Hannah Aylward (00:05.881)
Welcome to the Nutrient Dense Podcast. I’m your host, Hannah Aylward, holistic health coach, functional gut health practitioner, and the founder of HAN. So many people are continuously failed by conventional and alternative healthcare. We are here to do it differently. Alongside my team of functional registered dietitians, I’ve helped hundreds of women around the world overcome their chronic digestive issues when nothing else worked.

I’ve learned a thing or two about what it really takes to transform your health from the inside out. And I’m here to share it all with you. Please keep in mind that this podcast is for educational purposes only and should never be used as medical advice. Now let’s dive in. Your transformation is waiting. Hello, hello, sweeties. And welcome back to another episode of the nutrient dense podcast. Today, we’re going to be diving into some of my kind of like go to travel hacks.

for better gut health, seamless digestion, all of the things that I do when actively traveling to like minimize the bloat, minimize the constipation. I used to struggle with like a lot of constipation when I traveled before I dug deeper into my gut issues. And my gosh, if you know, you know, right? Like it has the, the constipation when traveling has the ability to like completely ruin your trip, which may sound intense, but.

There’s nothing like feeling so uncomfortable when you’re traveling and not being able to use the bathroom. And then you have all of these like cute outfits picked out for your travels and you feel like you don’t want to wear them. There’s just like, it’s, just really, the travel turns into more of like an annoyance or a fearful based activity versus just like something you get to enjoy. So I spent so many years of my life trying to like micromanage my health symptoms and then

Also just try to like, yeah, crisis control, especially when traveling. It kind of brought up more fear and anxiety than it did actual like pleasure and enjoyment. So now that I’m on the other side of my chronic digestive issues, mean, traveling is so much easier. It’s so much more enjoyable. I can be more present. I’m not worried about my symptoms all the time. It’s like night and day difference, but.

Hannah Aylward (02:19.468)
With that being said, a lot of these results have kind of come through from really addressing the underlying root causes of my chronic digestive issues. So I had a lot of gut dysbiosis. I was having some like maldigestion, some low stomach acid after years of chronic stress and years of under eating, things like that kind of led me there. The dysbiosis was really heavily contributing to this constipation that I was experiencing. And I could kind of like manage it on my own at home when I was doing everything in my routine, right?

and then I would travel and I was like, it is flaring so bad. So I thought it was my stress. I thought it was the stress of traveling. I thought it was my nervous system. And then as soon as I had addressed all of this underlying gut stuff, it’s really not a concern anymore, which is like, once again, a total game changer. a lot of these big time results came from a lot of this underlying work. Like I said, for me, was a lot of dysbiosis, maldigestion. I had low gut immune function. I also had some…

my liver needed some love as well that can also contribute to the constipation and the bloating and all of that stuff. But there’s also some stuff that I do while traveling to just like upkeep my health, right? So health is not really a destination. Your life is always evolving. You’re always evolving. And, you know, I always say like, you don’t go to the gym once and expect to like have a six pack and or like maintain a six pack, right? Or even like good cardiovascular health or anything like that. It takes consistency. It takes upkeep.

It gets a lot easier as you keep going because it kind of just becomes like a part of who you are. So I really always like to share that as well, because I think when you’re starting these new habits, they can feel like, my gosh, this is so much work. This is going to take me forever. This takes so much like head space. And then it kind of just becomes like part of who you are. So I have to do less to maintain my health now than I once did after addressing the underlying stuff. In addition,

It’s just so largely who I am, these little habits that I’ll share with you. It doesn’t really take much thought or effort anymore. So if you feel like you haven’t gotten to that point yet in your health journey, you will, you know, like anything else, building a new habit, it takes consistency to get there. And then once that habit is really built, it takes way less effort to like maintain. So it’s like when you’re, when you go to the gym for the first time and you haven’t been in like a month, you’re like, my gosh.

Hannah Aylward (04:38.044)
This is, I don’t want to do it. Every little part of you is like fighting it. It’s like harder to get yourself out the door. Once you’re there, the workout feels harder, all of that. And then once you get back into your routine, you’re going a few times a week. Getting yourself to the gym takes less effort and then maintaining it takes less effort too. You also have to do like less to just maintain where you are, right? So anyway, it all gets easier. So that’s what you have to look forward to if you’re not quite there yet. But if you are on your way to getting there, like hold on hope.

Right. Hold onto that knowing that it will get a lot easier as you develop these habits and they become just part of who you are. Right. So I was really asked this question on Instagram. Someone asked me, what do I do while traveling to stay consistent with like my food, my bowel movements, my sleep, my gut health, all of that stuff. And then a lot of people chimed in and were like, yes, I need these tips. So I figured I would just go into detail for you guys, for anyone that’s traveling, going on vacation.

lives like a nomadic life, these can kind of apply to all of you. And you can always like come back to this episode before your trip if you need these tips as well. So some of this might sound a little basic, but it’s really helpful to just have a little outline, I think. And then I’ll share in addition some like supplements that I like to bring with me, extra supports, habits I try to upkeep and all of that good stuff. So once again, we know that the traveling when you’re dealing with chronic digestive issues can cause

more fear and anxiety and overwhelm than like pleasure. And that’s not what we want. Right. So we want to make all of this a lot easier for you. And it’s totally possible. It’s reminding me actually, I just got a DM from one of the clients that was in my last round of my healing guts and shaking butts program. And man, I should have pulled it up before I recorded this, but to paraphrase, she was basically like, this program changed my life. I’m on the plane back from Puerto Rico right now. I’m flying back. My husband and I had booked this trip.

And we were supposed to go last year, but I canceled it right before because my health was flaring so bad. My digestion, everything was a mess. And she was super like anxious and overwhelmed with all of it. And she was like, I can’t take the trip. And then she DMed me right after finishing my program and was like, I’m on the plane back and I enjoyed my entire trip and I ate everything and I was able to drink alcohol and I feel fine. I had no issues and like this changed my life. So

Hannah Aylward (07:02.125)
You have that to look forward to once you do some of this deeper gut repairing work. And if you’re interested in, in working with us to do that, you can always book a strategy call with me. We always have the link to book that call underneath the episode. So in the show notes, it’s really like a 30 minute call to chat through your case, your history, your goals, and see if we’re the good fit to work with you and help you out. So yeah, we’d love to help you if it, if it does feel like a good fit. And I’ll be super honest in telling you whether you’re a good fit or not. So with that all being said,

Let’s jump into some of these tips. Yeah. And I’ll try to keep it just super like actionable and straightforward. And so you can just like make your little list from this episode. So first thing is movement. So I personally love to move my body. I get a lot of like stuck energy in my body if I don’t move enough and that’s more of an energetic thing than it is like a physical thing, but also my body, it likes to be in motion. So

I don’t like kill myself in the gym anymore. I used to do that. If you’ve listened to my other podcast episodes, you know that that’s not the vibe anymore, but I try to just stay active. And that’s why I like to kind of reference it as like movement versus exercise. There’s a place for both and all of it. But my goal is really to like move my body each day. So that can be a walk that can be like dancing around. It can be a 20, 30 minute workout.

It could be swimming. could be really whatever, yoga, Pilates. I just need to move something. I got to move this energy because I got a lot of energy in this body. And if I don’t, I’ll start to feel like this almost like built up frustration, this like stagnant and stuck energy. And my body starts to like physically hurt a bit more. So I do a lot of computer work. I’m always sitting at the computer. I’m sitting at the computer recording this right now. And you know, just all the sitting, like we were not designed, we were not made to sit as much as we do.

and just like stay as sedentary as most of us are today. So for most of us, even if you are getting in like that 30 minute workout, but then you’re sitting the rest of the day, I mean, it’s gonna, you know, it’s gonna wear on your overall health. So I try to just like stay active and move throughout the day in my normal day to day when I’m at home. Sometimes I’ll like do squats in between my calls, even like 10 squats, you guys, like little bits of movement.

