Best laid plans and hotel candy bars

Over the last couple of years, I’ve steadily upped my health game. I’ve decided that with the number of health problems that I have, it makes sense to me to control what I can, since so much of it is out of my control. This has meant that I’ve taken up regular fitness, I eat pretty healthfully, and I have mostly given up alcohol. This all works well until something breaks my routine, and that something is often travel.

I’m currently in Las Vegas for the weekend with my husband, who’s here for a music show. Loud, crowded experiences are not my thing, but I tagged along anyway, picturing myself parked at a quiet corner of the pool with a book and my notebook. I also packed my workout clothes, because I always pack my workout clothes and intend to use them regularly while away.

Spoiler: I didn’t work out. I didn’t read. I didn’t write. And I definitely didn’t find a quiet anything.

While I’m confessing, let me get the rest of it out: I ate way too much sugar (emergency candy bars happened at least twice), I had a few drinks despite trying to give up alcohol entirely, and the only walking I did was traipsing back and forth along the long, carpeted walkways from one end of the hotel to the other. From a health standpoint, it was an across-the-board fail.

This isn’t new. I am a best-laid-plans girl when it comes to staying healthy on the road. The intention is always there, nestled in my suitcase next to the sneakers. But the second my routine gets interrupted, my focus and willpower buckle, and I become an expert rationalizer: just one drink, just one candy bar, fine to take a day off, fine to take another day off, and it goes on and on. And then when I return home, I struggle to get back into whatever routine I had before we left. It feels like it all falls apart.

And here’s the thing that’s starting to nag at me. Our kids are out of the house, so my husband and I are traveling more than we used to. Travel isn’t an occasional thing anymore, it’s becoming a regular occurrence. If I keep treating every trip as a free pass, I’m not occasionally derailing my generally healthy lifestyle; I’m actively supporting an unhealthy one, one weekend at a time.

So I’m trying to talk myself into a new approach, and it’s coming together in three pieces.

The first is practical: recognizing that I don’t need to recreate my whole home routine on the road; that is a trap mindset. I just need to come up with a couple of non-negotiables that travel with me. A twenty-minute walk in the morning before the day spirals. A water bottle I actually carry around. A “one drink, and only if I really want it” rule. Maybe a 10 minute quick workout routine in the hotel room. Small, doable things. Doable is the goal.

The second is mental. I have to stop framing every vacation as all or none, either a perfect health bootcamp or a complete write-off. Those are the only two settings I seem to have, and both of them end with me eating a candy bar in a hotel elevator. There’s a wide, reasonable middle where I can enjoy the trip, indulge a little, and still make a few choices my body will thank me for. That middle is where I would like to visit.

And the third is, honestly, just keeping my sense of humor about it. I’m probably going to fail again on the next trip. I’ll probably overpack the workout clothes again, ignore them again, and find another emergency candy bar in another overstimulating hotel. But the goal isn’t to never slip — it’s to stop letting one slip turn into a four-day surrender.

So: Vegas, you win this round. The workout clothes are going home clean and unjudged. But next trip, the sneakers are actually getting laced up. Probably. At least once. Before the candy bar.