletes and still manage to crush our health goals. You'll be grabbing your headphones faster than your kid's cleats when we reveal our top-notch tactics for staying in shape even when your minivan feels more like a second home. Get the inside scoop on how we avoid the concession stand siren call and make smart, protein-packed choices that keep us powered up and ready to tackle whatever parenting curveballs come our way.

Imagine transforming a mundane soccer practice into your personal gym session, or turning a hotel stay into a fitness retreat. We spill the beans on how we sneak in workouts between cheers and how even a simple walk can level up your well-being game. Discover our laugh-out-loud moments and fitness hacks that will have you viewing parking lots and hotel gyms in a whole new light. And yes, we've got anecdotes aplenty about keeping fit while living that sideline life.

Strap on your favorite athletic shoes, because we're also diving into how to keep your nutrition and fitness on point while on the go. From wearing a weighted backpack to choosing staircases over elevators, we're dishing out the nitty-gritty on how we stay ahead of the game. We're not just talking about keeping fit for ourselves but setting an example for our kiddos, too. Join us as we navigate this journey together—where health doesn't take a backseat to hectic schedules, and where every day is an opportunity to be your strongest self.

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Lauren:

I'm thinking it's an egg white bite. I get the egg white ones.

Dave:

Egg and cheese at Starbucks is like 500 calories and.

Lauren:

I look, try to look for about 20 grams of protein or if I can get more awesome.

Dave:

Super high cal thing floating around trail mix.

Lauren:

That's 365 miles over the course of the year that you just decided that you weren't going to do because it was such a small snippet of time. Hey, and welcome to the Strong Mom mom podcast, where we essentially help moms get their shit together. I'm lauren, the creator of strong mom, three-time mom, three-time olympian, and I am here with my handsome co-host I'm dave, I'm the handsome co-host support staff.

Dave:

I'm really just going to keep the conversation moving and support lauren in making thing awesome.

Lauren:

You definitely keep it moving. First, if you can go ahead and press subscribe like share, so that you see this content. If what we say resonates with you and it's helpful to you by doing that, it will help it get in your feeds more.

Dave:

We want to make sure that you don't miss anything fun, impactful, important, funny, funny all that stuff.

Lauren:

Funny, awesome, awesome. All right, what are we talking about today?

Dave:

we're going to talk about how to live as a fit and healthy sports parent and sports and activities. Right, because not every everyone's kids play sports yeah most that we work with do, or they're involved in, piano or dance, which is kind of a sport, right? Um, all those crazy things. They all, in some form or fashion, are crazy in their own way, right we do yeah, 100, be honest here, yeah yeah, okay, it's funny.

Dave:

We go to the volleyball tournaments. Our daughter is 14 in volleyball at a, I guess, a national level, right. We travel all over the place and we get to the convention center, like who are those crazy people over there? And it's the dance, it's the dance people. And then we're like wonder what they think about us. Like the volleyball thing is just as crazy. So I think on some level it's all crazy, just crazy.

Lauren:

We're all drinking the kool-aid 100 and I'm excited to talk about this because this is exactly the season of life that we're in. It is how we live and we're gonna go through some kind of tips and ways to navigate the crazy activity and sport seasons, because I know we know exactly what it's like to be out of the house every single evening, driving from here, there, everywhere. Where are we on the weekends? Who knows right? It's like where's where's Waldo, where's where's the fam this weekend. So we are trying to navigate this ourselves. We've come up with some really great ways to stay healthy as we travel and we're excited to share. We're going to talk fitness and nutrition this episode.

Dave:

We're going to get tactical. I think things. There's an emotional component to staying fit and healthy through sports, parenting. We'll save that for a different episode. These are going to be the ultra tactical things that you can do on a daily, weekly basis to stay and maintain and get healthy as you go. It doesn't have to be impossible, stressful, anything like that, and I think a lot of people walk into it expecting that. So we're going to walk through how to feel great going through this.

Lauren:

Yeah, and just for context, one more time we have a 14-year-old in volleyball, we have a 13-year-old right now in soccer and we have an 11-year now in soccer and we have an 11 year old in soccer, and they all do travel. So we're really just pulling from sharing that, so you understand exactly where we're coming from. Yeah, a big.

Dave:

A big part of it, too, is we've coached thousands of people, most of them moms, through this, a lot of dads too, but having to. We've seen so many different experiences, not only what we've been through for multiple sports planes, trains, automobiles type thing, but we've had to solve or help solve a lot of different scenarios, and so we have a good, a good vantage point with this. Yeah.

Lauren:

All right, let's do this. So the first thing that I think is extremely important when we're talking about heading into, let's say, a weekend away Okay, I'm actually about to head out to Louisville, kentucky, for a volleyball tournament with our daughter and as we, even before we go, as we head there and get prepared, pack our bags and everything I think the first thing, that's the most important, is having a high expectation of yourself while you are on the road. I know for me, I do have a high expectation of myself, I do want to hold myself to a high standard and I see, over and over, people say, well, this is just the season of life I'm in, and they kind of throw it out. They're mentally already giving themselves permission to just not move and eat like pure shit. So I think it's really important for you to know that. Number one, it is possible to still be healthy. And two, just put yourself in that seat. Does that make sense?