Hannah Aylward (09:21.083)
can be super duper helpful. I try to get in my workout or my exercise. If I’m really on top of it and work isn’t like too, too crazy, I’ll get in my morning routine, including my workout. And then I’ll also do like a little evening walk. This is not strenuous. This is just like literally moving my body, ideally outside. So I can also like get the sunset, like the light from the sunset in my eyes. That’s really important for your circadian rhythm, helping you fall asleep, wind down, all of that good stuff. And then just like get some fresh air.

It also kind of like end caps my day a little bit. I work from home for the most part. So if anyone else is listening to this and you work from home, it can be kind of hard to have like the boundaries between work, time off, unwinding time, nighttime routine, all of that, when you’re just like in the same space. So I can use the little evening walk. It’s like, okay, I’m switching gears now. I’m going to go for my walk. I start to wind down. I stop the emails. I stopped the work stuff and I can kind of like switch into my other role.

whether that’s like partner, sister, Hannah time, whatever that might be. So that’s kind of in my normal day today. When I’m traveling, I still really try to maintain movement. And I find this like quite easy, right? Cause you’ve got more free time. So if there is an opportunity for me to walk there, I’m going to walk there essentially, as long as it’s like safe, know, use, your own judgment there. But when I went to Europe last year, I mean, we walked so much, we were getting in like 20,000 steps a day.

So with doing that, I don’t really feel any pressure to get in like a more like structured workout with that. I want to move my body each and every day. We would walk. Fortunately, my boyfriend is like very up for, he’s super active. So if we could, we would walk. We would walk a mile to breakfast, a mile back to breakfast. We would walk two miles to go look at this site. We’d walk back from there. And you’re just kind of moving all day. Movement is so important for overall health as most of us know, but also

your gut health. So there’s been some really cool research done on this. Basically, exercise can positively impact your gut bacteria. It can increase the diversity of your beneficial gut bacteria and the short chain fatty acids. So short chain fatty acids are kind of like these post biotics. So you eat things like prebiotics. These are like the food for your good gut bacteria. And then those are kind of going to be those probiotics, right? So prebiotics feed probiotics, those good bacteria. And then

Hannah Aylward (11:47.971)
as a byproduct of eating up these foods and fermenting them, your body produces short chain fatty acids or quote unquote postbiotics. These are super anti-inflammatory. They can help seal up the gut lining. They can help with metabolic function, really important for overall health. So, you know, when we’re working with clients, we want to make sure that they are, they’ve got a lot of like short chain fatty acid production occurring in the gut. You can also supplement with stuff like this, but the cool thing is that exercise helps support all of this.

and the increase in bacterial diversity and the increase in short chain fatty acid production can lead to improved gut health and a reduced risk for different metabolic diseases. So we’re basically increasing the number of these beneficial gut bacteria. Exercise can also reduce harmful bacteria alongside really promoting the growth of health related bacteria. So no reason not to do it really. So once again, when I’m traveling, this looks like walking like everywhere that I can walk.

Usually it’s more so like I’m walking from activity to activity, depending on where I’m traveling. If that’s not part of my itinerary, then I’ll go for a morning walk, right? To me, there’s nothing more fun than waking up and walking to a cute coffee shop and getting a coffee and then walking back. And I will take the long way home. I’ll take the scenic route. I’ll try to bop in and see something else while walking. And that will just help me get in some extra steps. This is also really going to help with your gut motility.

Oftentimes people are struggling with constipation because they’re not moving enough. So if you’re like sitting down all day long, you can kind of expect to be constipated, right? We need to move. When we move, we help to like kind of like wring out our digestive organs a little bit. And this is going to support the gut motility. This is going to support the movement of food through the GI tract when we are in movement. So if you’re someone that is struggling with constipation and you work like a desk job or you sit a lot,

simply adding in like a 20 minute walk in the morning and a 20 minute walk at night could really, really help. So that’s kind of how I view movement when I’m traveling, whether it’s like vacation or I’m traveling for work or whatever that might be. Traveling for work can be a little trickier, but I still try to prioritize it then as well. So I was just in Phoenix for a work trip end of last year and I walked to the coffee shop in the morning. I walked to the event venue. I walked back.

Hannah Aylward (14:10.073)
And then there was like a little segment in the evening and I just, I didn’t make it to the gym cause it was like a little hard. kind of prioritize my sleep over like waking up super early. It just, it works better for me, but I just literally like took laps around the building during breaks. can be as simple as that. You know, if I’ve got, I’m always in sneakers, like cute little sneakers. So I can just take off and like walk a couple blocks and walk back and even doing those things really, really does help me, especially when you’re at like a conference.

and you’re just like sitting all day. The other thing that I do when it comes to movement and exercise is I have a couple things written down in my phone notes. Like it’s super, super simple you guys, but fun fact, I’m also trained as a group exercise instructor. That’s a part of my past. I used to teach these dance classes that were truly so much fun. It was like dance and toning and like it was just an absolute blast.

Anyway, that’s like part of my past life. feels like many lives ago, but it was truly so fun and I love dancing and I love exercising. So I am like very comfortable with different workouts and exercises and I’ve been an athlete and kind of moving my body for my whole life. So it doesn’t like intimidate me or anything. If you are brand new to it, if you’ve never really had a routine, like this is where a personal trainer can really come in handy or following more instructional videos just so you can kind of like get the gist of it.

and you can like move past the, my gosh, am I doing this right? With that being said, I have like super simple routines in my phone notes that I’ll just bust out at any trip and they can all be done in like a very small space. things like, I’ve got like probably four to five exercises on each one. And one of them is like 20 squats, 20 lunges, know, 20 sit-ups, 30 second plank, 20 hip thrusts, 20 jumping jacks. And I’ll just do like four rounds of that.

you’ll be sweating after you do this. Tricep dips are another great thing. You can do like step ups if there’s like a bench in the hotel room or the Airbnb. These are things that they really don’t require like much space to do them. And even doing like two rounds of this will help you feel better, get those good endorphins flowing and just like get that movement, like keep your consistency. Cause sometimes when we travel, especially when we go on vacation, we lose that consistency that we have.

Hannah Aylward (16:29.893)
So then when we get back, feels like way harder to jump back into everything. So I kind of do like minimal effective dose when I’m traveling. I’m like, what is the least that I need to do to like get the effect that I want? So usually it’s like a 20 minute little thing. I’ll do it in my sports bra and I’ll do it in pajama shorts in the room. I really don’t care. But like when we were traveling last summer, mean, fortunately, like I said, my partner is on board with this.

He’s doing like sit ups, crunches, planks in the hotel room and I am like doing the same thing. So it’s super easy as long as you have 20 minutes. You really can just knock it out and then just like walking, walking everywhere. If you like to run, that’s a great way to like see a city too. Be safe, all of that good stuff, right? And then the last note on this is I think it’s so fun to take a workout class in a new place, in a new city or in a new country. So I have taken workout classes where I don’t

understand anything that they’re saying. Like I love going to a yoga class in the local community where I am. Even if the instructions are in like Spanish or they’re in, I’m trying to think of another example where my sister and I went, gosh, it was years ago and we did not know what this person, what the instructor was saying, but we had a blast. We had a total blast. So getting into a class can also be a great way to like feel out the city that you’re in, which I love doing because I’m always like, where should I move? Where should I move next?

