Picture this: You’re a busy executive whose company moves you around the world. You commute between airports, taxis hotels, conference rooms and the like. You get invited to all sorts of lush dinners with important execs, getting tempted with all you can eat 5 star food in the lushest hotels in the world. This is a modern day recipe for obesity. And it’s not uncommon for busy people such as yourself to get intertwined in this lifestyle, and forget about making an effort to keep fit whilst you’re constantly travelling.
The major excuse with keeping fit, is something like this: “I just don’t have enough time”, or “There’s no gym in my hotel”. Well from my own experience, these really are weak excuses. The real genesis is internal, and comes from a lack of heart and motivation to train in the first place. From my experience, if you really want to achieve something, you’ll make an all out effort to get that task done no matter what. You’ll just do it – no pun intended on behalf of Nike. And travelling and fitness are not mutually exclusive terms, in fact it’s easy to implement the two together quite simply.
Most people, however don’t have much personal willpower to keep fit when they travel. Hence, my suggestion is to find an accountability partner – in all practicality this person will be able to contact you via Skype, email, Facebook etc to keep reminding you to workout and hence keep you accountable. Yes folks, it’s all about accountability and the social pressure of not wanting to let the other person down.
In my opinion, setting up a regular Skype call once a week is the most effective option, because when you’re talking on the phone, it’s impossible to hide behind a keyboard and say ” yes, I’ve been exercising regularly three times per week, as we arranged”. The person on the other end of the phone will be able to detect if you’re putting on a mask and lying blatantly to them.
I myself have setup a regular Skype call every friday with my accountability partner, and it’s kept me motivated to train 3-4 times weekly. In fact he’s making me report to him, on what exactly my routine is and the progression in strength I’m making in my lifts etc. This may seem quite daunting and intrusive for some people to have someone else prying into their lives, but believe me it’s definitely worth it. Imagine not having a partner to harass you? It’s so easy to fall in a spiral of complacency, eat awful food and forget to bother even raising a heart beat.
So, what are you doing? Get yourself an accountability partner to make fitness a priority when you’re travelling!