Dave:

To me it does. Hopefully it does. Yeah, essentially, it sounds like you want to lay the foundation right, lay the belief system down that you can do this right. Like you said, people throw in the towel before they even start a lot of times and it's just an excuse and the reality is like you just have to do it on some level. You have to go for it. You cannot use these things as excuses because they're your life. They're not. These aren't one-offs anymore. If you get into kind of these scenarios with kids in sports, right, they're your life.

Lauren:

Yeah, that's what I was going to say. One of the moms that we work with travels all the time and it was like, well, but I travel, well, but I travel well, but I travel. So what does that mean? That means that's your norm. So if it's your norm, you have to create a plan around that being your norm.

Lauren:

So if traveling and being out all the time for dinners and having to figure that out, if you know that is the season of life that you're in and you do want to still make strides towards being healthy, just accept it. That's the first thing, without even being super. You know, tactical eat this, not that. I think it's just how you think of it going in, be excited to go in, be excited to look for good opportunities to find ways to move, to find things to eat that are healthy. And remember your kids, who are playing. They need healthy food too.

Lauren:

I think it's easy to get into that. Oh well, you know we'll just keep ordering the pizza or keep doing the easiest thing and their kids, it doesn't matter, like it's good for them to eat healthy too. So let's get into how we do that. I'll start, because I know you make fun of me for this, but I'm a huge pack, your own fooder right, and I know there's a difference between are you going on a plane? I was just in Las Vegas with our 13 year old son. It was more challenging, obviously, to pack food when you're going on a flight. So, if you are driving, get one of those cooler bags. We have one of those huge bags that your mom gets us for Christmas all the time.

Dave:

Every year and forgets that she got it for us the year before.

Lauren:

So we have plenty of them, but we use them. We use them and in that bag I make sure to pack fruit and when I say there's these granola bars or the, that's it bars. They're like little fruit bars.

Dave:

There's a few brands right. Rx Bar is a good one. They're just very clean bars. Fruit, like you said, is a good one.

Lauren:

But I also pack and it was funny because I know you laughed at me for this. I bought a small toaster like a two slicer, because our main toaster is a four slicer. Right, we have a family of five, so we toast more than two things usually.

Dave:

Total side note. I can hear people right now, because I can hear you listening. They eat bread. They eat bagels. Yes, and it's again. You can be super lean and fit and strong eating all of the food, which is a total side conversation that we can teach you about later. But yes, we bring a toaster.

Lauren:

We bring a toaster. I not only bring a toaster, but I also bring a cutting board. I have one of the plastic or plasticky ones that's more flimsy and it's super light. I have a knife that has a what is that? A sleeve, I guess you would call it.

Dave:

Sheath.

Lauren:

Sure, and I also bring a little towel and something to wash it with as well. My kids and Dave know this, and everybody that actually knows me knows this. I'm so crazy about sleep. We don't have to wake up extra early because we're already waking up early, especially for volleyball tournaments. Then I'm going to choose that so it just creates a more calm morning. If I know we can put in either a bagel or a mini bagel for Grace and she's got her fruit and we've got some jerky or some hard boiled eggs or whatever that looks like For me, some yogurt, I, I just it's really helpful.

Dave:

Anybody that's been at these tournaments and volleyball is a good one, I'm sure the hockey and the hotel tournaments essentially the breakfast at the hotel. It can be okay, for sure. But there are times when, recently, we've had to be at the courts before the breakfast is out, like we're up and out before 7am, depending on the hotel, they might not have the breakfast right, and so you need to be prepped, prepped and ready. And the other thing is make sure for the coffee drinkers you know what your coffee setup is going to be right. We've considered we're on the verge of bringing a coffee maker, because you know that Keurig in the hotel hasn't been used in five or six weeks and it still has the residue from the last time.

Lauren:

I thought it was going to be five or six years, yeah, no. Last time I thought it was gonna be five or six years, yeah, no, it gets used the cotton. No, it's the coffee is five or six years old that they?

Dave:

put in in the bag, right? True, it was sourced in the 90s, true?

Lauren:

true, but it was yeah, it's quadruple origin awesome, but yeah, so we're really close to pulling the trigger on what else. So coffee maker on the list.

Dave:

We did the bagels protein shakes.

Lauren:

I think that's a huge one yep, especially if you know you're gonna have a little mini fridge. I always bring protein shakes. I actually use protein shake in my coffee for creamer as well, again, just because I know it gets it in there instead of cream. That's just a little hack that I like to do and it makes it taste good. So, bagels I've brought lots of fruit jerky yogurt. I love cottage cheese so I'm down with that. Yep, it depends on how far you're going and how long you have, but you can pack a cooler so let's go.

Dave:

What happens on the trips? When you're flying, you can't, obviously, pack that food bag when you're flying right, and so I'll take the lead a little bit and you're hopefully going to follow, because you're on your next plane trip soon. Door dash and everyone's like, oh, you're so lazy, doordash, dash Mart on DoorDash or I'm sure Uber Eats are one of these other delivery things. When we touched down we were just in Kansas City when we touched down all these supplies that you need, the things for the morning, all of them you can Dash Mart. It's literally, it's like five extra bucks. They bring it to the hotel and so I got a case of water.