So I think it’s very fun. That’s how you will also meet local people. So booking a yoga class or an exercise class wherever you’re going can be really fun too. Okay, so that’s the first thing with movement. Second thing is gonna be to stay hydrated, which most of us know, right? But traveling can really dehydrate you very quickly. You’re not in your routine. You don’t have the water around you, the flying, super dehydrating.

Things like that. So staying hydrated is super key. I will always have a massive water bottle with me when I’m traveling. It’s usually like a crappy plastic water bottle that, you know, has microplastics. I’m not going to lie. It’s not ideal, right? So when you’re like traveling around, that’s where I kind of just like, I ditch the perfectionism there. I’m like, listen, as long as I’m drinking water, it’s good. And if it’s like filtered bottled water, that’s great. I don’t have my Berkey with me I don’t have my reusable, you water bottle. So

Hannah Aylward (18:52.345)
I just do the best that I can. If I can avoid the microplastics, great, but most of the time you can’t. So this is one thing that I do as soon as I land somewhere. Like when I went out to, when I was just in Phoenix end of last year, I literally landed and I asked the Uber driver, cause she was a young woman and I felt safe. So I was like, Hey, is there any way that we could just swing in and I could run in and get some water bottles before we get to the hotel? And she was like, yeah, totally. So, and I grabbed her a drink. I got her like a Coke or something.

So I just like, that’s the first thing that I do. When I land anywhere, whether it’s a new country, it’s an Airbnb, it’s a hotel, I get huge bottles of water. Like I’ll get gallons, I’ll get massive bottles of water because I’m not paying 10 bucks for a bottle of water at a hotel in the United States. That’s just ridiculous to me. And I want it to be filtered and I want to have it. This is like a non-negotiable for me. I think I learned this from my dad because he is like, he drinks so much water.

And he was always doing this whenever we traveled. So this is like a, I land, I get water. So I’ll either ask the Uber driver or if, you I can walk, if we’re renting a car, whatever, I’ll go get it myself. But that’s a big thing for me. And then everywhere that I go, I have a massive bottle of water with me. I usually also pack my trace mineral drops. So I love the constant trace by, I believe it’s trace minerals research. I always bring those with me. They’ve got like small sizes that are, you know, TSA friendly and all of that. So you don’t have to bring this big bottle of them.

I always put those in first thing in the morning and then I always have electrolytes with me. So my go-to is Jigsaw Pickleball Cocktail. It’s super high in potassium. It has a decent amount of sodium. When I’m at home, I put a little bit more sodium in there, but this is kind of like my go-to for good hydration. It tastes great. It tastes like, it kind of tastes like Tang, if you ever drank Tang or like orange Gatorade. And I will bring this with me. So, you know, I’m sitting in this business conference with like hundreds of people and

I am just sitting on my butt all day long and I have all these things in my purse. I have a little Ziploc bag with a little scoop in there. You can sometimes find the individual packets of things like this, but usually I have them at home in the actual tub, but I don’t want to travel with that. So I put in a little Ziploc bag or a little stasher bag, put the little scooper in there, and then I’ll pop in a scoop of that in my water bottle. And I brought this to Europe. I bring this wherever I travel, travel really anywhere.

Hannah Aylward (21:15.213)
I’ve never had an issue with supplements getting through TSA, even into another country. sometimes a lot of times our clients will ask me that question. Did you have any issues? Y’all, I have brought so many supplements with me. I never have. And I’ve never been stopped for it. I think one time they checked my magnesium powder because it’s like a supplement bag full of white powder. But I’m like, it’s magnesium. It’s no problem. So I’ve never had an issue with that.

Back to the electrolytes. Jigsaw Pickleball cocktail is my go-to. What I’ll also do for you guys is we’ll pop in the link to my Fullscript account in the show notes here. So Fullscript is the online supplement dispensary that we use with all of our clients in the U.S. to get them access to like high quality third party tested, like verified supplements. They’re all practitioner grade. We never recommend getting supplements on Amazon or at places like Costco or Publix or whatever it might be.

There’s been so much, feel like recently it’s really been popping up to where they’re testing these supplements that are being sold on Amazon and they don’t even contain what, like the amounts of things that you’re being told is in there or they’re like missing ingredients. Anyone can sell anything on Amazon. So just keep that in mind. We never recommend getting stuff on like supplements, right? You want to buy your moisturizer from Amazon? Sure. But we never recommend supplements off of Amazon. So Fullscript is our go-to. If you spend over 50 bucks, which is

very easy to do if you grab like two or three things. You’ll get free shipping. You can expedite shipping for $4.95. So it’s like great. Their customer service is great and everything on there is third party tested. You can read more about their regulations on their website if you’re interested. But when we’re working with clients, it’s super important to know that the supplements that we’re recommending are actually like effective in doing what we think they’re going to do, right? What they should be doing. So we use Fullscript.

for most of our clients. So you have to be a practitioner to have an account. I have an account, we might, you know, we’ve got an account as the team. So we’ll pop that link in there. You can sign up for free. takes like two seconds and you’ll get 15 % off all the supplements in the entire catalog, which is like tons and tons of stuff. And then I’ve got a little kind of like section on it too with some of my favorites. So that’s where you’ll find like these trace minerals. You’ll find the jigsaw pickleball cocktail and you’ll find a bunch of other stuff that I’m going to.

Hannah Aylward (23:39.895)
refer to in this episode there as well. So 15 % off like automatically for being a part of it. And then also they do like, they’ll run sales periodically as well. And so you’ll, can sometimes get like 20 % off, which is great. And then, you know, typically clients can use their HSA accounts for, for buying supplements there as well with like no issues. So yeah, lots of, lots of great perks, but I’m going to like reference some of my favorite supplements.

that I use and take while traveling and I get them all from Fullscript essentially. So I get my supplements from there. I have like everyone in my family in there. My sister gets her stuff there. Everyone that I know and love, all my best girlfriends, like everyone’s getting their supplements in Fullscript. So I know that they’re getting what they think they’re getting and what they should be getting. So yeah, if you want to jump in on that, we’ll pop the link in the show notes for you. So like I said, the hydration, super important, electrolytes, I always have an electrolyte with me.

Plus I bring my trace minerals. the jigsaw pickleball cocktails might go too. Redmond Relight is a decent one as well. I’m not 100 % sure if this is in full script. You’d have to check. And then if you don’t have any time to prep, say you’re leaving and you’re like, oops, I don’t have any of this and I can’t wait for it to be shipped to me, you can grab simple things at the grocery store like Whole Foods and Sprouts. They have things like the Ultima packets, those little single serving packets. They don’t have a lot of anything in there. If I’m being

fully like transparent. There’s not enough magnesium, there’s not enough sodium, there’s not enough potassium in there for what I would want to drink on a day to day basis. However, I think it’s better than nothing, right? So if you’re just like, girl, I didn’t prep, then I just need something, go grab a few of those packets. They’ve got different flavors. They’re like a dollar a piece. So, you know, if, if I’m like, if I have done no preparation for my travels, I’ll go grab a handful of those and I’ll throw them in my backpack to bring with me. The other thing that I do,

is as soon as I land, like I mentioned, I go get water and I hit the grocery store. So when I was just traveling for work in Phoenix, I landed, I get comfy in the hotel. I always ask the front desk, I’m like, hey, is it safe to walk around here? Cause I’m like, you know, usually by myself, especially if it’s a work thing. And I get the vibe. always check the vibe. It’s obviously, you know, different, maybe a bit better if you’re like with friends or a partner. And then I just like find the…

Hannah Aylward (26:00.705)
the closest grocery store. There’s always something, right? So there’s a grocery store like two blocks from me. I walked over, I grabbed like little things that I knew I would want. So I grabbed like dark chocolate in case I had some like sweets cravings that I didn’t want to be eating like crap out of a vending machine. I grabbed a bunch of water. I’ll grab like coconut water for more hydration, super high in potassium. Sometimes I’ll grab like a couple protein bar like things if they have good options.

