Muscle Deficient Vegan: 0:00

Welcome to episode four of the Deficient Vegans podcast. I'm the muscle deficient vegan and I'm here with the awesome protein deficient vegan. You wanna say hi?

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Hi.

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Hi. So this week, uh, we're gonna talk about trying to stay healthy while you're traveling. Maybe that's for the holidays or on vacation. Uh, same kind of things apply to both or any other kind of travel you're doing, maybe even for work. Uh, so there's a lot of things that can kind of get in the way of your normal routine on a trip. Uh, you're usually pretty short on time 'cause you've got something you want to do while you're there, so you're out and about on the town. Um, also there's a lot of stress in general with just being in an unfamiliar place. You're not sure what your food options are, what your maybe gem options are. Uh, you might not be. How to drive.

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How to drive,

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yeah. How to figure out how to get around, uh, the place where you're going. Um. And, you know, you're maybe more tempted to order in, you know, delivery food or something like that. So there's just a lot of things that are, that feel a lot different from being at home that maybe you want to try to prepare for, uh, or, or plan ahead to make your life a little better. So the first important thing is to try to stay hydrated on your trip. This might seem like a pretty basic thing, but you know, I've found, at least when I'm traveling, it's a lot harder to remember to just drink water throughout the day. Whether that's because I don't have like my normal water bottle with me or I'm not at home, or I'm just used to going to the kitchen and getting water. Like, uh, it seems like it should be really easy, but it's just one of those things that really tends to slip. So you wanna try to stay focused on that, maybe a little more than normal. Uh, I like to use a hydrate bottle, so it's like a Bluetooth bottle. Basically, it hooks up to your phone, tells you how much water you drink throughout the day. It

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lights up at the bottom

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right

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and you can make it rainbow lights.

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Yeah. What's your favorite color?

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The rainbow one.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:39

Oh

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yeah. And then everyone's like, why is your water bottle lighting up? And I'm like, the robots tell me when to drink.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:46

You gotta listen to 'em. Uh, it is important to drink. They

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know best.

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Yeah, that you can just get, you know, a normal plastic water bottle too. But just remember to drink out of it

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and make sure your bottle ass stickers.

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Yeah. That part is important.

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Oh, and you could get like one of those filtered water bottles. You know, if you don't wanna buy a bunch of bottled water and you're somewhere you don't wanna drink outta the tap. Ooh, hydrate. Might I actually have a sale right now too, 'cause Black Friday.

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Yeah.

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So, you know, get your high drink bottles now. Kids. Yeah. Yeah. We're not sponsored 'cause no one listens to us.

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There's a couple different kinds. The metal ones tend to keep the water colder.

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Oh yeah. They keep it cold for like several hours.

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Yeah.

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I'll go to bed with water in my bottle and I wake up and it's so cold.

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Next up you wanna make sure you, uh, get. As much sleep as you can. Try to stick as close to your normal routine as possible as far as bed times and waking up times. Uh, both because it will keep you, you know, more energized during your trip, but also it won't be as jarring when you get back from your trip. Now, in a lot of cases this won't be super possible because the time zone changes and activities you have going on and stuff, but it's a good idea to try to stick to it as close as you can. It can be pretty hard to fall asleep in a new place anyway, uh, unfamiliar lights and sounds and, uh, you know, obviously the bed being un uh, different and uncomfortable. A couple things you can kind of do to, to mitigate a few of those issues. Uh, one you can get one of those sleep eye masks. You can get 'em pretty cheap off of Amazon. It basically just turns every room into a dark room. Um, some places, even if they have like. Blackout curtains or whatever that are not put upright and light seeps in, and a light can be pretty disruptive to your sleep. Another one we like to do is basically use an app on our phone for sleep sounds or sleep stories or something along those lines just to drown out all the little weird noises.

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So we do thunder sounds. So literally anytime there's a storm, we almost fall asleep. We have loved ourselves into not being able to be awake during thunder sounds. So,

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yeah. So you might wanna pick a different sound if you're going to Seattle. Yeah,

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maybe like the beach, I don't know. Or like. Weird womb sounds. I guess people like those.

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Ah, I don't think I've heard of that one.

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Yeah.

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What does a womb sound like? That's exactly it.

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Yeah. I think it's just like that. I remember from back when I was in also, uh, if you're old like us, your back can get really fucked up. Just sleeping in a different bed for eight hours. You can wake up not being able to walk. So we would recommend stretching or, you know, bring Advil. Also bring a pillow that's yours if you can, because most pillows suck ass.