Dave:

Oh, all of those things when you're like, oh God, I wish I had water. You're scrambling for one bottle here or there, or drinking out of the sink, which is about as quality as it's like drinking out of the sink on an airplane, essentially, at some of these. So we door dashed all that stuff, including some fruit, and it changed the entire weekend. Right, we're in the hotel for three nights, never worried, wake up, grab something, there's something there. When you come back to the room before bed, you can be healthy. And the kicker here is you're in control, you're not. I think people get in trouble when they're reactively eating and, like you said, when you're proactive with it, you're owning it.

Lauren:

Yeah, I love that. We're big door dashers and this is where, if you don't have your cutting board, then you get the pre-cut fruit right. There's ways or there's things like grapes and bananas, things that you can get that you don't have to worry about the whole cutting board.

Dave:

I tend to go overboard Dave knows this when it comes to fruit and cutting and yeah, I heard when you said the cutting board, every male that was listening flipped off Like no one is doing that, but it's really cute.

Lauren:

I do. But yeah, so you can then get to your regular fruits that you don't need to cut. I don't know about you listening, but I personally like cut fruit better than just eating like a whole apple, right. So but I digress, moving on.

Dave:

Yes, that's a princess move, a hundred percent.

Lauren:

DoorDash to get those supplies that you wish you had.

Dave:

So those are two big ones. I want to ask you a question because I'm going to lead you into the next one. Tell me about eating. So this is a big one where people go. Reason is it's not like we're flying to Australia for sports tournaments.

Lauren:

yet at least Feels like it.

Lauren:

So I can not eat anything for a couple hours or an hour, two hours, three hours I think Las Vegas was what four hours from us. I'm fine, I don't need all of that because you don't get a lot of good food on the plane. Or I will bring my own controlled bar right, Like, find out, I'll bring an RX bar, or I'll bring those that's it bars, or some nuts or something that I know how much I'm eating of it, that I'm not again just left out to well, what do they have, I'll just take that. So that's just an easy rule. A lot of times people say, well, I didn't have a choice. One of the choices you always have is just to not eat it. Like well, I didn't have a choice what to eat. And sometimes moms will say to me well, you know, I didn't make it, I didn't do this, it was not my fault, I don't have any control. And my answer to that is always you always have a choice with how many times your hand goes to your mouth with that food.

Dave:

It's one of my favorite Dr Kashi comments ever, Like when the client or the person comes back. Well, I was hungry. It's okay to be hungry. Not being hungry is what's gotten you in trouble, it's okay.

Lauren:

Feeling full all the time is not a good sign, typically, yeah, so another way that I kind of combat if I do feel hungry on a plane. I just did this because I'm just thinking about what I did.

Dave:

Drink from the sink.

Lauren:

I go get the big jugs of water or the big whatever smart water the biggest ones that I can get, not the leader ones, but you know the ones that you buy at an airport and then I put in an element and then I put in a vitamin C. I do those vitamin C. They're not emergencies, but whatever those vitamin C packets are, I always put them in together in the biggest one. But it does give me the satisfaction that I have some taste. It's not just like plain water all the time, so it gives me the satisfaction of taste. I am doing the hand to mouth motion and water is going in my stomach. So I am getting filled up a little bit. But yeah, we just have a. Just, if you're in the car driving or you're on the plane, just don't eat or have your controlled snacks. What's there?

Dave:

or how about this one bonus?

Lauren:

okay chew gum oh yeah, big gum chewer.

Dave:

Yeah, honestly, that's such an easy way to pass the time and not eat.

Lauren:

Yeah, you also drink plain coffee.

Dave:

What do you mean? Oh, like coffee from the plane.

Lauren:

I don't know many people who say I'll take a coffee please.

Dave:

No calories.

Lauren:

I know I give you a lot of credit for that.

Dave:

Makes my stomach upset, so I don't want to eat.

Lauren:

No kidding.

Dave:

I think that's honestly. That could be a strategy.

Lauren:

All right. So we've talked about packing your food. Don't feel ridiculous either. If you pack your food and walk in with a food bag, okay, cool, you walk in with like it is what it is. If you're going to be more in control, awesome. I totally walked in one of the tournaments. I got my big ass toaster with my cutting board sticking out. I don't care, but I do care that I wake up in the morning and I feel in control.

Dave:

Yeah, and when you see the Starbucks line at the hotel or the convention center or the drive-through when you're at a soccer tournament, that's 10 miles long and you're scrambling and you're almost late for the game, you can now drive by that and point and laugh at all the people.

Lauren:

All right, we talked about DoorDash. It is a very underutilized option that just gives you so many options at your fingertips when you feel like there's just nothing. If we're flying, just a hard fast rule Don't eat on the plane, don't eat in the car, unless it's what you brought. Use water. If you're like Dave, you can use some plain coffee, chew some gum. Another thing that we do we plan ahead. So we look at the restaurants and we also look at the items on the menu, not just the restaurant, because that could always be deceiving, but what would I actually get here? So I think that's really important. Is there a restaurant attached to your hotel? What are the hours? What does it have? I know you just came back from kansas city. You've been raving about this restaurant that they had there. What was it called?