I think I grabbed like organic beef jerky there. So I’ll just grab a few things. I think I also grabbed like some blueberries. Like I’ll grab like a fruit. And then one of my other kind of go-tos that I’ll either pack with me if I have the space or I’ll try to grab when I land somewhere is those little cups that are like microwavable, that are like the oatmeal cups. You also don’t have to microwave them. You can just put hot water in them. So if you’re at a hotel or an Airbnb and you can get hot water, you can always pour that hot water in these little cups. like,

Bob’s Red Mill has some, Purely Elizabeth’s has some that have like organic gluten-free oats and like blueberries and collagen and walnuts. That’s like my go-to one. So if I have the room in my bag, I’ll pack them. I’m usually running low on space. So I’m like the girl at the airport wearing her jacket, like wearing two jackets because she doesn’t have the space in her suitcase. That’s me, if you ever run into me at the airport. So I will try to get them there if I don’t have the space, but

Those are great to have around as like a snack, breakfast if you’re like on the go in the morning, if you don’t have time to like grab anything. So when I’m traveling for like pleasure, you know, I usually don’t need things like that unless we have like a very early morning activity that we’re doing. When I’m traveling for like work, you know, that can be great to have in a hotel room if I’m like attending a conference that starts at 9 a.m. and I just like, I’m not gonna have the time. My other like last resort kind of go to is like hitting a coffee shop and seeing what they have. like,

Starbucks. I know people like love or hate Starbucks, whatever. Take all the politics out of it, whatever. They have cold brew, which is like my go-to, and then they have an oatmeal. So sometimes I’ll grab that. Their egg white bites are like, they definitely have a ton of added ingredients in them. They’re not ideal, you guys, but if I’m in a super pinch, I’ll grab those. And that’s really the benefit of having done a lot of the steeper gut work. I could have never done that in the past. It would have like caused bloating and digestive issues and all of that.

Hannah Aylward (28:22.409)
Now, like when I’m in a pinch, I can grab these things and it’s fine. Some other coffee shops will have like hard boiled eggs and know, smoothies and stuff. So you can kind of like make it, make it work. But going back to my original point, like I hit the grocery store when I land and I get a couple things, it just like makes me feel safer. It calms my anxiety. It makes me feel safer in case I’m hungry. Like I don’t want to be super hungry at like 11 PM and then I have no food to eat. And then I can, you know, throw a few things in my purse because I always like to have a little snack on me.

just in case there’s like nothing where I’m going that I want to eat or, you know, I get hungry and you’re like walking all around, you’re traveling. So I always have some sort of bar on me and I’ll kind of walk you through like some of my favorites there too. So the next thing is going to be morning sun exposure. I still try to do this. I still try to get this in. So this is something I do at home in my normal routine and this is something I try to do when traveling.

If you’ve got the extra time while traveling, like make this a non-negotiable, you essentially are just walking and stepping outside as soon as you wake up or within the first couple of minutes and getting that sunlight exposure in your eyes. This is really, really truly going to help with like jet lag and fatigue that can come with traveling, especially if you’re crossing a bunch of time zones, which like for me, I feel like always happens and I’m there for like three days and I have to come all the way back and like reacclimate. And it can really mess me up. Like I can be like laying awake in the bed.

So the sun exposure, morning sun exposure can be super, super helpful for this. If you’re like traveling, once again, for pleasure, like walk to a coffee shop, get outside, get movement, go grab your coffee or your matcha or whatever, your smoothie, and then walk back and just get that sun exposure in your eyeballs for a good like 10, 15 minutes. It’s gonna help with sleep and energy and fighting fatigue and jet lag so, so much.

The next thing that I do like to bring with me typically when I travel is a good probiotic. And I actually don’t take a probiotic every day. I don’t think you have to take a probiotic every day for optimal gut health. I think they can be very helpful at certain points, especially when looking to like re-inoculate the gut with good gut bacteria after a more of an eradication phase. However, bringing one with you can, it can be helpful, especially one that’s high quality that can survive the stomach’s acidity.

Hannah Aylward (30:37.525)
that’s more resistant to heat that you don’t have to like refrigerate can help to keep things regular in some ways or for some. So one that I do like is Just Thrive probiotic. There’s a few probiotics that I do tend to like. Just Thrive is going to be one of my favorites. I do have a code for you guys that I’ve had for years. So you can use the code HANA15 and we’ll pop this in the show notes for you to get 15 % off if you want to try it out. Just Thrive’s probiotic, it’s a bit different because it’s not like a high potency like multi strain.

50 billion bacteria type of probiotic. It’s a spore-based probiotic. So they have been shown to survive the stomach, stomach’s acidity better. They also have been shown to help like re-inoculate and support these different communities of gut bacterial growth in the gut. And I do tend to prefer them in most cases. So let me just kind of bring some clarity to that. Basically when we’re working with probiotics, there can be, there’s a lot of nuance here.

And certain probiotics can be better for certain people, especially like given what’s going on in your gut. In order to have more clarity on that, we need to test, right? We can tell a bit through symptoms, but testing is gonna be ideal here. I feel more comfy kind of generally recommending like a spore-based probiotic as just kind of a good like upkeep for most people. So they can be hit or miss, right? There’s no like one that works best for everyone. If you’re dealing with histamine overload,

you can look into getting a probiotic that’s like a histamine degrading probiotic. So Seeking Health has a great one. It’s probiotic, I think it’s like HIST-X, probiotic HIST or something like that. You can access that through my full script as well for a discount. It’s all linked there for you. You can kind of like search it in the bar. If you have SIBO, I don’t really love using probiotics during SIBO. If you have fungal overgrowth probiotics in these cases, like they can make you feel a little worse. We tend to find that a spore-based one is just better tolerated.

by more people overall. if you’ve had like, if you have a history of using probiotics and they don’t sit super well with you, you probably have something else going on, whether it’s like a histamine overload picture, a dysbiosis picture, et cetera. So we’d want to do some further investigation there. If that doesn’t apply to you and you’re just like, I’m looking for some general kind of like wellness, kind of upkeep, something like Just Drive can be really helpful. Megaspore is another great one.

Hannah Aylward (32:56.147)
I do think Just Thrive is a bit cheaper than Megaspore. They’re kind of like essentially the same thing, but I think Just Thrive might be a bit cheaper. And then I do really like as well, Clare Labs. I believe they’ve rebranded though under a different name, but it should still pop up if you type in Clare Labs. I think it’s like SEI or SCF or something. They recently rebranded, but they’ve got a third biotic synbiotic that I do also really like. It’s going to be like a multi-strain probiotic.

