Good morning,
I’m writing this from an Airbnb in Manila.
My nose is running. My head is pounding from the AC they blast everywhere indoors. I’ve been awake since 2 a.m. because jet lag doesn’t care how experienced you are. And about an hour ago, I had every reason to not record the podcast episode Ivy and I had planned for today.
My mic wasn’t working. My body was telling me to lay down. And there was a pile of tissues on the couch next to me that would’ve made a convincing case to just push everything to tomorrow.
But here’s the thing about tomorrow: it already has its own list.
So I sat down, fixed the mic, blew my nose one more time, and hit record.
That moment right there is what I want to talk to you about today. Because I think it’s the most important fitness lesson I can share with you, and it has nothing to do with sets, reps, or macros.
Ivy and I just kicked off a three-month trip across Asia. Philippines first, then Bali, Australia, Singapore, South Korea, and Japan. Nine different locations. Moving every Monday. No home gym. No familiar kitchen. No routine.
And within the first five days, I made mistakes.
I didn’t bring protein powder because I assumed it would be cheap in the Philippines. Wrong. A 20-serving tub here is $60 USD. That’s $3 per scoop. I also forgot to pack our portable blender because our carry-on luggage was already at the weight limit. So for five full days, I was under my protein targets.
And I noticed it fast.
I got softer. I caught a reflection of myself and thought, “Where did my abs go? There were four. Now there’s one. What happened?”
Now, a lot of people would spiral at that point. They’d say the trip ruined everything, that they’ll start over when they get home, that it’s impossible to stay on track while traveling.
I get it. I’ve heard that from almost every client who walks through our doors.
One of our members told us that traveling was her biggest pain point. She’d be consistent for a stretch, then go on a trip, fall off, come back heavier, and feel like she was starting from scratch every single time. Another client travels for work six to seven months out of the year and had basically given up on making any progress until she found a system that worked on the road.
So what did I actually do when I saw myself getting fluffy in Manila?
I tightened up. For two days. That’s it. Two days of dialing back in, front-loading protein in the morning, keeping lunch clean and light, and saving my calories for dinner so Ivy and I could still enjoy the incredible plant-based Filipino food we came here to try.
And within those two days, I was basically back to where I started.
That’s the part nobody tells you. The gap between “off track” and “back on track” is way smaller than you think, if you catch it early. It’s not about perfection. It’s about having a standard for yourself, a line where you go, “Alright, that’s enough. Time to tighten up.”
The real danger isn’t a vegan donut at a bakery in BGC. It’s the 20 pounds you put on over two weeks because you told yourself you’d figure it out when you got home.
It is always easier to not put on 20 pounds than it is to lose 20 pounds. Keep that in mind next time you travel.
Here’s what’s actually working for us on this trip, and honestly, it’s the same thing we teach every single member:
Front-load protein in the morning. We bought a cheap $30 blender knockoff at the mall and some plant-based protein powder (yes, even at $60 for 20 scoops, I finally gave in because five days of being under protein was not worth the savings). A smoothie with protein powder, bananas, frozen berries, and unsweetened nut milk. Done. That’s breakfast.
Lunch is light and high in protein. Tofu stir-fry bowls. Big wraps packed with vegetables. Clean, simple, nothing fancy.
Dinner is where we live. That’s where we try the local food. The sisig turned plant-based. The gising-gising (which means “wake up, wake up” in Tagalog, by the way). The tofu cashew stir-fry at Mango Tree with a fresh watermelon juice that costs less than a coffee back home.
And we walk. A lot. Fifteen to nineteen thousand steps a day just from exploring the city. The steps happen naturally when you’re curious and present.
We also train every single day. The very first thing Ivy and I did after a 16-hour flight from LA was find a gym. We landed at 5 a.m. I looked at her and said, “We have to find a gym.” Not because I wanted to crush a heavy workout. I was exhausted. It was honestly a mediocre session. Kettlebell swings, some battle ropes, light movement. But the point was never the workout itself. The point was to not let the first day set a precedent of skipping.
Because once you skip day one, day two gets easier to skip. And day three? Forget about it.
Some days the gym is an Anytime Fitness underneath our building. Some days it’s a spot called Pretty Huge with a basketball court where I played one-on-one against a guy who turned out to be a professional player in the PBA (think the NBA of the Philippines). I only lost by four points, and I was jet-lagged, so I’m counting that as a win.
Some days the “gym” is our Airbnb with a resistance band and a jump rope I bought for two bucks.
The equipment doesn’t matter. The environment doesn’t matter. What matters is that you show up.
I want to be honest about something.
I am not motivated most of the time on this trip.
There. I said it.
I’m jet-lagged. My sleep schedule is a disaster. The humidity drains me. My nose is running from going between freezing cold AC indoors and 95-degree heat outside. And some mornings I wake up at 1 or 2 a.m. with zero chance of falling back asleep.
Motivation is not what gets me to the gym. Motivation is not what made me record the podcast today while I was sick. Motivation is not what makes me tighten up my nutrition after a few indulgent days.
Discipline is.
And discipline, for me, comes down to one simple principle that changed my entire life: do the thing you said you were going to do.
For a long time, I said a lot of things and did none of them. And every time I broke a promise to myself, I lost a little more confidence in my own ability to follow through. That compounds over time. You stop trusting yourself. You stop believing you’re the kind of person who does hard things.
So one day, I decided to flip it. I became very careful about what I committed to. I started saying no to almost everything, not because I don’t care, but because if I say yes, I need to know I’ll actually follow through.
And when I commit, I do it. Sick, tired, jet-lagged, whatever. I do the thing.
That shift, from being someone who talks about what they’re going to do to being someone who does what they said they would, is the single biggest transformation I’ve ever made. Bigger than losing weight. Bigger than building muscle. Bigger than going plant-based.
Because once you trust yourself to keep your own word, everything else falls into place.
So here’s what I want you to take away from this, especially if you have a trip coming up, or a disruption to your routine, or something that makes you think, “I’ll just start when things settle down.”
Things don’t settle down. Life doesn’t pause so you can get in shape.
You can’t fold in half every time something disrupts your routine. You need to learn to navigate the waves, whether they’re out of your control or whether they’re self-created because you chose to go on a three-month Asia trip like I did.
Will you lose weight at 0.7 times the speed versus being at home? Maybe. But 0.7 times the speed of progress is infinitely better than putting on 10 pounds because you told yourself you’d handle it later.
Progress is progress. Slow is smooth. Smooth is fast.
And if you catch yourself slipping, remember: tightening up for two days is a lot easier than trying to undo two months of damage.
You don’t need the perfect gym. You don’t need the perfect kitchen. You don’t need motivation. You just need to keep your word to yourself.
That’s the whole game.
Talk soon,
Maxime
P.S. If you haven’t grabbed a copy of my book Forever Fit yet. We hit number one bestseller in four categories on day one and held it for two weeks. Every copy sold counts toward our mission of helping 10,000 people by 2033. Grab yours and leave a review on Amazon if you can. It helps more than you know.
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