When you are working on your fitness, strength or weight loss goals, you want to keep the momentum and not to lose what you have been accomplishing. However, whether it is with work, family, or personal vacation, there is a chance that you may be traveling. So what should you do?
It is depending on a duration of your vacation. If the vacation or trip is only for few days to a week, then you won't have too much issue regardless of your current progress. However, if you are going away for more than a week, you may need to consider few things. First is how frequently have you been working out in the past 12 weeks? Ideal answer is 24 training hours within the 12 weeks and above. Second is how strict were you with your nutrition in a past 12 weeks? Ideal answer is 60 days or more within the 12 weeks.
If you have been dedicated to your workout and diet, giving your body a week or two off will not negatively impact your progress. In fact you can reset your mind and body by reducing the amount of stress you have put on your body, by restricting your food and working out on regular basis, may become more beneficial to you and able to have a better start when returning from the trip.
If you have not been dedicated to your workout and diet but still wanting to keep what you have accomplished so far, then you can still have fun but may need to be mindful about daily walk, physical activities, and minimizing outdoor eating. It may be helpful to find hotel that has gym and kitchen so you can spend sometime keeping up with your exercise and have control over your diet.
Not every hotel has well equipped gym, however, you can still add some cardio and weight training to keep the body moving. Vacationing in a places where you will need to walk a lot or has some physical activity programs like swimming and hiking may help you stay more active. If the kitchen is available, try cooking with your friends and family for 1 or 2 night. You are on a vacation and you should enjoying eating out, however, if you have not been consistent with your diet, you may need to limit (not eliminate) your eating out.
This is how I take my vacation. I look for a physical activity other than working out. I typically do not swim much so whenever I go to place like Hawaii or any beach resorts, I will use swimming (more like floating) as my physical activity. I have tendency to choose the location where I can be physically active.
Nutrition wise, I like to try local food and avoid typical food that I have in my diet. More like having an adventure with food. By doing so, I'm giving myself a different stimulus (good or bad). And yes, sometimes, I have eaten some food that I wish I did not try like fish flavored ice cream in Japan... But that's part of the fun.
So to answer the question of "what should I do when I'm travelling?" is you'll need to exercise and diet as much as possible until then so that you can enjoy the trip which will become your recovery from your hard work. This is vital practice to avoid burnout. If you have not been dedicated as much as you should, you can still enjoy but may need to adjust to make sure the damage is not huge when you get back. Many of my clients has been successful from practicing what I've mentioned above and get back to their exercise and nutrition routine as soon as they get back.
Kota Shimada
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