We are creatures of habit. While working a normal day job, we can stick to a routine pretty easily (wake up at the same time, eat all meals at the same time, work out at the same time, go to sleep at the same time). However, when we are traveling, nothing is familiar and the slightest speed bump can be enough to throw things off.
You have to create a specific action plan that you can take with you on your next trip, whether it’s for a day, a week, or a month. Here’s a few things to consider:
Make It Your Constant
Your exercise needs to become your constant while traveling
– make a commitment to yourself that you will find time to exercise – NO
EXCUSES. Add it to your calendar, set up
an email reminder, do whatever it takes, but don’t take no for an answer. You might need to wake up early one day to
fit it in or you might need to exercise at 11PM at night on another day. Just freakin’
do it! Understand the importance of keeping up your routine even while
traveling, and you’ll be able to come back to your regular daily routine
without skipping a beat.
Use Body Weight Exercises
Maintain strength training with increasingly challenging
body weight exercises. Make it your mission to find one of these things:
•A pull up bar or swing set
•A sturdy tree branch
•A building or bus stop overhang
As long as you find one of those three things, you can
complete a full workout of pushing exercises (push-ups and burpees), pulling
exercises (pull-ups and chin-ups), leg and butt exercises (lunges and squats),
and core exercises (planks and hanging knee tucks). If you can’t do pull-ups
(YET!) or can’t find a tree branch, do dumbbell rows with your suitcase or
other heavy object. Everything else you can do with just your body.
Where To Workout
You might have a decent hotel gym or you might need to work
out in your room, or maybe you need to find a park or school playground
somewhere. Go for a walk; pick a
direction and try to find a small patch of land to do your push-ups, squats and
you can also jump rope or use resistance bands (both are easy to pack and light
to carry).
Track Your Progress
Many people forget to do this when they’re traveling but if your
goal is to be better today than you were yesterday, this is incredibly
difficult to do if you don’t know how you did yesterday! It DOESN’T MATTER
where you start, no matter how weak you think you are. What matters is that
you’re better than you were last time. If you could only do one squat and half
a push up yesterday, aim for two squats and one full push up tomorrow.
Maintaining Healthy Eating
You cannot out-run poor food and drink choices, and you
can’t out-train it either. Even if you’re living out of a backpack, here’s some
cheap and easy items to choose from: almonds, apples and bananas, peanut butter
(or almond butter) sandwiches. While out, try fitting in spinach salads with
walnuts (or sunflower seeds if you’re allergic to nuts) and grilled chicken or
fish. Teddy Roosevelt said it best: “Do what you can, with what you have, where
you are.”
Plan Ahead
If you know you’ll be traveling without the benefit of a cooler,
pack some healthy snacks with you in your bag – apples and almonds are a fast
and easy go-to. I would include bananas but you don’t want to get them bruised
up bouncing around in your bag.
If you’re going out to dinner with your friends/family, find
the restaurant online then browse the menu and “pre-order your dinner” in your
mind so you know what to order when you get there. Order the “meat + veggie + potato” option on
the menu, and ask for double veggies instead.
Aim for something like grilled chicken or salmon.
If you’re traveling with others, let them know that you’re
making a concerted effort to eat better and that you’d like their support.
Stay Active
I don’t care if you’re walking laps in the airport during a
layover, or doing burpees at a bus stop – FIND A WAY TO BE ACTIVE EVERY DAY. Even
if it’s 5 minutes of jump rope, it’s better than doing nothing, and will get
you in the proper frame of mind. Take a run around the town, go for a hike,
toss a frisbee in the park, go swimming in the ocean, whatever it is, just do
something!
Bottomline
Eating right will be 80% of your success or failure and that
means you need to be ON with how you eat every day. Try to maximize the good
stuff (meat, vegetables, fruits, nuts) and minimize the bad stuff (junk food, processed grains
and carbs, sugary beverages). Maybe you’ll get made fun of by your unhealthy
friends, or peer pressured into eating/drinking bad and skipping workouts, but
what I have to say about that is, SO?! Two thirds of this country is overweight
and out of shape. The number of diseases that can be avoided by proper
nutrition and exercise is too long to list. So my question is, why would you
want to be like, “everybody else” anyway?
No comments:
Post a Comment