Staying active and fit has been a passion of ours for many years and over the last 10 year we started integrating habits that helped us feel our best physically & mentally. As we made the transitioned to full-time travel, we knew we needed to find things that worked with this new lifestyle & helped us maintain a sense of balance.
We’ve tried a lot of different things over the years & have found that these are the most impactful for us & the easiest to maintain & integrate into varying lifestyles. We’ve put together a list of 10 things that we do daily – even on the road. We can tell that our days are much more positive & productive when we incorporate these into our day. While the list of 10 things that we do daily work best for us, the most important aspect to staying mentally and physically fit while you travel is habits that are sustainable and you look forward to doing. There is no one size fits all formuala.
The key to integrating these habits & maintaining that balance is prioritization & planning ahead. For example, whether we’re home or on the road, we always plan at least an hour into our day to workout. Sometimes it’s finding a Planet Fitness that’s not too far out of our way & other times when that’s not possible, it’s doing elastic band/TRX/body weight exercises in the AirBnB we’re staying.
Physical
Intermittent fasting
We’ve been intermittent fasting for over 5 years now & swear by it. We usually fast 16-20 hours and do this by not eating breakfast (we still drink black coffee). The main benefit is that it gives your body time to focus on recovery/healing rather than always being focused on digesting food. It makes us feel great & has the added benefit that there’s 1 less meal that we need to find/plan into our day.
Eat balance meals
Everyone’s body is different but we do our best to make our meals a balance of protein/fat/carbs & have a lot of vegetables. Tony tends to have a more protein heavy diet while Thera eats a diet higher in healthy fats. Trial is the best way to find what makes you feel & perform your best.
We’ve also started to incorporate some easy hacks to helps reduce our glucose spikes which can help prevent inflammation & illness long-term. For example, we start every meal with a tablespoon of apple cider vinegar & vegetables. When we’re home, we have a salad at the beginning of every meal, but when we’re on the road that’s not always possible. This being said, we still always start with apple cider vinegar & some form of high fiber vegetable. If you want to learn more about the importance of reducing your glucose spike, the Glucose Goddess on instagram is a really helpful resource.
Workout
We’ve tried a lot of different types of workouts over the years – strength training/lifting, HIIT, yoga, running/cardio, martial arts, etc., and what we’ve found works best for us is a focus on strength training. We usually do strength workouts 6 days a week and stretch/cardio once a week. When we have long travel days, planning a workout into our day makes us feel accomplished & ensures that we stay active even if we’re sedentary most of the day.
Cold showers
Short cold exposure has been shown to be really good for your mental health, physical health & longevity. Although an ice bath would be ideal, cold showers are a lot easier to consistently incorporate into our daily routine. At the end of our usual warm showers, we’ll do 1.5 minute cold shower. This is hard to get used to initially but it gets easier & the endorphins that you get from cold showers are amazing! Thera has also started to dance during hers & she swears that it makes it easier haha. If you want to learn more about the benefits & how to optimize cold exposure, Andrew Huberman’s podcast is a great resource.
Get your steps
We have a daily step goal that we track through our Fitbits & even if we’re in the car for 8 hours, we still make it a priority to hit that goal. We’ll plan our days so that we’re more likely to get enough steps by exploring new places on foot instead of driving, but if we know we will not be walking a lot, we’ll park further away at stores or attractions, find a place to go for a walk, or if we’re really desperate we do some laps in stores or in the AirBnB.
Supplements
Although we try to eat balanced meals, it’s hard to get all the vitamins & nutrients that you consistently need so we use supplements to help us stay healthy. These range from Vitamin C to help support our immune systems to Genius mushroom supplement that gives us energy & focus. Like most of the other tips on the list, trial is the best way to find what works best for you. For example, Tony loves to drink preworkout for caffeine before a workout while Thera drinks a cup of coffee (some days she makes it into a Bulletproof coffee) before working out.
Limit drinking
We really enjoy beer (especially Belgian beers) but alcohol is calorie dense & not good for your body. We still want to enjoy ourselves so we find balance by trying to limit drinking to only 1 or 2 days a week.
Mental
Keep learning – podcasts, books, articles
We’ve found that we feel the most fulfilled when we’re continuously learning. We listen to podcasts & read books/articles constantly on a broad range of topics including investing, health, fitness, sports, personal development, spirituality, etc. This helps us continue to learn & grow in all facets of our lives and helps us make sure that we’re working towards continuous balance & harmony across all facets.
Meditate/Mindfulness
We like to start our day by meditating or practicing mindfulness. It helps set a positive tone for the day focused on gratitude. Thera uses the Ziva meditation method 2x a day for 15 mins which combines mindfulness, meditation & manifestation or gratitude. The meditation in the afternoon helps her especially with the 2PM crash & helps make the rest of the day productive. Tony likes to do mindfulness right after waking up & he created his own mindfulness which is a combination of gratitude, manifestion, box breathing, & Munay love meditation. There are many different meditation & mindfulness practices, so you most likely will have to try many different ones to find what works best for you or you can create something that combines different practices so that it’s custom like Tony’s.
Journal
A journaling practice helps us pause & reflect on our experiences & feelings. It helps us connect with those emotions & it’s something that Thera likes to do daily after her meditation. She uses the structure from ChelseaKauai’s Notes to Mindfulness journal which includes gratitude, self-awareness, a list of goals/things that will make the day successful, and time spent writing about whatever is on her mind. It doesn’t matter if you do it with a pen/paper or digitally – whichever you’re more likely to be consistent with. Now that we’re on the road full-time, we actually use voice memos to document our travels & experiences because it’s faster & more convenient so this is an option as well.
We hope that these 10 ideas are helpful for you! Did we miss any? We’d also love to hear if there are any others that you use because we’re always looking for ways to level up our physical & mental health.