Keeping fit when your job depends on lots of travel can be really tough. Finding a healthy meal at an airport food court is often a major challenge, all those extravagant dinners entertaining clients bring colossal calorie counts, and it can be hard to be motivated to workout when you’re exhausted. These are just a few of the excuses we have to be slobs on the road, and then despair at the fact our pants seem to have shrunk.
Keeping fit on the road isn’t impossible though, and there are plenty of ways we can give ourselves a better hope of staying in shape when traveling.
Plan your meals. Forward thinking regarding what you’re going to eat where will stop you heading to Chick-fil-A because it smells so good as you’re walking past as you go from gate to gate. Having snacks to take on the plane will stop you ordering some gross pizza-like thing that looked so good on the menu but turns up lukewarm dripping in grease.
Pick up boxes of protein bars before you travel and make sure you’ve always got a couple of bars to go in your carryon, or bags of nuts if you prefer. See these as a low-calorie stop gap to help tide you over until you get somewhere with healthy food you’ll actually enjoy. As for choosing what restaurants to eat from when you are away, Eat This Not That is a great website that ranks the healthiest things on the menu at many chains, and is a great resource. Generally, Starbucks has a few healthy options that taste good and you’ll find them pretty much anywhere, so they tend to be my go to on the road (when I don’t succumb to Chick-fil-A).
Buy better exercise gear. In the endless struggle to only ever travel with carryon luggage, it always seemed to be my bulky running shoes that got ditched last minute – which is a pretty sorry excuse in advance of me even going anywhere. Investing in lightweight shoes and multi-purpose sports equipment helped me want to take it, so cutting out one of the barriers to even getting to the gym.
Do what you love wherever you are. If you’re able to get a decent workout at a hotel gym, then power to you, but if all you’ll really do there is a lame 20 minutes on the treadmill, you should rethink your on the road fitness regime. You’d be better off hitting a decent lap pool, climbing gym, or yoga studio (which you could easily find in advance with the help of Google) to get a proper workout that’ll leave you feeling great and so much better prepared to tackle anything. Make adding fitness into your itinerary a vital part of each trip, and it will become second nature to do so.
Hold yourself accountable. One of the best ways you can get control of your diet and fitness is to start writing stuff down. You can use an app, or a notepad and pen, but so long as you jot down what you eat you can look at where the patterns are. Once your bad habits are there and noted, you can start to change them, and celebrate and grow the good habits that you have.
At Executive Suites by Roseman we get how important it is to stay fit and sleep well when you’re travelling for business. Our well-appointed suites help you do that, and we offer excellent fitness rooms in every building. Our Luna Suites even have a yoga studio in the building. Contact us to find out more.
Image by Francesco Gallarotti.