Summertime is here, which means summer travels that are great for your health but break up healthy routines you’ve spent the year building. Whether you’re travelling with a friend, by yourself, as a Cultural Care Au Pair or as part of a holiday, it can be hard to put your healthy lifestyle first when there’s new food everywhere! You also need to consider this when you are travelling between destinations. For example, if you are going on holiday to the Philippines are are deciding on going from Cebu to Bohol, you need to make sure you are in a good condition to make this trip. There’s nothing worse than falling ill even before the trip has just begun. Going on vacation can sometimes mean that you want treat yourself, some people treat themselves to a more relaxed form of travel (e.g. by using a company like NetJets), whilst others like to treat themselves to food or something.
You can maintain healthy habits while travelling with a bit of preparation and creativity. Bloggers and regular travellers Andreas and Amar stopped by the Lift office on their way from England to Antarctica to share their tips.
Three strategies to stay fit while travelling:
1. Replace your current workout with alternative routines that you can do anywhere.
“We’ve just been exercising in ways that are readily available: running up stairs, doing hill sprints. You can use your backpack to do any type of [compound] exercise. No fancy equipment needed. It doesn’t even have to be that often, just 3x a week.”
Don’t forget to take advantage of your vacation spot’s fun exercise activities. Swim at the beach, go for an evening canoe ride or take a morning hike. If you’re in a city, workout in the local park.
2. Take supplements to get missing nutrients.
“Healthy eating isn’t the easiest because you won’t necessarily have access to fresh fruit and vegetables, but there are various supplements you can add to your diet. You just stick those into your water and that gives you some of the nutrients you’ll be lacking”
Supplements are a simple way to add nutrients to your diet plus most travel and pack well (for tips on building a vitamin habit, read this post). Keep a stash of healthy foods like nuts, butters or bars with you, too, for times when healthy food options aren’t available.
3. Partner up with a fellow traveller to stay accountable.
“We’re accountability buddies. We have our own goal list and habits that we want to keep to and we share that with each other. At the moment, we’re both trying to eat healthier so we pick each other’s meals [at restaurants]. I’ll call him out for a bad meal, ask him if he’s had his spanish lesson”
Having a buddy keep you accountable lets you take advantage of the same effects that help people with exercise partners lose more weight than people without them.
How to stay fit while travelling:
Right Now: Watch this video to hear all of Amar & Andreas’ tips. Have more questions? Ask them at @londoncyclist or@GapYearEscape.
Then: Ask a travelling partner to be your accountability buddy on your next vacation. Write down your goals (on Lift!), create a plan, and help each other stick to it.
