Douglas Adams says...

Travel can wreak havoc on our fitness routines.  Well, unless we happen to travel with a gym and a personal trainer (and, while we’re at it, we’d like a pony…).  Here in Reality Land, I happen to take a personal trainer with me wherever I go, but even so, my routines get disrupted.  What to do?

First, in the immortal words of Douglas Adams, don’t panic.  Disruption is, occasionally, good for our routines.  When we are outside of our usual habitat, we discover new things and often new ways to get in those important fitness minutes.

If we’re on vacation, great!  Maybe we’re having a relaxing beach vacation?  No problem:  long walks on the beach happen to have fitness benefits, as does the ionized sea air, and we can run or swim or kayak or surf or paddleboard if we’re feeling like kicking it up a notch.  If we’re having the sight-seeing kind, I can pretty much guarantee that exploring the local cathedral/museum/national park/shopping district will get us enough steps to count as our exercise.  We’ll probably burn enough calories to justify sampling the region’s best cuisine while we’re at it.

Traveling for work can be a different story.  The good news is that most hotels have fitness centers.  A lot of them have pools.  We can squeeze in our weights and cardio around our jobs like we have to do at home.  The challenge with work travel is usually more about finding healthy food amid the airport fast food and Frankenbreakfasts.  Packing nutritious snacks can make a huge difference.

Back to the first point, though.  Worst case, we still don’t want to panic.  Even an entire week of missed workouts is not the end of the world.  We are more than our workouts.

Monday Workout: Vacation????

This week, I am away.  No excuse not to work out, though!  Here is a basic body weight workout.  Do three or four rounds, depending on time/energy.

squats	20
1 leg squats	10
lunges	20
pushups	10
punches	20
pretty princesses	10
brains	10

Clear

Spring cleaning is a state of mind, at least in my life, and I often get into it in August.  It may be a remnant of all those years of prepping for another school year, for myself or my kids.  As I am sweeping out the literal dust bunnies, here are some other things we might want to consider clearing out:

• Stuff that doesn’t fit.  Clothes, sure, because who really needs a bunch of stuff making us feel bad that it’s too small or trying to make us feel like we might need that larger size again when we fail?  But maybe we can sweep out the sense that our bodies are not amazing just the way they are, carrying on all their millions of chemical reactions, moving us from place to place, holding all our love and joy and laughter.  Maybe we have a few old attitudes lying around that are holding us back—do we really need to think we are bad at all exercise just because we dropped a fly ball back in fourth grade?

• The fourth one.  Maybe we need one family gredunza and a spare and an emergency one, but really, we don’t need more than that.  This goes for sports equipment, cooking utensils, and helpings of peach cobbler.  Also office supplies, which seem to multiply while we are not looking.

• Heavy stuff.  This is where we decide that we really do want to get rid of that extra five (or more) pounds we’ve been schlepping around all this time.  And maybe the sweater from an old flame, that ugly vase that belonged to Great Aunt Matilda, and the photo from the birthday that makes us look like we’re possessed.

• The drugs.  No, not the cold medicine, unless it has expired.  I’m talking about that stash of M&Ms we turn to on bad days, or the obsessive checking of email/Facebook/whatever, or that reality show/cop show/sitcom that suddenly sucks up a week’s worth of evenings.  We might not need them anymore.

It can be scary to clear out space.  We might not know what, if anything, is going to fill the new emptiness.  Maybe we’ll like having an airier environment.  Maybe we’ll discover a new enthusiasm or hobby or skill now that we have more room.  In any case, it will be an adventure.