And it has partially hydrolyzed gorgon in it. So it’s got a prebiotic in it, which is super important when we’re looking to support gut proliferation and the rebuilding of our gut bacteria. So anyway, long story short, bringing a probiotic, it can be helpful if you’re looking for like a little extra support and you’re not super sensitive to different things. The other thing I like to do is I always have some snacks on me. So I’ll like, if you looked into my backpack the other day and I had like a lot of snacks in there cause I had kept putting them in there and I hadn’t taken them out yet.

or I hadn’t like eaten them. So I had like three chomps in there and I was like, look at all these treats. Abundance is everywhere. So anyway, I always have some snacks on me. So if I’m, if I’m going on an airplane, like I’m not eating the airplane food. I haven’t eaten the airplane food in years. It is like really last resort if I’m eating the airplane food. I also, I really, you know, I’m of the belief that like one meal is not going to ruin your health, right? However, if I can prevent that, then that’s what I’m going to do. So when we,

traveled. We flew into Barcelona last summer. It was a long flight coming from the States and we just grabbed food to go and we just brought it to the airport. So I, we flew out of Atlanta. So I went to Flower Child, which is like a restaurant that has a lot of like different healthy food. And I got like chicken and roasted veggies and whatever. And we just walked straight into the airport with all of this food, like walked it through security. No problem.

and then I ate it right before I got on the plane. I try to eat minimally while like sitting on the plane as well because you’re just like sitting stagnant and digestion can be a little wonky on planes due to the pressure and all of that kind of stuff and the dehydration. So I try, you know, to just minimize my intake like while sitting on the plane. I don’t love drinking on the plane. It kind of just makes me anxious, honestly. And like you’re just furthering the dehydration. However, you know.

Hannah Aylward (35:10.797)
You do you, these are just my tips. So I avoid alcohol on the plane. It’s gotta be like a really great occasion if I’m doing that. One time I sat first class, something crazy happened, I got first class. So I did drink champagne while I was in first class and it’s never happened since, but maybe one day. So anyway, I’ll just like get food to go and I’ll eat it right before we take off. And then I do have some snacks. So like this was a long flight, I got hungry, right? Cause I can barely sleep on planes.

So I did eat some of my snacks. I’ll bring different protein bars. I pretty much always have like chomps. So those are the like grass-fed beef sticks. There’s different brands. My chomps is just my go-to. I can grab it at Trader Joe’s. They’re easy. I really love the jalapeno one. The turkey pepperoni one is also pretty good, but it’s gonna give you some good protein. So I think each like stick has like nine grams of protein.

Paleo Valley is another brand that you can get. You just won’t find it at the store. You have to order it ahead of time, but they have great quality stuff as well. I’m trying to think of other brands. There are definitely other ones that exist. Chomps is just my like go-to. I have zero affiliation with them. I always have some of those cause I also tend to like sometimes I don’t want anything sweet. I get, I hit my max with like sweet protein bars very quickly and I want salty and savory. And after I actually wanted to help support like quelling my appetite and,

bringing me satiety and also supporting blood sugar regulation that I need protein. So I love to have the chomps. I also love Epic bars. They do like a bison bar. They do a spicy chicken bar. Those are my two faves personally of theirs. And you can like order a box of these to have in your pantry or you can find these at places like Sprouts, Whole Foods. Where else do they have them? Those are kind of my go-tos, but you can find them there. So I always have, if I’m taking a trip for a while, I’ll have a bunch of these in my bag.

just so I have them. And then I usually also will have like mixed nuts or something like that. So I’ll have like pumpkin seeds or walnuts or almonds maybe. I’m kind of like over almonds. I love walnuts, love pumpkin seeds. So I’ll have something like that cashews to snack on. Cause those are also going to have a little bit of fiber. They don’t really have much protein nuts in general, but they’ll have some good healthy fat. And that can be really helpful for stabilizing blood sugar levels as well. Then if I can have any like fresh fruit, I will have that like in

Hannah Aylward (37:29.469)
orange like a sumo orange is super easy to peel and throw in your bag. So when those are in season, those are great. They’re so delicious. Great vitamin C, but some sort of like, yeah, fruit that’s kind of like easy to toss in your bag like a banana is really easy. Sometimes the banana is just like a little, sometimes it’s a little sweet for me, honestly, but they’re great because you know, they last well in a bag. And then more like traditional protein bars. So I do like the Aloha bars.

To be like totally transparent, I haven’t checked the ingredients on them in a second, but they’re low ish in sugar. They have a decent amount of protein. They don’t have a ton of ingredients in them and they I think they taste really good. So I’ll try to grab some of those when they’re on sale at Whole Foods because they’re always running some sort of sale. So I’ll grab them when they’re on sale. And then another one that I’ve been eating a lot of lately is the Go Macro bar.

These are honestly, they’re not optimal. They’re really high in carbohydrates and they’re high-ish in sugar, but just like a small handful of ingredients, which I do like. And then they really don’t have enough protein for me. So these are, these are things that I have like in addition to my other things, like my go-to is going to be the Epic bar, the Chomps. There are other bars out on the market. Truvani makes a bar. The quality is really good. It doesn’t have a ton of protein. Like I find it’s kind of difficult to get enough protein.

in a bar that has like actually good ingredients. It doesn’t have a ton of other stuff. Primal Kitchen, they were making a bar. I don’t know if they still do, but they used to, they definitely used to, and I used to buy those sometimes too. They had collagen protein in them. So those are some different options for you guys. Those would be like my number one, Rex. You can also do little individual like nut butter packets. Like I’ll buy some of the almond butter packets or sunflower seed butter packets. These are great. You can like eat them with an apple, with a banana, kind of on the go.

I usually will also have some gluten-free crackers because I just love a cracker personally. So I’ll have a simple mills cracker. I’m not worried about the sunflower oil in them. If you’re wondering with the seed oils, I’m not worried about that in those. I consume little seed oils because I don’t cook with them or they don’t really come into a bunch of my other food. So I don’t think they need to be quite as villainized as they have been recently. But…

Hannah Aylward (39:39.859)
Anyway, Simple Mills crackers are great or any other gluten free cracker. Mary’s Gone crackers are great. Whole Foods brand released one that’s like an almond flour cracker. They taste pretty good. If those are on sale, I’ll grab those. do, like I said, I like to have like a little, I need something crunchy. So I’d like to have a cracker with me. So I’ll eat the Simple Mills crackers with like, sometimes I’ll even throw in a full avocado into my bag. I have been known to do that. I’ll find like a rogue avocado at the bottom of my backpack for healthy fat and fiber.

you do what you need to do. If you have the option to bring something like a hard boiled egg, those are going to be so great because you get fat and protein in them. I just don’t love busing those out on an airplane and you kind of have to have the ability to prep them and all that stuff. So I will usually have some sort of snack on me. This is for the travel day. This is also though for while I’m traveling and on vacation. So I want to see a lot of sites where walking around, we’re doing different things. So I’ll always have a snack in my bag.

And I have found that the days that I didn’t bring a little snack, I regretted it because my blood sugar like plummeted. Cause I think when you’re traveling, it’s just so easy and you’re to go like six hours without eating. Cause you’re like seeing different sites and all of that, or you don’t know what restaurant you want to go to yet. And then your blood sugar starts to drop cause it’s been too long. And then you get anxious and you get hangry. It doesn’t work out so well. So having a little bar is like super, super clutch and something that is healthier. So you’re not walking in somewhere and

You know, especially when you’re traveling in certain places, it’s like the only thing they have is like bread and cheese or a croissant or something like that. Obviously not ideal, but like, you know, enjoy in moderation for sure. So I always have some snacks on me. The other thing that I always bring is magnesium. This is something that I take every single night and have for honestly like 10 plus years at this point, unless I run out of it. And then as soon as I get it back, I take it again. I think I really truly believe everyone should be supplementing with magnesium.

There are a few nuances here. There’s obviously different types. then there’s also some people will be very sensitive to magnesium. If that’s you, you probably have very, very low sodium and potassium that you need to replete before you add in magnesium. So there is some nuance there, but for most people, magnesium will work. You know, you’ll feel pretty, pretty good about it and it’ll work. It’ll work out for you. The other form of magnesium that we like is magnesium citrate. That’s the one that can be really helpful.