Dave:

protein house. If anyone is in kc, it's the greatest place I've ever seen yeah, I feel like you want to open.

Lauren:

You talked about the first thing.

Dave:

I thought of was like do these people franchise? Literally it was good like high quality grass-fed meat, like everything had added protein and they gave you the macros. It was excellent and that's honestly. I found it on doordash like I looked up health food on doordash because our hotel was kind of off the beaten path. There wasn't anything really inside the hotel. That was great. Kind of those hotel restaurants you can get stuff. It's like a TGI Friday's style, right Like it's 1996, and you get tater skins kind of thing.

Lauren:

Those were good though.

Dave:

They were not great for your cholesterol, anyways.

Lauren:

Planning ahead and again DoorDashing. That not great for your cholesterol, but planning ahead and again door dashing, that's we've door dashed to the hotel actual meals. So you can door dash. What is it? Dash mart, you can actually do items and get things from stores. But also door dashing to the hotel where you meet the driver. And it's always awkward because you're looking for them and make sure you meet them up there. But you can find a good meal through door dash if there's no good options.

Dave:

Yes, and I, and one of the things I also like to do honestly, before we get to any hotel is go on Google maps and click on it and just look for restaurants and coffee around the hotel, Just so I know like these are more travel just in general, and I'm sure a lot of people you guys already do this, but I love doing that. I need to know what I'm walking into. It just takes so much stress out of it.

Lauren:

Yeah, I know, all right, it's true, I'm so planning ahead, so it sounds so easy and so simple. But a lot of times we're reactive because we get there and we're like, oh great, now I don't know what I'm going to eat. Or if your kids have the late, the late draw, then you can at least door dash something to the convention center or to the hotel when you know that, hey, we're going to need to eat asap because we're, we have the late wave and we're not going to be out of here until 9 30, you can always door dash that a little bit early.

Dave:

So just again, being proactive, yes, hit me with some food swaps okay, yeah, so and then we're going to get to movement and the physical side of this.

Lauren:

Yeah. So one thing we do our best to is really try and prioritize protein, especially on the road, because sometimes that can be hard and we know that the more protein you eat, the more full you feel. And again, when you're on the road and you don't have all that much control over your environment, being more full, for me at least, is a better option than always feeling starving.

Dave:

So for me, that is a great option than always feeling starving. So for me that is a great option for everyone, right?

Lauren:

I'm just telling you, I'm just telling you what I think I know it's okay to.

Dave:

We all need to eat as much protein essentially as we can. We haven't coached anybody or met anyone that was over protein and at least the best body comp. There's a million other reasons, but that's got to be the quest and that's the hardest part, because high quality protein sources aren't always the cheapest and easiest. They don't make the most money for the food company, right? It's much easier for them to sell you snacks and cereal and Chex Mix things like that, and so always the quest is for protein.

Lauren:

Can I do one of my favorites? Yeah, I was going to say what's one of your favorite protein kind of go-tos.

Dave:

So this follows up on Starbucks. Right and this is a big piece of this whole thing is having routines. And when you have, when you find your places like Starbucks is one of my places, like I know there's a million of them anywhere I am If I find a Starbucks, I know exactly what I can get. That is healthy, it makes me feel good, it'll make me look good and I'll be full. And that is healthy. It makes me feel good, it'll make me look good and I'll be full.

Dave:

And I always get a black coffee. We'll get that out of the way, or something close to a black coffee. Very few, probably no calories in the coffee. But this is the best thing ever the turkey bacon egg white sandwich. It's, I believe it's 17 grams of protein, like 30 grams of carbs and five grams of fat, something like that. So it's very low calorie relative to what you get. Here's the secret. One of those is great. Like you can crush. They're like 240 calories, maybe less. They might be 170. I'm not going to do the math in my head. You get two of them and you put the turkey bacon and the egg white, you double down and essentially you make the old school double decker sandwich with one English muffin, and so now you're into 30 to 40 grams of protein, which is a really solid meal with very low calories, and you can find Starbucks anywhere right? And so that's always a bailout for me everywhere I travel.

Lauren:

And that's turkey bacon. One word, not turkey. And then bacon, and then egg white, right Turkey bacon. So the bacon itself. Turkey bacon bacon turkey bacon the turkey bacon is very lean because anytime someone hears bacon they're kind of like oh yeah, turkey bacon's super lean.

Dave:

And the cool thing about starbucks I don't know if people don't realize this, because I see people order frappuccinos still, but the calorie counts are actually on all of the things. Like, if you're curious number, if you're curious about why calories matter, please there's a link, just book a call with us, so we can help you.

Dave:

If you know calories matter, just look. And this is the other thing like the sausage, egg and cheese at Starbucks is like 500 calories. Turkey bacon, egg white is like 200 calories, and so like very similar sandwiches, but you win big with one and you can lose big with the other one.

