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It’s one of the hot trends nowadays, with more and more people deciding to head off on their travels for months, or years, at a time. Sometimes even, they don’t return, and set up home in a country they fell in love with.

stay fit while travelling

While we take our hat off to anyone who does take the plunge, when it comes to travel a lot of fitness enthusiasts are left with a big problem: their body suffers.

That’s right. At home, you have the gym and can eat as healthy as your body requires. On the road, the gym is out of the window, you don’t have a proper schedule, and there are just far too many temptations when it comes to eating out.

However, if you can commit to staying in shape while you travel, you can conquer this equation. Through the course of today’s post we will now take a look at some of the ways you can manage this. You can check out mensanswer.com for daily fitness tips you can use while travelling.

 

You need to make a commitment to yourself

Before we get into the meat and bones of today’s article, let’s highlight just how much of a commitment this is. Particularly if you are setting aside several months to venture off on your travels, generally people start to think that “it’s OK” to cut back on the tough diet and exercise regime you have been used to. The problem is, it’s not OK. It might take years to get your old body back – and that’s a long time to wait.

For this reason, you need to make a commitment to yourself. Set a personal challenge: you need to come back in better shape than before you departed. It’s a tough ask, but if you can do that and still retain all of those elusive travel memories, it will be completely worthwhile. This needs to be used as motivation on every occasion that you start to dip for the wrong food, or decide to skip the exercise.

In short, exercise needs to be a constant. You have the time available – the rest is up to you.

 

You need to prioritize your diet

Most people assume that the biggest hurdle when it comes to staying in shape whilst traveling is your exercise regime. This is true to an extent, but let’s firstly talk about your diet. As everyone knows, this is also important, and if you are to conquer your trip you need to make your eating habits an absolute priority.

So, how do you do this? Firstly, forget about cutting your food budget. This is something that a lot of travellers opt for when funds start to drop, but in the interests of staying in shape we really would urge against this. It will only make you delve for the unhealthy foods.

Of course, at times you will have to do the best you can. It might be difficult to find suitable food for your personal goals, but on these rare occasions you’ve just got to accept it. It means that when you do have options available, you need to place plenty of emphasis on getting it right. This means turning to the right foods, whether you are bulking or cutting.

 

The importance of planning

One of the best ways to stay on top of your diet is to simply plan. As we all know, or you are about to find out, traveling prompts all sorts of different occasions.

For example, you might be heading out on an excursion. In these cases, your food options are likely to be on the restricted side. It’s for this reason that you should plan accordingly and head off with healthy snacks. Again, this is going to largely depend on your fitness goals, but for some it might be fruit while others it might be nuts.

What about if you have been invited out to dinner? Well, rather than frantically trying to scour the menu when you arrive at the restaurant as you look for a healthy choice, visit their website beforehand. Find out the exact food that you are having, so when it comes to the crunch you can make a guilt-free order that isn’t going to undo all of your hard-earned work to your body.

At times you might have to be completely open with those around you, as well. At times you might have to tell them that you are consciously trying to watch what you eat and as such, you can’t make certain events. Or, you can make the events, but have to be careful in what you consume.

 

How can you exercise with limited equipment?

Let’s now move onto the exercise-factor. We won’t bore you to death about the perils of hotel gyms. Every fitness fanatic under the sun knows that these are nigh-on a waste of time, and are simply going to annoy you rather than make your body any good.

However, just because you don’t have a gym available, it doesn’t mean to say that you can’t exercise. Let’s not forget that bodyweight exercises can be hugely beneficial and failing that, you can improvise with tree branches, buildings and any other object that can resemble something found in the gym. Your aim should be to try and complete push exercises (like push ups), pull exercises (like pull ups), leg exercises (like squats) and any exercise for the core (which is easy with your own body weight).

These are exercises that you can progress with, as well. For example, you will find after mastering your push ups, you can eventually progress to handstand push ups. Or, once conquering lunges, you might move onto one-legged squats. The world really is your oyster when it comes to bodyweight exercises – it’s all about getting creative. Additionally, make sure you track your progress. You’ll quickly find out what works, what doesn’t, and just how far you have come since you flew off into the sunset.

A final note regards staying active in general. Even if you are not in an environment suitable for bodyweight exercises, you can always resort to cardio. It might be running on the beach, or walking through the airport at a fast pace – it all counts.

About Olivia Marsh

Olivia Marsh - Author - Professional chef and Travel enthusiast.
Culinary Institute of America (CIA) graduate. Chef Marsh has traveled the globe from France, Italy, Germany to China, Thailand, India, Tunisia and more.
Olivia lived in Tunisia for almost 10 years now.
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