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Next up we wanna talk about kind of, uh, food on the road. So not necessarily at the destination, but while you're on the way to the destination. I mean, this is a pretty short period of time, so it doesn't matter too much, but you wanna try to make sure you start your trip off, uh, in, in a good head space. So if you'd mention it's not always short. That's true.

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What if you're driving somewhere?

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Yeah. I mean, it could be pretty long. That's a good point.

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Could be a whole day,

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could be a whole day,

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could be two days there and back.

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Yeah. Well, you want to just make sure you, you know, don't start out the trip with a whole bunch of on the road junk food and by the time you get to where you're going, uh, you've just totally given up on any semblance of healthy food. So a couple of options that we like to do, basically we have, we have dry roasted at Mae. Uh, that we get off of Amazon. It's a little package. It's like 200 calories, 20 grams of protein fits in your pocket. Um, it's just kind of a crunchy, dry, roasted bean type snack. But, uh, make sure you drink a lot of water with it. But other than that, they're really good.

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It will hope you get your water 'cause it will make your mouth really dry. Yeah.

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You, you probably can't actually swallow it if you're not drinking water. So it's a requirement, but it not as bad as it sounds. It's pretty nice. Um, next up there's a, like a cereal thing called Catalina Crunch. It's actually about the same macros as the edamame. Maybe a little less protein, but not much less at all.

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It's like a healthy cinnamon toast crunch.

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Yeah, you just eat it kind of outta the bag. Obviously, you don't need milk in a bowl or anything while you're driving. It's just another grab and go type snack.

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It'll actually make your mouth less dry than edamame, oddly enough.

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Then also if you're driving, um, you know, you can go to gas stations if you're flying. Maybe there'll be some convenience stores in the airport that have some kind of the same thing as a gas station, but basically, you know, gas stations are actually kind of a pretty good option on a trip because they have the same things at most gas stations. So nuts. You just, they have nuts. And if you kind of go in the protein bar section, you'll find a couple protein bars. You'll even find a couple of vegan protein type things line. And Larry's a good vegan one. The macros aren't great, but it does have protein and it's kind of like more of a meal replacement cookie. It's like 400 calories. So. You could use that for a meal. If you had a line Larry Cookie and a bag of Tama, that would be a pretty decent, uh, meal, just protein wise, and you'd be pretty full for a while, I think,

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or D'S nuts.

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What? What are the macros on D's? Nuts.

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Why don't you ask your mom?

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Wow. Okay, so moving on from that, uh, another good option actually is, uh, if you don't want to carry any of that stuff with you and you are maybe even a little more short on time, uh, you can find a Taco Bell. You can find Taco Bell sometimes in airports and definitely obviously on the road. So this should be a, another pretty reliable option they have. Um. A lot of good options for protein. Um, basically if you make something fresco style at Taco Bell, it takes off the cheese and sour cream and just replaces it with like a pico de gallo. So you can do that with like hard shell tacos. Um, bean burritos. Bean burritos, you know, they even have great vegan vegetarian options. Uh, all the bean burritos or bean tacos or anything like that. Fresco style or vegan, the red sauce, all the mm-hmm. Little hot sauces. They're all vegan, so. Uh, yeah, pretty good. High protein option. Probably the best option you have for fast food, for clean, uh, high protein food. So

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by far, yeah.

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Uh, next up, uh, once you actually get to the destination, you're gonna have to eat as well. So, uh, we recommend ahead of time you, before you even go on your trip, you kind of research the local food options at the, the destination you're gonna be going to. Uh, you can use normal apps for this, like Yelp, DoorDash, Uber Eats. Um, that'll also give you an idea of what maybe you can get delivered or you're gonna have to go pick up. And you can look through all the menus there and kind of at least have a few staples that you're gonna see nearby that you can rely on for a meal that kind of fits your goals. Uh, bonus if you are a vegan or vegetarian. We love using the app called Happy Cow.

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Happy Cows the best. Yes. Life changing.

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Yeah. So basically this is like a Yelp for vegans and vegetarians. It specifically shows, uh, vegan and vegetarian options around an area and has reviews and the menus and pictures and all that kind of thing. So, uh, we use that really heavily to try to find vegan restaurants around any place we go and, uh, it's really great.

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Our next tip is to find an Airbnb or like a hotel that has some kind of a kitchen situation, even if it's just a hot plate. Right. And a good sized fridge.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 8:51

Yeah, a good hotel for that is home two suites. We've stayed there a couple of times. Um, Airbnb's a, a better option here because typically you can find one for about the same price as a hotel, and you could get a whole ass house. With like a kitchen or refrigerator. Yeah, a stove, an oven, like the whole situation. So, uh, we'd really recommend trying to find one of those probably. And then also another benefit of like an Airbnb is you'll be maybe in a neighborhood with a sidewalk. You can walk around and get some steps, try to stay active, uh, before and after the stuff you have to do while you're on vacation.