Lauren:

Yeah, and this is a great segue into actually looking for those counts of what are in calories. Because I'll give you an example I like those egg white bites and they're surprisingly higher in calories than I would have thought. Once I weighed how much food I was getting with your double-decker turkey bacon egg white sandwich and what I was getting for my egg white bites, literally with the amount of food and how many calories I was getting, I've actually swayed to yours. I've swayed to your side, because I'll be way more full. It's a little bit more calories. But again, I was somewhat surprised because I'm thinking it's an egg white bite. I get the egg white ones doing my best to be healthy. Then I actually looked into it. I thought, oh, it's a little bit higher than I expected. So anytime you have an opportunity to look at those calorie counts, it's it'll be super helpful.

Dave:

There's one more I like. I think it's huge and I'll give you the credit on this one, Wow.

Lauren:

Maybe you know what Don't? I'm take it back the greek yogurts.

Dave:

I think that's another I will take credit for that I just said I'll give you a little you said you'd credit, but then I know, because I think there was a point where maybe I introduced that to you but the greek yogurts, let's be real, there are some, and again, this is when you need to look, depending on where you go, like the triple zero uh that we have from costco, I think it is uh, is it? Oikos is the brand.

Lauren:

Yeah.

Dave:

Yeah, find those, those triple zeros.

Lauren:

They're basically Like 15 grams of protein in a small-.

Dave:

With like no fat and almost no sugar. It's basically just like a mini protein shake. If you get two of those like, the goal for me is always to shoot for 30 grams plus. If I can get more at any sitting, anytime I eat, perfect. But if you get two yogurts and they have a lot of them, starbucks again. There's always a Starbucks.

Lauren:

Yes, and I look, try to look for about 20 grams of protein or if I can get more awesome, but just cause you do eat more protein than me. So just for context, yogurts, absolutely when you do feel like the snacky snacks, cause we all do. I mean, I've been known to eat some gummies and buy the kind of gummies, probably not the ones you're yeah.

Lauren:

Again, it depends on my intention going in. Right now, I'm in one of my phases where I'm really tightening up what I'm eating, so I won't have the gummies. Sometimes I go and I'm kind of like, hey, I'm just eating whatever Gummy bears, let's call them, okay.

Lauren:

Sorry, gummy bears, yeah, but if you are in the snacky snacks, we found that if you want some chips or something, maybe swap that for popcorn, and there's those skinny pop popcorns everywhere. That's a great option if you're like, hey, I just know I want a snack. Be very mindful when you're looking at the granola bars just how much is it? Because a very small granola bar that's jam-packed with nuts, it could be really high in calories. So just that's why we like our x bars because they do fill you up, they do have protein the other secret super high cal thing floating around trail mix.

Dave:

Be careful with trail mix. Obviously it tastes amazing, partially because they put m&ms in there, right?

Dave:

it should it should taste amazing. Those can be so high in calories. So just again, just be aware. Yeah, and this is where I find myself, this is where I get in trouble If I don't plan. And it's a long day at the courts or at the fields, all of a sudden you're starving. Then you're grabbing whatever you see, and typically what you see is the shit right. The first thing that's going to jump at you is the trail mix or the regular chips or the thing that's not great. So when you prep and have a plan, it's not so bad.

Lauren:

Yeah, that brings me into when we talk about food swaps or just things to think about. I've seen that. I've done this myself and I've seen it with moms that we work with. They do their very, very best to eat as well as they possibly can and they get the salad and the fruit that doesn't have that much to it. If we skip out on protein, that ends up helping you with that starvation type of feel. When we just have lettuce and we just have fruit and there's nothing to go with it.

Lauren:

It is very common to all of a sudden be at the end of the day, just beyond hangry and you're like well, I ate and I'm trying to make good choices. So there's always that balance of I know, when I get a salad, I always try and get chicken and if I can, and depending on how hungry I am and if I can't eat it, I'll even double up on chicken because that will make that salad last me instead of, you know, all of a sudden eating a salad and then two hours later being so damn hungry that I do go get the chips and I do go get the gummy bears and I do go get the trail mix, and then I do go get some licorice.

Dave:

You got to have the protein.

Lauren:

Yeah.

Dave:

That's a whole nother. That's probably a whole nother show.

Lauren:

So when you're trying to be healthy and you're looking at the soup and you're looking at the salad and you're looking at the fruit great options, try your very best to get that protein in. We actually have been really pleasantly surprised at a couple of tournaments that we've been at that we found grilled chicken that was in a container that they were selling, which was shocking, and amazing. Hard-boiled eggs that was again a little bit shocking and amazing, but beef jerky is another one beef jerky is good again, like no, I don't love eating that stuff.

Lauren:

I'm gonna be very honest jerky no, just I'm thinking of, like the grilled, the chicken. That's just there, oh, it's terrible.

Dave:

It's so dry yeah, right but you mix it, you have something else with it, right, yeah? And for there are, we are gonna. There are people listening, I'm sure, that are in like a mini cut or they're doing something specific where they really want to get truly lean and really kind of go for it. Then you got to have those. Like you got to sometimes grab. You know, in the moment you need to grab the dry chicken breasts. Yeah, again, throw some black coffee to the side. All, all right, keep moving.