Hannah Aylward (42:01.141)
for constipation. So you can always bring that when you’re traveling if you do suffer with constipation. I don’t personally use magnesium citrate a lot because I don’t really suffer with constipation anymore, but it’s well, it’s usually decently tolerated. It’s, it’s well absorbed and it can help to really, it basically helps pull water into the intestine so it can help form and kind of like move out of bowel movement. So it’s a good one to bring while traveling. For magnesium glycinate, my go-to is

Pure encapsulations, I use their magnesium glycinate personally and I also use Seeking Health. They have like an optimal magnesium, I believe it’s called. Why I also love magnesium is it’s usually like pretty cheap. Like you’re looking at, it should be about under $20 or so for a bottle, which is nice. It’s very difficult to get enough magnesium through the food that we’re eating. So we put almost every client on a magnesium supplement unless they’re already supplementing.

or they’re very reactive and sensitive. But I really think everyone should be adding it in to their day-to-day habits and routines and supplement regimen. Of course, nothing on this podcast is ever medical advice. You want to run all of this by your doctor, your practitioner, et cetera. But I think in general, most people are magnesium deficient. So that can be really helpful specifically while traveling if traveling stresses you out, if it’s going to increase your stress.

If you deal with constipation, if you deal with like restless sleeping, it can be helpful for all of those different reasons. And then, you know, when I feel like I’m under more stress, I will up my intake a little bit. So I typically take about 240 milligrams a day, but when we’re looking at someone that really needs to like replete, you know, we can take up to like five times your body weight in milligrams. So if you are 150 pounds, for example, that would be like 150 milligrams, right? And then we would multiply that by.

five, so that would be like 750 if I’m doing that quick math properly, right? 150, 300. I’m right, right? 750 milligrams. I believe you, could take like four to five times your body weight if you really want to replete. So that’s not my recommendation for everyone listening to this podcast. It’s just that if you’re really low, you know, don’t be, I wouldn’t be scared to take like one capsule or two capsules. Once again, if you have any reaction, if you feel like it actually

Hannah Aylward (44:17.873)
it actually worsens your sleep or you run to the bathroom or it gives you heart palpitations or it makes you anxious and jittery. Those are signs that you probably have low, you’re low in your other macro minerals, including sodium and potassium. And we’d need to work on those first and working with a practitioner can be really helpful there and running an HTMA can be helpful there. So we do do that work with some of our clients.

Okay, so that’s the magnesium talk. Then I do tend to like to bring a greens powder as well. This is not something that I use every single day when I’m at home. I don’t think you need a greens powder in order to be healthy. I think there’s a lot of marketing around greens powders. I just, I don’t think they’re a hundred percent necessary for everyone. If you’re eating fruits and veggies and you’re getting in a lot of leafy greens, like you’re probably fine. However, when you’re traveling,

especially if you’re on vacation, like this is not as prevalent, right? You’re not cooking at home, you’re eating out more, your intake of fruits and veggies is probably going down. So having something like a greens powder can be really helpful, especially if you just feel like, you’re under more stress as well. And maybe, you know, you’re eating like more croissants and fries and, and bread and cheese and whatever more, just more than normal. And that’s kind of taking the place of some of your veggies. So I do like

Organifi Greens Powder. I’m not a huge fan of Athletic Greens personally. My go-to is Organifi and I do have a code for you guys if you’re interested and that’s because I like their product, right? So anytime I have a code for you guys, sometimes the companies reach out to me and sometimes I reach out to them because I want to get the resource for you, get the discount code for you guys so you can use it because I do like it. We get companies reaching out to me.

every single week and I will gladly say no. I say no to about 95 % of companies that reach out to us because I have high standards for what I would recommend. If I don’t use the product myself, if I wouldn’t recommend the product to a client, I don’t want their code and I don’t want to promote their product. That integrity is very important to me. just so you know, anything that I recommend, like I’ve used, I like, or we recommend to clients, et cetera. So for the purposes of traveling,

Hannah Aylward (46:27.384)
It can be really helpful. So I’ll just pop this into like a bottle of water. If I’m at a coffee shop, I’ll get like a cup of water with ice and I’ll throw it in there. It’s nice when you have a lid on it, cause you can like shake it up. The Organifi Greens also, I just found that they dissolve really well, which is also fantastic. Cause sometimes the greens powders are like really chunky and you’re trying to drink this thing down and you’re like, this is just not it. So it’s great. They have, it’s, they’ve got a lot of like, chlorella, I believe, or it’s green. So you’re going to get a lot of chlorophyll and chlorophyll can be really

supportive of detoxification and it can even help, you know, be used as like a binder. So binding to different toxins, heavy metals, mycotoxins, things like that. So it can be a great thing to add in when like things like oxidative stress are going up. Maybe you’re eating more fried foods, you’re drinking more alcohol, you’re traveling, et cetera. So I do like to bring it in and then Organified Greens also has ashwagandha in it, which can be really helpful for, you know, better managing stress. It’s an adaptogen.

that can help the body kind of tolerate stress a little better and they’ve got like a solid dose in each serving. So that’s another great perk of it. So the code for Organifi Greens, it’s gonna be HAND20 for 20 % off and we’ll pop that in the show notes for you guys too. I love their Greens to Travel. I also love their Reds Powder for people with gut issues. And I feel like it’s like way under talked about because everyone loves a Greens Powder, but the Reds Powder is specifically great for

supporting healthy acromantia levels. And you’ve probably heard me talk about acromantia before. It’s a very important keystone strain of gut bacteria. This is not something that I usually bring while traveling, but I definitely could. But it’s just another product of theirs that I really like. we will literally recommend that to some of our clients when we get their labs back. And if they have low levels of acromantia mucinifila, or they have undetectable levels, the Organifi Reds powder can be really helpful for supporting bringing those levels up.

And that’s really important. So acromantia is very protective of things like irritable bowel disease. It’s going to help keep that gut barrier nice and strong, support a healthy mucosal layer of the gut barrier, like very, very important overall. So anyway, just another product of theirs, if you’re interested, that I truly love. And you can use the same code that HAND20 for 20 % off, which is great. And the other note quickly on them is typically if they run

Hannah Aylward (48:49.648)
sales and stuff, you can usually add my code to their sale code. So if you even if you want us to like wait till they run a sale and then add my code to it, that’s another option. Usually they let us like a lot of companies don’t let you stack the discount codes, but they typically do, which is amazing. So sometimes you can get, I mean, get like 40 % off, which is incredible. Okay. So we’ve got the magnesium, we’ve got the greens. Then sometimes not every time, but sometimes I also bring like a protein powder. So my kind of go-to is personally in the ones that I love and recommend.

are Chuvani for a good organic plant-based protein powder. And then I love Equip protein for like a grass-fed beef protein powder. Doesn’t taste like beef, but it has all essential amino acids and it mixes in well and it tastes great. And usually the beef protein powder, the grass-fed beef protein powder is gonna be better tolerated by those with a lot of digestive issues, because the plant-based ones can be a little tricky. Usually those with like a lot of gut dysbiosis just don’t respond very well to the plant-based ones. If you do, that’s great.

but if you don’t try a grass fed beef protein, that could sit better with you while we work on the underlying root causes. So I’ll usually bring like one of these with me. I typically have the big bags at home. So I’ll just, once again, like I won’t even buy single serving packets. Of course you can, you can buy just single serving packs and like throw them in your bag, but I’ll just usually like dump some out in a Ziploc bag or a stash or bag or something with the scooper and I’ll bring that with me. So I can throw.

a scoop of the vanilla protein powder in like my coffee in the morning. If I’m grabbing a cold brew out, it’ll blend in nicely, right? I can also add it into one of those like oatmeal cups that I discussed earlier. I can stir it into yogurt in the morning if there’s like breakfast at the hotel or whatever. So I kind of just like to like have it on me just in case to make sure I’m getting in enough protein throughout the day. Cause typically once again, when we’re traveling, it’s like carbs go up and protein goes down and veggies go down usually.

