Oct
Preparing For Your LIP Life: Health Tips
Before we arrived in Panama we had visions of ourselves sashaying around in bikinis and swim trunks with bronzed, sculpted bodies. Humph - didn’t happen.
You know what it’s like…you promise yourself that the “new you” will be different; convinced that when you’re a LIP, you’ll exercise every day, eat really healthily and you’ll cut down on all the bad habits you currently allow yourself to have. And maybe you will.
It’s a smart move to get your body in tip-top condition before you go however to cope with the stresses of travel, constant change, unaccustomed food/drink and, of course, so you can really make the most of your time without worrying about niggling health problems in a strange and foreign country.
Here are my top tips (as a former health coach and personal trainer) to get yourself in shape before you begin the ride of your life…
Exercise
The key to exercise is movement. Find an activity which you enjoy that gets you moving - whether it’s dancing, running, pilates, yoga, stretching, walking, cycling, swimming - and just do it.
If you’re not as fit as you’d like to be, start something you enjoy at least a few weeks before you leave and try and maintain the habit of that activity in each location. Leo of Zen Habits has a couple of great posts to help with motivation and simple steps to getting started with an exercise ‘habit’.
Sleep
Sleep is the time when your body regenerates and repairs itself, recovering from the abuses you put it through every day. It’s crucial to good health.
Before you go, try and establish a good sleeping pattern - ideally aiming to be in bed and asleep by 11pm every night (in time for the peak repair period at night - between 11pm and 2am).
Flying around continents and time zones as a LIP can play havoc with your circadian rhythms (your body’s natural sleeping patterns) so it is well worth taking the time to help your body adjust as quickly as possible to your new schedule. Things to try that can help: expose yourself to sunlight as soon as you get up in the morning, keep the lights low when it gets dark, and take an hour or two to wind down physically and mentally a couple of hours before you want to go to bed.
Food
Before you go, it’s tempting to treat yourself to all your favourite things you might not be able to get when you’re travelling.
Don’t forget that you really are what you eat. What this means, is that your body’s cells are quite literally produced from the raw ingredients of the things you put into it - if you eat junk, don’t expect your body to be glowing, shiny & healthy on the inside or out.
Try incorporating healthier eating habits into your life a few weeks before you depart to ensure your body is in tip-top condition. For tips on what’s ‘healthy’ and what’s not - because let’s face it - there is so much mis-information out there, ask Greg, Katrina or leave me a message if you’d like me to recommend someone else who can help you get really and truly healthy from the inside out.
Drink
Drinking adequate supplies of clean, pure water is one of the best things you can do to eliminate toxins and give your body the optimal conditions within which to function. A great book on the subject is Dr. Batmanghelidj’s “Your Bodies Many Cries For Water“. Dr. Batmanghelidj (what a name) uses water as medicine for ailments ranging from high blood pressure and heartburn to high cholesterol and asthma.
In summary…
Swearing that you’ll start being better when you start your new LIP life - promising yourself that it’ll be a clean break and a fresh start is all well and good (we did that!) but we didn’t appreciate the fact that all the changes we’d made would take their toll and make it more challenging to implement or establish new health and fitness habits on the road.
The key to all of the above advice therefore, is to try and establish good habits and routines before you leave so that it is much easier to get back to these good habits when you arrive at each destination.
Look out for a mention on the blog in the next month about another project I’m working on which will help you get rid of those flabby abs!
And don’t forget…however healthy you are, adequate travel health insurance is a MUST. The guys at World Nomads (see banner below) provide some of the most comprehensive and flexible insurance going. Well worth a look.
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