2970: The 7 Things I Do to Stay Fit While Traveling by Leo Babauta of Zen Habits on Healthy Eating Habits

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[00:00:56] This is Optimal Health Daily. The 7 Things I Do to Stay Fit While Traveling by Leo Babauta of zenhabits.net. And I'm your host and narrator, Dr. Neil Malek. Happy Wednesday and welcome back to Optimal Health Daily where I read to you from popular health and fitness blogs to help you optimize your health. And it's the middle of the week, it's Wednesday, so it's time for a little bit of inspiration. Quote, Hope sees the invisible, feels the intangible, and achieves the impossible.

[00:01:27] Anonymous. Now I'm about to read to you from regular contributor Leo Babauta. He's going to talk about things he does to stay fit while traveling, which I'm a big supporter of. What I've learned about myself though, is I'm a terrible traveler. If I'm gone for a weekend or even a full week or a couple of weeks, it doesn't matter. I always come back sick, under the weather, something. I think it's because I just don't sleep as deeply as I do when I'm at home in my own bed. That has to be what's going on.

[00:01:56] Because normally I do find time and ways to work out. I stay hydrated. I typically eat well-balanced meals. I still eat fruits and vegetables. But I think I'm just a terrible sleeper when I'm away from home. Now I probably need to study myself more to really figure it out. But for now, let's get to today's post and start optimizing your life.

[00:02:16] The 7 Things I Do to Stay Fit While Traveling by Leo Babauta of zenhabits.net One of the big successes so far in my grand travel experiment has been my fitness while on our long European trip. As my family of 8 enters its last week of this 4-week trip, I have to say that I'm probably just as fit as when I left. And in some ways, even fitter.

[00:02:45] I can do more push-ups and walk farther and longer, for example. My eating hasn't been perfect, but it hasn't been horrible. And I've done pretty well with exercise. So they've more than balanced out. This is a huge victory for me. Believe me. I don't usually keep a good fitness routine while traveling. I try, but it's never as good as when I'm home. The trip has been a big change for me. And today, I'd like to share what has worked. Here are 6 things I've been doing that have worked for me.

[00:03:12] 1. I keep the workout short and minimal. Every day, I alternate with about 10 minutes of my exercise for the day. Either push-ups or bodyweight squats. Just one bodyweight exercise, probably 4-6 sets, not including warm-up sets, of as many as I can do. That's it. But even with that minimal exercise, I've increased strength in those exercises. And I feel that it's been working fairly well. And because the workout is so simple, it's hard to say no to it. But that's not all I do for the day.

[00:03:42] 2. I don't give myself a choice. This is probably the biggest change for me this trip. Usually, I procrastinate on exercise. Probably because my usual travel workout routines have 4-5 different exercises and seem too difficult. This time, I've simplified it to just one exercise so I don't procrastinate. And turning this trip into a grand experiment where I have to report back to all of you turns up the accountability so that I don't want to fail.

[00:04:09] So every morning, I meditate for a few minutes, I do an hour's worth of work writing an email, and I do my one bodyweight exercise for the day, no excuses. That routine works really well, if I don't let myself off the hook. 3. I walk. A lot. Ava, the kids, and I walk a lot every day. Usually for hours. That's way more than we walk at home. So we've gone from walking wimps to walking gods in just a few weeks.

[00:04:37] Sure, we take breaks and stop for gelato and lounge around in public squares. But most of the time, we're walking through winding, cobbled streets and just admiring buildings, statues, cafes, and the light softly illuminating a city that's old but new to us. 4. I run up every set of stairs. As we explore these cities, there are lots of steps leading up bridges like in Venice, stairs going up from underground metro stations, steps going up a beautiful museum building,

[00:05:05] and I sprint up every single flight. If I see a set of stairs, I gleefully run up them, two or three steps at a time. Sometimes we've climbed up hundreds of stairs, like the Eiffel Tower or the Arc de Triomphe, and I only run up some of them, but I love stairs of all kinds. 5. I sprint. Every day, I sprint at least a few times. Maybe I'll race the kids to a statue. Maybe I'll just sprint down a small alley for fun. For me, it's a form of play.

[00:05:33] I don't go on long runs while I'm traveling, but I do take the opportunity to sprint when I can. And because of it, I usually end up exhausted at the end of each day. 6. I try to be mindful and not overeat. To be honest, the foods I've eaten haven't been that healthy. Pastas, pizzas, french breads, vegan gelato. I'm okay with that. In the past, I've stuck to a healthy diet while traveling, and it wasn't as fun.

[00:05:58] So this trip, my goal is to eat mindfully and not overeat too much. I've only been somewhat successful. I've definitely overeaten more than I'd like, but less than in the past. Still, I think for the most part, I've been pretty good, and the times I've overdone it, I think it's been balanced by the exercise. And lastly, 7. I skip and dance with the kids. Finally, the most fun part. I will hold my daughter's hand and skip merrily along these European streets.

[00:06:27] For me, it seems less embarrassing to skip merrily, or often crazily, in public if I'm holding a child's hand. I'm not as brave by myself, I think. Also, I dance with them in public. I'm not the world's best dancer, but I can get a good disco fever going, or do the twist, or the ever-reliable running man. America's got talent. Look out. You just listened to the post titled, The 7 Things I Do to Stay Fit While Traveling,

[00:06:57] by Leo Babauta of zenhabits.net. And I'll be right back with my commentary. Oikos presents 15 Seconds of Strength. Here we go. Steve's got a trunk full of groceries and no one to help him. Oh, that's tough, Jim. Looks like a five-trip load at least. He grabs the first bag. The second. Bob, it looks like he's trying to do it all one trip. He shimmies the door open, steps over the dog. Oh, and he stumbles. Oh, right into the kitchen without missing a beat. Jim, now that's a man who eats his protein-packed oikos.

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[00:08:48] I don't know if I have the self-esteem to do number seven, to dance in public. Private dancing lessons were embarrassing enough for me because I am terrible at it, let alone trying to coordinate these moves in public. Just the other day, in fact, I was at a friend's house and I was trying to get a slice of dessert out of the cake box and I couldn't get it onto my plate without accidentally flipping it completely onto its head, making a giant mess on my plate.

[00:09:17] My friend actually looked at it and went, what'd you do, grab it with your hands? So I simply just don't have that kind of coordination to look good while dancing, I think. But I definitely love the other six tips. Keep the workouts short and easy. Don't give yourself too many options. This is where a lot of folks get stuck. When they travel on vacation, they're like, oh, I'm going to hit the gym and then I'll just kind of see what they have and then I'll figure it out from there. Nope, that never works because then it's too easy to just procrastinate or skip it altogether.

[00:09:46] What you have to have is a specific exercise planned out that you can do anywhere where you don't have to have equipment to complete the workout because you can never guarantee whether the equipment will be taken if you do hit the hotel gym or maybe the hotel gym when you get there is under construction and not available. So I love that suggestion from Leo. Don't give yourself a choice. Make the exercise simple enough where you're only going to work out one body part that day and that's it. Plus, the other thing is

[00:10:16] you're going to be traveling. You might be on vacation or maybe it's a business conference or something. You're going to have other priorities. And so this, again, means you're going to have limited time. You're going to want to get out there, attend your conference or have some fun instead of being in your room or being at the hotel gym trying to get in a workout. All right. That'll do it for another edition of Optimal Health Daily. Thank you as always for listening. Thank you for sharing the show with someone. And I'll be back here tomorrow as usual where optimal life awaits. I'll be back here tomorrow as usual.