Peak vacation season for Washingtonians is upon us. While these trips are essential, they can also jeopardize all the work of the past winter and spring. These five strategies can help you have a great vacation while maintaining your recent progress.
Strategy #1: The early bird gets the burn. Vacations are spontaneous, and opportunities for fun tend to pop up with little warning. The simplest way to have fun without sacrificing fitness is to make your workout the first thing you do each day. Get it out of the way and nothing else can get in the way.
Strategy #2. Pack a portable gym. You can fit an entire gym in your carry-on bag without going overweight, if you pack smart. Pack Valslides for upper body, core and leg workouts; a lacrosse ball to roll stress knots out of your hips and shoulders from too-long sitting; a resistance band for additional arm, leg and core exercises; and a jump rope for great conditioning work anywhere.
Strategy #3. Stick to a few simple rules. Keep a short list of simple, but realistic rules to keep your nutrition on track. A simple rule might be: one-or-none for alcohol (either have one drink or no drinks). A realistic rule could be limiting yourself to one small treat at dinner, or only having dessert every other day (a “treat” being defined as something you wouldn’t normally eat).
Strategy #4. Initiate something active. There are obvious activities, like walking or biking, but there are plenty of fun active things to do, too, like bodysurfing, going to a water park or playing beach volleyball. Whatever you do, if you really get into it you’ll get a much better workout — and have a blast.
Strategy #5. Remember your priorities. The main thing on vacation is spending quality time with friends and family — not seeing how much weight you can lose in a week, which isn’t going to be much anyway. As far as fitness goes, success is maintaining (or not losing much) ground. A week is plenty of time to do a lot of damage if you don’t practice a little bit of discipline.
A best-selling author and fitness expert with 16 years of experience, Josef Brandenburg owns The Body You Want club in Georgetown. Information about his 14-Day Personal Training Experience may be found at TheBodyYouWant.com.
