I travel a lot on business, often spending the whole of the working week hopping from one airport to another, sleeping in airport hotels and eating a lot of airline food. I soon learned that this busy lifestyle was not good for my waistline.
Travelling on business and meeting clients brings with it a whole load of obligations. In order to be sociable it is often necessary to have dinner with clients and share a few drinks after meetings. When away from home it can be really hard to take the exercise that you need and to avoid the temptation of room service and your room’s mini bar.
The same goes for travelling for a vacation. You feel in holiday mood and therefore more likely to give in to temptation. If you’re visiting a part of the world where the local food and restaurants are just too wonderful to resist inevitably you don’t. If you combine this with some holiday drinks and relaxing time by the pool by the time you get home your waistline may have expanded so much that your clothes don’t fit any more.
Unfortunately there is no easy solution to the problem of gaining weight while on the move. But I shall share with you a few of the techniques I am using to keep my weight stable even though I spend much of my working life on the road or in the air.
Firstly, I make it a priority to get some exercise wherever I go. This isn’t always possible especially when travelling all day long. If I can I will book myself into hotels that provide some keep fit facilities like a gym or a swimming pool. I will always make good use of these welcome facilities when they’re available.
I never travel anywhere without my laptop so I keep a few keep fit workouts on my hard disk that I can follow from any hotel room. I try, at least once each day, to go for a very vigorous walk around the hotel neighbourhood.I have found that a vigorous ten or twenty minute walk is not only a great way to get some exercise but also helps to clear my head.
I try to take every opportunity to stretch my legs and shake off a few excess calories. For example, when I fly home I will always take ten minutes to walk around the perimeter of the Cardiff airport parking lot before retrieving my car. This wakes me up and makes me alert enough to drive home safely and it also burns off some of the calories picked up on the flight.
These days I always go for smaller portions in restaurants and I don’t always empty my plate, instead I eat only until I am full. These days I will always choose the healthiest option available. Lots of the restaurants and hotels that I visit these days have some great healthy eating options which I will tend to choose. Another well known but very effective technique that I have been using is that I now eat more slowly.
When it comes to drinking I have all but stopped consuming alcohol which has brought a number of benefits. Wherever I can I choose to drink just water which is obviously not very fattening.
I doubt that my techniques will be appealing to everybody but hopefully they will help a few people to keep in trim when on the move.
Top Tip: When travelling, for business or pleasure, alway make certain that you have adequate and appropriate travel insurance. Nobody expects the worst to happen, but if it does you really don’t want the expense of a flight home in an air ambulance.
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