Hey, everybody. So today I am making a podcast that is a massive request from a lot of the women in our community. I’ve talked about it over and over, and it’s something that I have really tried to master myself, and that is returning from vacation. Post-event care. Coming back from a vacation and giving yourself time to get back to normal.

So if you’ve ever gone on a vacation and you thought, “Oh, I was doing so well, and then everything fell apart when I went on vacation, and I just couldn’t get back on track,” well, this episode is for you. And I’m going to make this episode as a resource, too, for any sort of transition that we’re making from one rhythm to the next.

And let’s just look at vacations. With vacation, you’re usually in this relaxed state. You’re not doing the day-to-day. There aren’t so many things on your mind. There aren’t all the demands of life. And then you come back from vacation, and you have all of those demands of life. 

So you’re going from one rhythm to another rhythm, a slower rhythm to maybe a faster rhythm, a more simple rhythm to a more complicated rhythm. And it doesn’t really matter what you describe the two different rhythms as, but I want you to think of this podcast being a resource for you any time you are transitioning from one rhythm to another rhythm. 

And that could be vacation. It could be when a spouse travels. It could be when one of your children travels and then they come back, or they leave for college, so the rhythm goes from having them at home, and then they’re not at home. So you’re gonna have a transition. Or when they come back home, so you didn’t have them at home, and then they came back home. So you’re gonna have a transition. 

This also helps you understand other people as well. Other transitions you could use this for is when you’ve had houseguests. So you had houseguests, and now they leave, and there’s this transition period where you’re really not back to, quote, “normal life.” 

Or when you start a new job, or if you’re a teacher and you’re going from school rhythm to summer rhythm and then probably back to school rhythm. So this is the transition between summer rhythm and then you go to school rhythm. 

So I hope you clearly see, and maybe just start to recognize that any time you’re going from one rhythm to another rhythm, there isn’t a clean start and stop time. There is a transition period. And I believe that the longer you’re in one rhythm before you go into the next, potentially the longer the transition needs to be. 

So for example, if I am a teacher and I’ve been in nine or 10 months of school, it will probably take me at least, let’s just say on the conservative side, a day per month. So it’s gonna take me a good 10 days to two weeks to transition into summer mode, and I know everybody hates that answer. I know you totally hate that’s a real thing. 

But if you go on a seven-day vacation, for vacations in general, and this isn’t a hard and fast rule, I’m just kind of spitballing here, but let’s assume that for every day that you’re on vacation, it will take about half of a day to a full day to get back to your normal rhythm.

So if I’m on a seven-day vacation, it may take anywhere from four to seven days for me to feel back to the norm. If I’m on a two-week vacation, it may take a whole two weeks of transition before I feel back to normal. So I’m just making the case for you to recognize it’s a real thing, and to expect it.

During this transition time, you need to expect to feel in an in-between, and brains hate in-between. Brains like predictability and they like feeling, quote, normal. When you’re going from one rhythm to another rhythm, there is a transition period.

So first of all, my number one tip is expect it and honor it. Give yourself that time. Believe it’s a real thing and honor it. And what I mean by honor it is follow these very few simple tips that I’m going to give, because if you follow what I say, you transition and you return back to normal. If you don’t follow what I say, you will find that the transition period is actually extended.

You will have a week vacation, and three weeks later you’ll still feel like, “I’m not recovered from it. I don’t know why. It really took a lot out of me.” It’s because you just didn’t transition well. And I don’t say that as a judgment, because I truly believe it is one of those skills that you can learn how to do.

I’m gonna give you some bonus tips on how if you find that you are in a high season of transitions, what you can do to even support yourself more. So the first one is know it’s a real thing, honor it, allow yourself to feel off without the judgment. Just keep saying to yourself, “I’m transitioning. I’m transitioning back to regular life.” It’s that simple. 

Now, in the first 48 to 72 hours. Even if you’ve been away for the weekend, there is gonna be a transition period. And the very first thing that you need to do is to make your easy-to-stick to meal plan.  

And make it ridiculously easy to stick to. Make it a transition easy to stick to meal plan, meaning that it may not be made up of the norm food, but you are at least showing up to make a ridiculously easy to stick to meal plan, a meal plan that there is absolutely no way that you wouldn’t be able to follow because it is so ridiculously easy to stick to. Simply making the plan is a step in the right direction and a beautiful way to support yourself through this transition. 

So often I hear people say, “I went on vacation, I just couldn’t get back on track.” Well, likely because getting back on track meant you thought if you made an easy to stick to meal plan, it had to look like your normal or regular easy to stick to meal plan prior to going on vacation. And it doesn’t. 

There are no rules with the easy to stick to meal plan other than you are eating foods that you genuinely enjoy, that you feel peaceful about eating before, during, and after, and that are working for you this day, today, the day you’re living in now. 

And so if you’re in a transition day, it should be a transition easy to stick to meal plan. It doesn’t have to look like what you had on vacation. It doesn’t have to look like what you planned the week before vacation. It can look totally different. 

I also encourage you to add optional extra food. Because you are returning, the nervous system is sort of in a state of flux, and therefore, you have no idea what your hunger may be. You have no idea what your fatigue may be. 