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And then once you know where you're staying, you can kind of plan out. Is there stuff I can make here? You know, like some of our go-tos are smoothies in the morning and we like to use extra firm silk and tofu with some frozen fruit and like spinach, a little bit of milk. Yeah, vegan milk, maybe some protein powder too, but that'll keep you full in the morning. And another really easy thing to make is like, um, shredded barbecue tofu. You can throw that in tortillas or whatever you want.

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As far as the smoothies go, uh, if you're doing the Airbnb, you might just want to look through the, the listing or reach out to the host and see if what kind of a kitchen equipment they have. Like if, if they have a blender. If they don't have a blender, you might bring your own. Uh, we, we actually bring a whole Vitamix because we're a little extra, but you can just bring a little, uh, neutral bullet, uh, type smoothie blender and those, they're pretty easy to pack.

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If you don't have a Vitamix, you should probably get one on Black Friday because they're life changing. As a vegan, we use it. What? Every other day at least.

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Yeah. I, I really always thought Vitamix was like just overhyped marketing stuff, but it's not, it actually makes a big difference in the smoothness of the stuff you mix in it. It's

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actually really unfortunate that it works so well.

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Yeah.

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Because it's expensive as fuck.

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Yeah. Next up, you, uh, you know, uh, when you're packing for your trip, you probably wanna make sure that you bring some protein. Protein is a goal that most of us are gonna have. If you're listening to this podcast, you probably have some kind of interest in fitness. So, uh, protein powder's nice. We don't wanna rely on it, but especially in a travel situation, it's nice to just have something you can make in 10 seconds that you know is gonna give you some protein for the day

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better than nothing.

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Yeah, so on top of just bringing your own protein powder, you probably don't wanna bring a whole bunch of other stuff. And we're talking about like an Airbnb with a kitchen and things like that. So, uh, you're gonna want to have stuff to actually make in this kitchen. So, uh, we'd recommend as soon as you get to the destination, you just go on a grocery run at a local grocery store. Uh, pick up some things that you can use to make food throughout the couple of days or whatever the duration of your stay is. Um, that way, again, you have some guaranteed healthy options. You can make food, you know, you like.'cause I'm sure everybody has gone to a new town and tried out some restaurants that look good and they end up being, you know, not so good and then you don't really have a backup plan. So yeah, it's nice to have some things around in the kitchen that you know how to make. Okay, next up. Uh, we really like a Planet Fitness membership, um, especially the Planet Fitness Black membership. The benefit of that. You know, even if you don't use Planet Fitness at home, or a lot of times Planet Fitness might not have some equipment that you need for like a whole, you know, free weight workout or something like that. But a black membership is, has the benefit of being 25 bucks a month and you have worldwide access to Planet Fitness. And Planet Fitness is like everywhere. So pretty much anywhere you stay, there's gonna be a Planet Fitness within 10 minutes of you, and you can even just get the membership for the month that you're gonna be on vacation and then drop it. I don't, they don't have any kind of contract thing or anything like that. So, uh, it's a really good place to just go and get some cardio or even, I mean, you can do a really good weight lifting session in there. It might just not be some of the stuff that you're used to doing. It's like a free barbell

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and they have the hydro massage.

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Oh, yeah. The Planet Fitness Hydro Massage is worth the membership alone.

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It's warm and you can play solit.

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Yeah.

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When's the last time you played solitaire? That wasn't in a hydro massage bed?

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I, I've never won solitaire in the hydro massage bed.

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You're a loser. I win it every time.

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Okay. So that's, that's pretty much the tips we have for travel. Um, you know, we, uh, had a bunch of Thanksgiving recipes come out and we talked about those in the last podcast. We're kind of shifting gears now since, uh. Yesterday was Thanksgiving. Shifting gears into Christmas recipes. So we've got a lot of stuff of our own coming up soon, but we wanted to see maybe if, uh, any of you have ideas for Christmas recipes you like

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any recipes that you would want a vegan or a high protein version of. Let us know if there's anyone out there actually listening to this, because we don't really do like big Christmas things at our family, so we don't have a whole lot of these. What do people eat for Christmas? I have no idea.

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Yeah. All right. So, uh, you can, you know, reach out to us on our social medias. You'll be able to find links in the show notes for, for those. I can also just maybe comment on the blog post or the podcast post on the website. Any of those ways is, uh, equally. Fine with us and we'll see it and we'll reply to you. All right. I think that's it for this week. Thanks for listening, and we will, uh, see you next week. You wanna say, bye bye. All right. Bye.