Lauren:

Okay. So I think that's pretty good nutritionally, Prioritize protein anytime you possibly can Pack, bring some fruit, bring protein shakes, bring the bars that you know that you know what's in it and you know you have control over DoorDash, Doormart. If you're flying, just make rules rules for yourself. Okay.

Dave:

So let's talk about the, the actual physical movement training piece of this, because body composition, moving the needle a hundred percent, your nutrition is going to be the thing like focus on that. I think people get distracted or whatever the fitness space they want to tell you that it's you know they get mesmerized by if I just work out if I do, I'm not able to do my workout.

Dave:

That's no, that's not the problem, it's the eating at the tournaments problem. So we're clear about that. Second for your physical condition and your mental side, all those things like you have to, you have to move. We can't sacrifice two, three, four days at tournaments and things without getting moving in. So how do we do that?

Lauren:

Yeah. So, just like planning ahead for restaurants and looking at the menus, check out if they have a gym. Does your hotel have a gym and if not, what can you do instead? Do you have bands that you can bring? Is it nice enough where, if you're at a soccer tournament, you can go outside and run? Ask yourself, what's there? Part of the reason why Dave and I ended up getting why we ended up getting a Planet Fitness membership was number one, oh sorry.

Dave:

Let's be clear we also own a gym.

Lauren:

Yes, we have a gym in our house. We own a gym. It's its own business. Shout out, track, yep. And we went and decided to buy a Planet Fitness membership because one. We drive kids to sports just on a regular Monday, tuesday through Friday, right, so we're always up and down.

Dave:

People understand.

Lauren:

Okay, and then two, we had the conversation that, no matter what city, we were in city, knowing that we were going to be traveling with kids and sports even, in Canada.

Lauren:

I was just up there and there was a Planet Fitness in Kelowna so I was super excited about that. So we look to see. If there's no gym, then what are my options? Can I bring bands? What is that going to look like? When I say plan, it's also about the schedule. Don't plan on working out in the morning if you have the early wave and you're going to be out. So you actually have to look ahead and plan when you're going to do it, what's available. And yes, you were going to say something.

Dave:

I am. I think that I think people get in a rush during the week, right, this is typically what we see happening, like in, I'm happening, like in. I'm sure people understand like work takes over weekly stuff with the kids, practices, and then all of a sudden you jet to the tournament, or you wake up and you're you have a double game day, or you're out of the house all saturday and you haven't thought ahead to where you're going to be. It doesn't have to be planet fitness, obviously, but there has to be a plan. You have to be able to look and see okay, here are my options and here's what I'm going to do, because I think when you again, like you said having that option of Planet Fitness, it's not Planet Fitness. That's like oh man, I love Planet Fitness. It's a Stairmaster and a rack of dumbbells, essentially like anywhere you can find that. You got to be able to find it.

Lauren:

And please note, if you are doing this before you leave for the tournament, you're clearly planning ahead enough to pack your stuff, pack your shoes, pack your workout gear, right? There's nothing worse than getting there and being all excited hey, I've got this space of time, I'm going to go work out. And you didn't pack your workout stuff.

Dave:

No, and you should know what the hotel gym looks like like the whole thing right when it opens. I typically would go on the website of the hotel just to see. I want to know what I'm walking into, cause if, if I know I'm going to have 45 minutes you know of time here and there and I haven't been to a tournament yet and we've been all over the country you have 45 minutes at some point right To dip out and get your get your movement in. So if it's not the hotel gym, again, it's a plan of fitness. There's something that you can dip into, but let's talk specifically. There are times during the week and weekend you're not overnight. Let's talk about what you do. Like you're shuttling to practice all week. How do you get movement in then?

Lauren:

Yeah, I actually just did a post about this. I asked if, like, who are you? Are you a parking lot sitter? Which I've been a parking lot sitter at times and it depends on what I'm doing and how I've moved during the day If I got my workout in super early and I can go and chill while the kids are at practice. We live far enough from most of the practices that we just stay up there because it doesn't make sense to drive all the way back, but I will literally drop the kids off, whether it's for soccer, whether it's for volleyball, and then I will hit that Planet Fitness. Instead of sitting there and doing nothing for an hour and a half, I get a solid I won't say an hour and a half workout in, but I do get a solid hour workout in and I think that's really important.

Lauren:

I've actually just had a conversation with one of the moms that we worked with and I said you can't complain about time if you're literally sitting doing nothing. When you have a huge chunk of it, there's always something we can do. I've been that mom, that's. You know. I know when I was training, especially for Tokyo, and I was really stretched on time, I would be doing sprints or shuttle sprints while the kids were warming up for soccer. Did I look like an idiot? I'm sure I did, to plenty of people, but I didn't want to waste any of that time. I was already at a field, I had moments, and so I had to not really worry what people thought about me while I did my air squats and lunges and shuttle sprints on the side, and I just went ahead and did it.

Dave:

I think the weird thing about that, honestly, was that you wore your full Canada uniform.

Lauren:

See, when people don't know you, they're going to think you're serious.