And even if you are eating just because you’re tired, at least by planning extra food, you’ve already chosen ahead of time what I’m eating. This is a huge, huge, huge, beautiful way to support yourself, planning extra food and making it ridiculously easy to stick to. It just doesn’t matter what’s on the plan. It’s just that you have decided ahead of time. 

Now, your brain will probably, if you’ve been on a vacation, believe that it should be restrictive because you’ve eaten all the things on vacation, and I want to remind you, and you can go back to all the different podcasts. Just search vacation. I have so many vacation podcasts because I’ve been in a season of traveling and vacationing, and that’s just the season of life my husband and I are in. 

And I recently got back from vacation. I’d gained nearly three and a half pounds on seven days, and guess what? The day I got back, I started my ridiculously easy to stick to meal plan, and within a few weeks, my weight recalibrated back down to the normal, and that’s what your weight will do, too.

So if you step on the scale after vacation, don’t sweat it. Your body will recalibrate to its normal weight once you start eating more normally, what you’re used to eating. I really encourage you to resist the temptation to go on a restrictive, even if it’s a, quote, “easy to stick to meal plan”, which it’s not if it’s restrictive, by restricting what you allow yourself to eat.

And if you don’t believe me in how that can actually make the problem worse by restricting what you’re eating when you get back from vacation, go back to the podcast that’s right before this that tells you all about the binge restrict cycle. You are only going to make the problem worse. 

Okay, also within the first 48 to 72 hours, just be very clear and honest with yourself on what is truly essential. What is truly essential? And put your time and energy on that. If you have extra energy, you can go ahead and do more.

But putting the pressure on yourself to catch up on all the laundry, all the email, all the cooking will really make you have a lot of stress and throw you off your easy-to-stick-to meal plan, and it’s totally avoidable.

Your brain may be very much used to thinking in the first 48 hours that you wanna catch up on all the things. I find myself wanting to do that as well, and I just have to remind myself I can if I have the energy, but I’m also very clear on what is essential, and I don’t like to work from pressure. We do try to return from vacation on a Saturday or a Friday, which is so awesome ’cause then you feel like you’ve got this free time this weekend.

So being very clear on the essentials. And even if you are only clear on the essentials and you still do more, totally fine. I’m just telling you how to transition well so that you can recover from your vacation and return to normal life in the most simple way possible. 

Know that emotionally and physically you will be recalibrating, and it will probably take half a day to a full day for every day that you are gone. The same thing happens for the people that you love, especially if you have children returning home from college. Everybody’s in this state of flux. 

Tensions will be high, tensions may be low, your moods may be all over the place, and that’s just not a problem. It’s that simple. Literally, this is the end of the podcast. But I want to give you a couple other things that can make it easier for you. 

So after you’ve done this a couple times and you are transitioning well, you’re a woman who knows how to transition well back into normal life, there are a few other bonus things that you can do to help yourself before you go on vacation and that you can start thinking of as your pre-vacation game plan or things that you do for yourself.

Now, I know a lot of people like to clean their whole house or something like that, and that’s totally fine. It goes in that same vein. And a couple things that I love to do before I go is to  create return from vacation meals that I will make for my family. So when I come back from vacation, I know we’re having spaghetti, and we might have tacos.

So I don’t even have to think about it. It’s just that’s what we’re gonna have. And if I can have groceries in the house before, even better. I’m about to go on a road trip with my mom. I’ll be staying with my sister for five days. It’s gonna be really great. I’m coming home on a Monday, and I can already tell my brain will wanna jump right back into it.

But before I go, I’m gonna go ahead and make the taco meat so that all I have to do is take it out of the freezer. I will make the rice ahead of time. I will freeze that so that when I come home, voila, there’s dinner available. And I will probably order my groceries so they’re sent to the house before that as well.

The other thing is that I also freeze personal things for me. So that’s what I do for my family. But for me, there are some breakfasts that I typically have that are very easy, and I’ll freeze those ahead of time or some grab-and-go meals. I like to make this egg omelet thing. I like to make this oatmeal thing. And I just love that that can just be right in my freezer, and it’s always there, and I can easily pull that out. 

And then my final tip, and if I haven’t said this enough, it is while you are on vacation, when you are traveling, whether you’re traveling by car, plane, boat, doesn’t matter, when you’re making your easy-to-stick-to meal plan for your travel days, plan extra food. 

There are so many hiccups in travel, plus travel brings its own set of stresses emotionally and physically on your body that you need to make sure that you have enough food to support you. And part of having enough food to support you is simply knowing that you planned ahead of time. 

So you can create safety in your brain and in your body that you’ve got extra protein bars in your carry-on, that you have extra packets of this or that, or extra bits of your electrolytes, or extra, I don’t know, yogurts or whatever. Whatever the extra is, just plan extra.  

And if you’re interested in how I travel, just look up any of the vacation podcasts that I’ve done. But this one was specifically for re-entry. We are in the summer months of 2026, and a lot of people. I keep talking about re-entry in our coaching calls. That’s what I call this, re-entry back into normal life or transition. You call it whatever you want.

But it’s truly how to come back from vacation and make sure that you can just get back on track and support yourself through it. I hope this has been so helpful. At Weight Loss with the Holy Spirit, we keep God our God. Not the scale, not our pant size, not the magic diet, but we keep God our God.

All right, everybody, have a blessed day.