A survival guide to holiday fitness

29 January 2018

Naturally, given how hard you probably work in your day job, it can be a massive relief when you get time off to spend on other, more leisurely pursuits. However, your holiday endeavours can be so relaxed that they play havoc with what might usually be a stringently healthy lifestyle. If you would prefer not to see your hard-earned six-pack replaced with a pot belly in whatever time you spend on holiday, here are some tips for keeping up your fitness efforts.

Make your getaway a largely outdoor one

Planning a family stay in a rented lodge with just a few books and a burning fireplace to keep everyone happy? It might be best for you to cancel that particular booking.
Mehmet Oz, a US-based cardiothoracic surgeon and TV personality, has expressed the view to Men's Health that, by staying indoors, you could risk illness due to the greater exposure to germs from other people.
Getting outdoors, however, can boost your vitamin D intake and, thus, immune system.

Establish a routine

You might think that a holiday presents an ideal opportunity to finally get a break from those days of always waking up at 6am or 7am just so that you can get your kids to school on time. However, it might not be entirely beneficial for you to habitually sleep until lunchtime during your holiday.
Without entirely sacrificing some wiggle room, you should routinely head to bed at or near the same time on a nightly basis, take suitable doses of multivitamins, and exercise on at least some days of the week; a local swimming pool could make the last of those fairly simple.

Don't neglect your sleep

This might initially seem to slightly contradict what we have just said about not sleeping in, but getting enough sleep can actually help you get the most out of your fitness regime.
Should you often struggle to sleep sufficiently soundly, your stress levels could grow and then slow down your body's metabolic rate, Muscle & Fitness warns. Aim to sleep for at least 7-8 hours nightly.

Have more sex

Hey, it's another fitness-friendly thing that you can do without having to leave your bed. You might even call it something of a workout in itself.
It'd probably be best for you to have sex just before settling down to sleep, as an orgasm can release the hormone prolactin and so induce relaxation and sleepiness. Sex can also help give your immune system and libido appreciable boosts and ward off stress.

Join a fitness boot camp for your holiday

One way of getting more fitness training into your holiday is by making that getaway effectively a fitness boot camp. We run such camps in various lovely places that you might have been considering for holidays anyway; London, Devon and Wales are among the choices in the UK alone.
Meanwhile, as far as overseas camps are concerned, we enable you to prepare for fitness holidays in Portugal and Spain, both of which are very popular holiday destinations.