Dave:

I think that would be so great. I love that. I think it's interesting. One of the things when you say that is, our weeks are so busy, right? Us meaning all of us, not just Laura and I, but everyone that has kids in sports there's that pressure to get things in. If you can utilize the time at practice whether it's staying up at the practice and finding some workout to do there it can free you up the rest of the day. Right, because if you're planning your week ahead, if you typically would sit be a parking lot sitter or you know I don't want to say wasting time, but I sit in the parking lot or I've dropped off, 90% of the parents are on their phones in their car. Right, if you can work out during that time, it frees your morning up. You don't have to feel that pressure. Oh, I have to get up super early. You know the five o'clock workout is great. It's not the only option. If you can get that later workout in, right?

Lauren:

Yeah, we definitely, since we've been doing this, especially because we're training for this event coming up in a couple months where we really have to get some mileage, and that damn Stairmaster, we're doing a hiking event we now both are like I'll take Grace to volleyball. I'll take like it's because it gives us that opportunity. We know it's going to be that time where we have it to ourselves. So I do laugh because you'll say, hey, I'll bring. You know, I'll bring Will up to soccer. And I'm like, no, no, I would like to bring Will up to soccer because I get the car ride with Will and I know I'm getting an hour to myself.

Dave:

This is the other thing. If you don't have a gym near. Like, walking is one of the greatest things you can do for body composition, your mental state, like all of it, general health. You can almost always get that in Like we can. You can talk about the winter, but for three quarters of the year in most places like my favorite thing to do, and I've ranted about this before and you might not agree. You probably won't agree, Actually.

Lauren:

I don't know what you're going to say.

Dave:

Skip the damn warmup.

Lauren:

Oh yeah, I know we're a little, we're a little divided on that.

Dave:

Like we see our kids play and practice and do so much time. If you're going to watch a 60 to 90 minute game when they're warming up, go for a walk. You can get 30 minutes, Like when you show up with your kid a half hour before the game and then they get out and warm up and you just sit there. You're probably on your phone, to be honest. Anyways, get out of the car. I did what you did. I'll walk around the soccer field 50 times, put in a podcast just to get moving. There's a think about if you do that three times a week. The caloric burn and mental gain is immense over time. Right, and so here, go ahead.

Lauren:

Hold on, I'm not. I skip work, I skip warmups. I just thoroughly enjoy warmups. I especially thoroughly enjoy volleyball warmups because they're fast and going. You know the soccer is a little bit tougher because the field's so big, but thoroughly enjoy watching.

Dave:

I don't know, I just I think it's a fun game don't try and play it like I don't like watching my kids. You're like I like watching. That's not what I said.

Lauren:

No, no, but I no, I same thing. I I'll go for runs, for soccer when they're out doing their thing. I'm not anti that, I just I I'm all about using that time a hundred percent. I just if I do watch, I I do like warmups, but I agree that is time that you would be doing nothing, that you could be doing something, and it all depends if you've gotten your workout in or you've gotten your movement in or what you're looking to do. But it is movement and it adds up over time.

Lauren:

Again, one thing that we say in our program is 1% better, and a lot of times people will not do the very small things that they think well, why the heck am I going to walk for 15 minutes? What the hell is that going to do? Well, what if you say that every single day? What if you walked? One mile every single day Doesn't seem like a lot. That's 365 miles over the course of the year that you just decided that you weren't going to do because it was such a small snippet of time. So I think that's fantastic and I'll take it one step further. I do sometimes do things during warmup, but I also do things between games. So, walk the hallways, walk the stairs.

Dave:

This is huge for the indoor sports and dance and those type of things, when you're glued at multi, like a lot of weekend tournaments. I know basketball, volleyball, soccer will have it um, not as to as great an extent because there's a gap more between those games, but like these big convention center event type things, dude, you can walk miles inside of these places. Honestly, it's great. People watching, it's true, for real. Uh, and I think one of the one more thing to take this to the next level and I think this is the final kind of piece on the physical, to make the walk Everyone's like oh, walking is boring, you don't get much out of it. Bring a rucksack.

Lauren:

Or a backpack, just a regular backpack.

Dave:

For sure. But if you're outside, so if we're going to a soccer game and I'm going to walk pregame because I'm going to skip the warmup, because the warmup is boring as all hell, I'm going to put on a 20 pound backpack and walk and probably get twice as much out of it. Yeah, training, training wise, and so you can really maximize the shorter amounts of time. Now, what would you do if you were at a volleyball tournament? You don't want to wear your rucksack or your weight vest around, like security is going to be on you, right?

Lauren:

Your backpack? Is that where the backpack comes in?

Dave:

Am I the only nerd? I wear a backpack. I've worn a backpack every day of my life. That's true Grade school, high school, college, and then I went to work and wore a backpack into my job at the trading floor every day. And I still wear a backpack at the tournaments. But I put like my, I put heavy things in it on purpose. I'll keep my computer in there and I'll literally, since I dash mark the water so they're like 50 cents. I'll put like eight bottles of water in my backpack. It's heavy, it's like 20 pounds. I look normal, no one knows. I'm getting my steps in right and I'm searching out the actual steps in the convention center Like the stairs, the stairs, yes, in the hotel, whatever it is.