So it can be nice to just kind of have it with you if you need it. I don’t always use it, but sometimes it really, really comes in handy, like stirring it into, like I said, an oatmeal or yogurt, or just popping it in like a coffee. It can be great in the morning, especially if you’re at an airport and you haven’t eaten and they’ve got like nothing and you’re starving. That’s where the collagen, like stirring in collagen or stirring in a protein powder can be super helpful. Not glamorous, it just kind of like gets the job done a little bit.

Hannah Aylward (51:10.51)
My coffee intake usually goes up when I travel too. Like I don’t drink a ton of alcohol. So my, my fun, like little treat will be like another coffee. My adrenals don’t love it, but you know, stirring in some protein can also be helpful for that. So for equip, I don’t have a code for you guys for Trubani. Unfortunately, they haven’t reached out. If they want to feel free. I should reach out to them, but

For Equip, you guys can use the code hannahelwardhhc and we’ll pop this in the show notes for you and that will get you 15 % off too. So 15 % off of the Equip protein powder off your first bag, I believe. So it’s a great deal. Great deal there. It’s one of my like go-tos personally. Then another great thing that I like to do to kind of maintain my health while traveling is going to be walking after a meal, which I know sounds like so simple, but it’s very powerful. So walking after meals overall, it can help reduce these blood sugar spikes.

It can help support and improve insulin sensitivity. And it could also, of course, help to promote healthy digestion because walking after meals can actually aid in digestion by stimulating, helping to stimulate bowel movements. aiming to walk even 15 minutes after a meal, even 10 minutes, right? But usually in between 15 to 30 minutes after eating can be very helpful. But once again, even 10 to 15 minutes can be beneficial. So there was a study done that showed

that even a five minute walk after eating had a measurable effect on moderating blood sugar levels. The beneficial effect of walking was observed during a 60 to 90 minute window following the meal. And for people who took a walk during that time, changes to blood sugar were not only less extreme, but they also occurred more gradually. And that’s really important because sudden blood sugar spikes and drops can actually raise the cardiovascular risk and are believed to play a role in developing type two diabetes.

So essentially even walking for five minutes within the window of like 60 to 90 minutes after eating can help like minimize the big highs and big lows of the blood sugar spikes and help your body essentially like process this glucose better. So anytime you’re going to engage your muscles after eating carbohydrates or sugar, that’s going to help take the sugar out of the bloodstream essentially. So muscle is kind of like a sponge for glucose. So if you’re going to eat,

Hannah Aylward (53:29.284)
something like gelato, I hope you do and I hope you enjoy it. Going for a quick walk after that or even like walking while you’re eating it, not super ideal, but walking after you enjoy it, after you enjoy a bowl of pasta, whatever it might be, can be really helpful for minimizing those blood sugar ups and downs and it really only takes a couple minutes. So that’s a great kind of tool to have in your toolbox. When I’m…

vacationing and if I’m in Europe and I’m getting gelato, I just try to, I’m like, let’s get it and let’s walk around and let’s have a nice, have a nice night. And that helps. I can just feel, I can feel the difference in my body. It feels like it doesn’t impact me as much. doesn’t like hit me as much. So that’s a great little tip. The other big thing that you can do is take digestive support. So bring with you something like a digestive bitters or a digestive enzyme. These things can be really helpful for supporting.

proper digestion and helping you break down your food, especially if you’re like eating more or larger portions than you’re used to, or you’re eating foods that you don’t normally use or don’t normally eat. So I’ll usually bring a digestive bitters with me because I’m a huge fan of digestive bitters or an enzyme can be really powerful as well. And I don’t really take enzymes in my day to day. I also don’t take bitters in my day to day. I don’t usually need it. However, you know, when traveling and eating out, these can be great helps. And this is what I usually tell the tell our clients as well. So

Pure Encapsulations makes a great enzyme. It’s called Digestive Enzymes Ultra. That’s kind of like one of my go-tos. And then there are many different digestive bitters. I do like Dr. Mercola’s Organic Digestive Bitters. Both of these things you can grab in my full script. So once again, we’ll pop that link below. This is not medical advice as always, right? This is just kind of education and you do with it what you want and always check in with your doctor. But…

Supporting digestion overall can be very helpful for minimizing things like bloating and constipation and diarrhea, et cetera. So definitely take something like this with you. Bitters are also nice because they usually come in like a smaller bottle and you can just keep it in your purse, you know, so you have it before each meal. Or these little digestive enzyme capsules, these ones specifically, this brand, they’re so tiny. So you can like pop them in your pocket and they’re like so small and easy to swallow, which I love. Okay.

Hannah Aylward (55:41.198)
The other thing would be, course, when you are eating out. So to be honest, when I’m traveling, I still try to eat healthy. I definitely will eat more like food that I don’t normally eat that’s in my day-to-day routine. But if I just like go ham and eat whatever I quote unquote want, honestly, I want healthy food. That’s the truth, like the real truth.

But if I were to eat like pasta and pizza and fries and stuff for like every meal, like I would feel like crap. Anyone’s going to feel like crap. And I don’t want to feel like crap because I want to enjoy my vacation or my travel time or whatever. I want to, and if I’m traveling for work, I want to have like my brain working. Right. So I still try to eat, you know, healthy out, especially like for the majority of the day. So typically I feel like going out to dinner is kind of like a really fun thing to do and you can get dressed up and you can do all that. Maybe it’s date night or whatever. like

you go and enjoy that. Breakfast, think, is easy to keep it pretty healthy and then like try to keep lunch pretty healthy as well. Try to keep most of the meals pretty healthy and it’s pretty easy to do. you know, most hotels or like breakfast spots are going to have like eggs, right? They’re going to have eggs. Maybe they’ll have an avocado toast or something like that. They may have a Greek yogurt and fruit, but pretty much anywhere is going to have like an omelet, you know, like a veggie omelet. So that’s kind of my go-to. I’ll get a veggie omelet.

with as many veggies in it as I can. The eggs will give me good fat and good protein. Maybe a side of fruit, definitely my coffee, love my coffee. And then I’m kind of like off for the day. Sometimes I’ll also look up like where’s a smoothie place around. I’ll make sure to get protein in the smoothie because we don’t want it to be just fruit. It’s not going to satiate you and we need more protein than that. But those are kind of some of my like, yeah, my go-to is like, I would say I’m eating eggs in most places. If you’re sensitive to eggs or anything like that, the smoothie can be really helpful. Greek yogurt can be helpful.

Or you can see if they can do like a breakfast sausage or something like that. So you can get in some protein that way too. Eat that with some fruit. You’re good to go. It’s also totally fine to order things like that are on the lunch menu for breakfast, right? So breakfast doesn’t need to be a bowl of cereal. In a lot of places, it’s actually not. It’s like cheeses and meats. So do what works best for you. But that’s kind of, those are some of my go-tos. And then when I’m looking at lunch and dinner, I’m looking at pairing

Hannah Aylward (57:59.468)
protein and produce for the most part. So I’m looking for some sort of protein, whether it’s chicken or fish or tofu or whatever. And then I’m looking for a good source of produce, so different veggies and things like that. And then some good carbs, whether it’s rice or pasta, sweet potato, know, more starchy carbs, etc. So that is like, you can kind of make that work anywhere you go, to be honest. Like you can make that work with Thai food.

