Health and Fitness Whilst Travelling

I have been exercising and being generally quite healthy consistently for the last year or so. I had finally got into a decent routine I was happy with and exercise wasn’t (always) quite so much of a chore. My body was a lot stronger than it had ever been and I was actually quite toned for the first time in my life. So I was a little worried about going away for a month and keeping up with my health and fitness whilst travelling. I knew that I wouldn’t be able to do everything that I normally do – I wouldn’t be able to make regular smoothies or have chia seeds every day, but I hoped (and was determined) that I would carry on with regular exercise and eat generally quite healthily.

Unfortunately I was pretty rubbish at all of it whilst we were away! It was a lot harder than I had thought it would be and I struggled to keep it up. I’m going to talk about some of the things I do at home that are usually so simple that I pretty much failed miserably at whilst we were in Spain and Portugal:

Lemon water

I thought this would be the easy one to keep up with. At home I start the day with a cup of warm lemon water as I enjoy it and it’s really good for you. I did manage this quite often, but I didn’t always remember to buy lemons, and some of the time we were in hotels rather than apartments and most hotels in Spain don’t have kettles! I think there were probably more days without than with.

Exercise

Ahh , I was so determined that I would exercise most days while we were away. If we were just away for a week or so then it wouldn’t have seemed that important, but being away for an entire month meant that I wanted to keep going. I planned on doing mostly the same as I do at home – a quick(ish) FitnessBlender HIIT or Cardio youtube video, and then on the odd day doing a bit of strength training but instead of using my dumbells using big bottles of water or something.

In actual fact I exercised about twice the entire time we were there! I just couldn’t make myself do it. Every day it was kind of like, get ready and get out to see this great place we’re in, or spend some time exercising in the heat. So I chose the first option. We walked around a lot most days, and I got bits of exercise playing about on the beach and swimming, but I still would have liked to do more.

Loads of water

At home I am usually very good at drinking plenty of water, and I don’t drink much else. But I was rubbish whilst I was away. Being out a lot meant that I couldn’t just grab a glass when I wanted to, so I often forgot to drink enough. I still drank an alright amount, but not enough to counteract all the wine!

Five fruit and veg a day

We really, really struggled to find meals with vegetables in Spain. There was a lot of Tapas but they just seem to not really have any (or we couldn’t find it) veggie Tapas which was a shame. Honestly we barely ate one vegetable in a week and Ava had even less, it was rubbish. It was ok when we stayed in apartments as we could then stay in and cook some nights, so we could buy some vegetables (and save some money), but obviously we didn’t always want to do that. I had a few fresh juices whilst out and about just to put something healthy inside me, but it wasn’t really enough.

Someone told me on Twitter that the Spanish tend to eat their vegetables at home, but I think vegetable Tapas can be lovely so it’s a shame. I had thought that we would eat really well in Spain but there was an awful lot of white bread and even more chorizo (not that I’m complaining about that).

Keeping up with my health and fitness routine whilst travelling was a lot harder than I thought it would be. There was just always something more important to be doing, and I obviously couldn’t be as organised with things as I am at home. It’s not the end of the world of course – having a great trip was more important. I do and take a lot of different things at home to help me feel better (lemons, chia seeds, coconut oil, for example) so I thought I would feel a lot worse when I was away. I didn’t feel great all the time, but I think because I was getting quite a bit more sleep that I generally felt ok. I got a lot of migraines though, which I was really hoping I wouldn’t.

If I went travelling again, I think I would try really hard to plan things that I could do easily to maintain my health and wellness, and if I was away for a while, I would seriously think about taking a travel-sized smoothie maker.

Do you bother trying to be healthy or do exercise whilst you are away on holiday or would you if you were travelling?