Dave:

Again, podcast listen to a Strong Mom podcast. And podcasts listen to Strong Mom podcast.

Lauren:

go for a walk right and you have water. So when your kids need water you're like, hey, I've got plenty of it in my backpack.

Dave:

Yeah, you're that parent. You always have something.

Lauren:

The other thing it's allowed us to do too is actually, I know, the last one we were at, and we were actually at it together. I can't remember why we were somewhere together, because we're usually, you know going two different ways. Think, think about how ridiculous that sounds, I know, I know that's another episode.

Dave:

Yeah, Welcome to sports and activities Life essentially In the new millennium.

Lauren:

But we've found so many different little options oh, I didn't realize this coffee shop was here. Or oh, look at the smoothie place, or oh, so it just allows you to explore as well. So we're big walkers, stair walkers, hallway walkers. If you walkers, stair walkers, hallway walkers, if you go up and down the same stairs, we never take the escalator, I mean unless it's the very end of the day and we've done plenty. But whenever we have an opportunity, we take the stairs and it's just, those little things seem super small, but when you look at it over the course of a long period of time, like a year, those little things add up to a lot of movement.

Dave:

Wrap this thing up. You've said.

Lauren:

Well, I mean, hopefully it all makes sense At the end of the day as a parent who's very busy, who has a lot of travel in their life at the moment, there's no excuse because it's again, it's planned. You know this is happening. So, just finding ways where you can show up because you want to show up, so you can be healthy, because what it does is it also creates confidence as you go into the next week. We all know what it's like to show up from a tournament. You're coming home. It's 10 pm at night. You now have to unpack. You got to get ready for work tomorrow. The kids are on their way to school. You're exhausted, they're exhausted. At least if you wake up the next day and say I'm good, like I never went off track, like you don't have that, oh shit, here we go again. Now it's going to take me a day or two to get back on track. No, you just, you held the line, you just kept it there the whole time. It builds confidence and then you can just kind of be steady Eddie right, even keel and not have to worry about those huge dips of okay, now I'm going to be crazy on it. You're just no, you're just yourself.

Lauren:

So planning for that, I think, is, is really important. So hold yourself to that high standard. Know that this is your new normal. So create, create a routine and create a plan that allows you to go and still be healthy while traveling. Pack your own food If you're flying. Make your own rules. They don't have to be our rules of no eating, but make your own rules of what that looks like. Plan ahead to be our rules of no eating, but make your own rules of what that looks like. Plan ahead, get DoorDash and DoorDashMart on your phone and think of different food swaps. Look at calorie counts. Really lean into that Starbucks. I think you know it can be very helpful for you.

Dave:

We've officially put on commercials for Starbucks and Planet Fitness.

Lauren:

Which is crazy. If you would have asked me a few years ago, I wouldn't say that's the go-to place.

Dave:

That's part of the honestly, that's experience like that's. I was just thinking of listening you talk about all this stuff. We had to learn this on our own, like when we were. You're growing into everyone grows into this place in their life. But I look around the internet, essentially, and it's just littered with people like coaches and people without kids and fitness models and all these people they't.

Dave:

Until you're in this position or talk to somebody that's in this position as a parent or a mom or a dad with these kids, like you have no idea. Yeah Right, like it, it can be overwhelming. So give yourself a little bit of grace with the whole thing. Learn as you go, but, like Lauren said, hold yourself to a standard, like it's important, right? Your kids see it. It you're gonna feel better mentally and physically. The other thing we always talk about this like you don't have to do what we do. No, pick a couple of things and try them. Like our goal is to just expose everyone to things that work for us and then you can choose what you want. Yeah, right, if you have ideas that are better than ours you know where to find us?

Lauren:

yeah, come share open book?

Dave:

I would love to learn.

Lauren:

I will give you some tips and tricks after we're done with this. That will probably not be well received, because if you've listened to a previous episode of ours, it's generally not the message, the messenger at times.

Dave:

The unsolicited advice will flow as soon as we press stop.

Lauren:

All right. As far as movement, make sure you plan ahead. Look at the gyms, check out if there is a globo gym around you, bring your own gear. If you need to bring some bands, something is better than nothing. That's my philosophy. Something's better than nothing. So a 15-minute band workout in the hotel makes me feel a lot better. Right, skip warm-up and do your own movement and walk the hallways, walk the stairs. Always pick the more challenging thing. If you don't need to ride an elevator and can walk the stairs, do that. If you don't need to ride the escalator, do that. So just ways to keep you kind of moving and on track. Hopefully those helped you. And, as Dave said, if you have any, you know where to find us. And where do you find us? That's a great question. If you don't know, we do have a free Facebook group. It's called Strong Mom Physical, mental and Emotional Mastery. That we have. You can find me, at least at Lauren Regula on Instagram. We have our website, strongmomstrongfamcom. What am I missing? That's it.

Dave:

There's links all sorts of links in the show notes. Please subscribe to this thing.

Lauren:

Yeah.

Dave:

We've had a lot of people ask where to find us. They hear an episode and we're just trying to spread the word right and speak from our own experience. So we would be forever grateful.

Lauren:

All right, until next time.