I think sushi is actually quite difficult and sushi really can throw your blood sugar way off. So I’m not like a huge fan, but I don’t like love sushi or anything. So it’s quite easy for me to just, I don’t really like crave it or anything. So if you do, you know, just enjoy it. But Thai food, Mexican food, I mean, you can make, you can make this work Italian food. If I’m at an Italian restaurant, getting like roasted salmon and veggies. And I’ll always ask for a little side of the red sauce because I love red sauce and I’ll just put it on my veggies or I’ll

ask for like a side of pasta so it’s smaller and I’ll make sure that I get my protein and my veggies with it. Or I’ll start with a salad with chicken or salmon or something and then have my pasta. You just want to make sure you’re getting enough protein and fiber with that. overall balancing your meals with like a protein, we’re looking for 20 to 30 grams of protein per meal, a good fiber source. And fiber is a carb, right? but I just like to emphasize it. And then some good healthy fat, whether that’s like olive oil.

some good quality cheese, avocado, et cetera. So aiming to balance your meals is key. And then what’s also really important is if you are eating like a nice balanced dinner and you’ve got adequate protein and you’ve got adequate fiber, when you go to eat dessert and you just eat whatever you want for dessert, right? Whether it’s like a cake or gelato or whatever, lemon meringue pie, these are the first things that are coming to mind. You enjoy it, but your blood sugar will be…

less impacted when you actually have eaten a balanced meal. So if you’re going to eat dessert, eat it after you eat like enough protein and enough fiber and enough fat. Don’t save calories or skip dinner or anything like that to enjoy dessert because it’s going to have a much greater, worse impact on your blood sugar levels than if you were to just have it like with food. Same goes for drinking. So if you’re going to have any alcohol,

Hannah Aylward (01:00:12.952)
We don’t want to be like skipping snacks or skipping meals, saving calories, that kind of thought. And then going into drinking and avoid drinking alcohol and empty stomach. It’s going to hit your blood sugar much differently than if you have a glass of wine with like olives and charcuterie or like, like meat, or you have a glass of wine with like muscles or something like that. Like get some protein in there. Even if you have like a

you know, veggies and hummus or something alongside your alcohol, that’s going to help your blood sugar response to it. On the topic of alcohol, because this episode I think is getting quite long. So let me try to just move us forward. This is like a full debrief on my travel. On the topic of alcohol, I like to space it out. So I like to space it out a little bit. I don’t drink that much, so it’s not that hard for me.

But overall, we want to give your liver a break. So if you can have a drink one day and then you can give your body a rest, give yourself one to two days before in between each times that you’re drinking, each days that you’re drinking. So basically like taking some rest days. So you enjoy some wine one night, give your body a break. You can enjoy it the next night or ideally space it out two days. You know, that’s up to you. But drinking every day is what hits your body like the hardest. With that being said, there’s essentially no upside for our health to alcohol.

literally no upside. Alcohol is a carcinogen. It’s very bad for us. I drink it from time to time. So I just like to, like, if you don’t drink, that’s fantastic. If you do drink, here are my tips for you, basically. Space it out, have it with food, always have a glass of water for every drink that you have. Up your electrolytes right before you drink or after when you get home. And then in addition, you can also do like an NAC, which is an acetylcysteine, which is a great…

liver support. It’s like the precursor to glutathione, that master antioxidant that the liver produces. So an NAC can be very helpful. You can take that before you drink. I also like liver refresh by now. That’s another brand. has some NAC in it. It has milk thistle in it. It’s got a couple other things in there too. Those, I’m always supporting my liver if I am drinking. So I’ll take them either before or after I drink alcohol. And that is something I always travel with because typically, yeah, if I’m celebrating or traveling, there’s a bit more alcohol than

Hannah Aylward (01:02:29.39)
than normal. And then once again, with those electrolytes. those are my kind of tips for alcohol. Last thing being overall with alcohol, drinking none is ideal. Drinking none is the best. Spacing it out is better, right? And hydrating and eating and liver support. With that being said, just be mindful of things like mixers, which you probably know, right? Like avoiding lots of fruit juice, Coke, Sprite, this, lots of sugar with your alcohol, not gonna do any favors. A nice quality red wine.

be better but honestly what’s kind of best is going to be like a clear liquor. So something like a vodka or tequila, something like that with like my go-to would be tequila soda water lime or just like regular water lime kind of like a makeshift margarita and I always ask them for no simple syrup or like less. I’ll be like can you put half the amount or just give me none honestly but those are going to be the best. If you’ve got any histamine stuff going on alcohol is not going to be your friend. Wine especially and like beer these are going to

you’ll feel horrible with this. Also, if you have like a fungal overgrowth, like these will not feel good in your body. So you’re best off just not drinking at all, but something like a tequila soda, a vodka soda, or like a dirty martini, like those can, those are a bit better. Once again, it’s all bad. are the better of the bad, but I want to be clear that I’m not encouraging you to drink alcohol. Okay, the other thing, the last bit, because this was asked specifically, is going to be sleep. So for sleep, it can be…

you know, a little troublesome sometimes. Try to make the room as dark as you possibly can. I wear an eye mask every night when I sleep, so I always travel with that. I also travel with earplugs. Like, I don’t mess around. Don’t mess with my sleep. I will be impacted by that. So I bring earplugs. Usually whoever I’m traveling with also has earplugs, like whether it’s my sister or my partner. So we’re like earplugs in, eye mask on. No, we don’t play with that. So those would be my recommendations. I’ll usually bring my mouth tape as well. So I do mouth tape most, most often.

like more nights than I don’t, that can be very helpful. And then what I also find like really helpful is I usually listen to something in my headphones before I go to bed, take this or leave this. But my mind tends to like kind of run around a bit, especially if I’m in a new place and I need help like winding down. So I’ll listen to a meditation or I’ll listen to like a very easy talk, like a spiritual talk or whatever kind of works for you. I love Tara Brock. She’s got a phenomenal podcast. Insight timer has different

Hannah Aylward (01:04:55.614)
like meditations and talks and visualizations and things like that. I like to pop something like that and it really truly helps me and helps me actually fall asleep because I can get out of my own head or I listen to something like super silly. Like I’ll listen to like giggly squad or I’ll listen to, you know, a podcast that’s like, I’m not learning anything. I’m not worried about missing anything that they’re saying. I’m listening to it and it’s, it’s like, just like banter, right? Cause it’s

It’s very light and it’s not serious. And sometimes that also helps me fall asleep. So that’s just like a little hack that I use that won’t work for everyone. But sometimes I think it can be very helpful for just like getting you out of your own head. If you are someone that kind of struggles with that, my mind tends to race a little bit. So that’s very helpful for me. So we covered a lot of tips here and I think this episode is getting a little long. So I’m going to cut it there, but lots of stuff for you guys to take away. I hope that this was helpful for you.

Of course, if you have any questions about these tips, you can always ask me, send me a message on Instagram. You can let me know what you think of this episode and what you think of these tips in the comments below this episode. And then once again, in the show notes, we’ll have the link for Fullscript and then any of the other discount codes to the products that we love, we’ll have those listed in the show notes for you guys as well. So I hope this was helpful for you. These are like, like literally my personal hacks that I use. And if you want me to even do a part two or you found this extra helpful, just make sure to let me know.

We’ll keep it rocking. Okay. See you in the next episode.

Thanks for joining me for this episode of the Nutrient Dense Podcast. If you found this episode valuable, don’t forget to subscribe, leave a review, share with a friend, and come back next week for a new episode. See you then!