Travel Fit in the City
Staying fit and healthy when you travel can present a number of challenges because there is so much potential to have your typical routine thrown out of balance. It’s too easy to let good exercise and healthy eating habits slide when you’re away from home with no access to a gym, green smoothies or personally prepared food. However, with a little forward planning you can keep yourself on track and maybe even come home fitter and healthier than when you left.
So what should you do to stay fit while you travel?
Be realistic.
Ask yourself, ‘How much exercise can I reasonably commit to when I’m away’ It doesn’t take much to maintain your fitness and remember, anything is better than nothing, so even if your answer is only 15 minutes a day, that’s fine. Don’t fall into the ‘all or nothing’ mindset thinking if I can’t maintain the amount of exercise I was doing at home, I might as well do nothing at all.
Pack smart.
I’m not suggesting you pack a set of dumbbells but there is plenty of lightweight equipment that can help you to maintain your fitness whilst away from home. I always take my TRX, resistance bands and skipping rope wherever I go. Even if you don’t pack any equipment you can still get a great workout using your own bodyweight. Just make sure you pack your kit! You may even find that you love your new workouts and want to incorporate them into your routine when you get home. A change is as good as a rest and you will be challenging your body in new ways which is sometimes exactly what it needs to progress.
Have a Plan.
Consider where you are staying. Do you have a hotel gym? Do you want/need a hotel gym? Always think ahead and plan in advance. Have some pre prepared workouts with you to cover all the options, either utilising the equipment you have packed or just some simple bodyweight circuits.
What other fitness options are there near where you are staying? It’s always nice to try new things when you visit new places, fitness activities included. It’s best to research these before you go so you can schedule them into your trip.
Keep the workouts short and simple.
No gym; No equipment; No time; NO problem!
Even just 10 minutes a day is better than nothing. Get into a routine of completing a circuit of bodyweight exercises at the same time of day, every day. You may even find that after 10 minutes you want to do more.
Stick to it.
Now that you have a plan, you need to stick to it. That’s partly why it is so important to be realistic as otherwise you will just give up altogether.
Be active every day, everywhere, in every way.
Unlike a typical gym routine back at home, keeping fit when you travel can be fun, spontaneous, and should always be creative. Think about your surroundings. Can you go hiking, running, swimming, cycling? What about trying a yoga class? Set challenges such as a certain number of steps a day (if you have a tracker), run up every set of stairs you come across. There is no shortage of steps in most cities you go to. Your options are limitless!
My Travel Workout Routine.
I don’t really have a ‘routine’ when I’m traveling as you never quite know what’s going to happen each day. That’s one of the best things about travel. I tend to base my workouts around bodyweight circuit style training to get a mix of resistance and cardio benefits and to recruit as many muscle fibres as possible. It’s usually HIIT (High intensity Interval Training) style. Short and intense with short rest periods between exercises to make my workout time as efficient as possible. If I have access to a gym, I will do a full body weight session to include mainly compound exercises.
My favourite bodyweight exercises are burpees, push ups, jump squats, inchworms, mountain climbers, planks and lunges.
I also walk a lot in a new city as I want to see as much as I can in the short time I’m there.
The easiest way to stay motivated when you’re away is to try fun, different ways of training. It’s actually a nice change from my usual gym routine.
Nutrition whilst traveling
Nutrition is, without question, the most crucial element of healthy living. Unfortunately, it is also the aspect of health that is the most neglected. Add travel into the mix where we do not have access to our usual foods or the flexibility of being able to prepare our own meals and our healthy eating habits can really spiral out of control.
Don’t get me wrong, half the fun of traveling is enjoying the culinary differences in the place you are visiting. However, apart from a few indulgences, it is still important to use your common sense when it comes to making healthy choices. If I eat food with little nutritional value, it makes me feel terrible and that’s not a feeling I want to experience anytime but least of all when I’m traveling.
Forget all the complicated conflicting nutritional advice that’s out there and focus on the basics and you can’t go wrong. When choosing from a menu, try to eat foods that are as close to their natural state as possible. Increase healthy fat consumption with foods such as avocado, unsalted nuts, eggs and oily fish. Eliminate excessive carbohydrate consumption by cutting out sugars. Try to include vegetables with every meal, especially green ones. Drink plenty of water. You can always ask in restaurants for things to be prepared a little differently or replace one item with another. Most places I have been to have been ok with this.
Sometimes it’s just a case of doing the best you can.
As with fitness and training, don’t think of eating when you’re away from home as an ‘all or nothing’ situation. You just have to make the best choices you can and accept that they may not be perfect. You can help yourself by giving yourself the best chances of eating well by taking easily transportable things with you. Over the years, I have become an expert at sourcing the most nutrient dense snacks I can to help me out when the choices on offer have been less than optimal. It takes a bit of forward planning but believe me, it’s worth it. It depends how important your nutrition is to you. As with anything, if there’s a will there’s always a way.
My personal food supply doesn’t always last the entire trip, and I do end up eating a lot of foods that I wouldn’t choose at home but as long as 80% of the time I’m on track, that’s good enough for me.
Nutrient Dense snacks I always take with me
My supplements (all separated out into daily boxes)
85% Dark Chocolate
Whey Protein Powder (individual sachets)
Plant Protein powder (individual sachets)
Individual sachets of Nut butter
Ceylon Cinnamon
Unsalted Nuts/Seeds
Dried Coconut
Individual sachets of coconut oil
Himalayan Mountain Salt
and for the journey ….
Never rely on airports or airline food. It’s terrible!
Raw chopped vegetable like peppers or carrots with houmous
Hard boiled eggs (maybe a bit smelly though)
Pre cooked Sweet Potatoes
Cooked Chicken
Bananas/Apples
Avocados (pre cut) and wrapped in foil
Plan ahead
As with your workouts, a little bit of forward planning goes a long way. As well as packing the foods/supplements above, I always research the healthy restaurant/cafe choices wherever I am going. Our holiday following the Pacific Coast highway from San Diego to San Fransisco a few summers ago included a stop off at nearly every Wholefoods and Trader Joe’s along the way!
Don’t worry. Be happy.
The most important thing to remember with regards to training and nutrition whilst you’re away is to not stress about things being perfect. Enjoy yourself and the opportunity you have to travel and see new things and places.