Sometimes you just need to step outside, get some fresh air and simply let go. And that is why we all occasionally, need a break. Most people think that how to stay fit during the holidays. Most people carefully plan for a holiday. The destination, hotels, flights, places to visit and the list never ends. Well, in the end, we all deserve a nice and relaxing holiday. A break simply means a break from your work, your hectic schedule, to break the monotony, to refresh the mind and the body but it never means a break from your health.

Almost all my clients have this dilemma in mind about how they will continue with their workout or how to stay fit when on a holiday. Now, it is either your work which wants you to travel a number of times in a month. Or it is the long pending holiday which your family has been long dreaming about.

You would hate to go on a holiday or on a work tour because this would mean a complete change in your schedule, right from your workouts, to your clean eating, your sleeping, etc all go haywire. You will start thinking about how to stay fit? Isn’t this what almost everyone is afraid of? Not anymore. You all have a solution and in fact an extremely simple one to everyone’s surprise. Let’s see how to stay fit and manage things when outstation.

Let me ask you a question before we begin. Do you stop eating or sleeping when you are on a holiday, yes the timings may differ but you still manage to eat and sleep adequately, in fact, the former may be way beyond just adequate? So who said you can’t workout or eat clean when on a holiday or on an official tour. Yes, you may go overboard sometimes but then you have the necessary resources to balance it also. In fact, I have seen people losing weight when on a holiday and you can do it too. You can know about how to stay fit on a holiday with these simple strategies-

1. When you are on a holiday try and explore the place on foot. Not only will it be an excellent exercise but also you will be able to know the culture and intricacies of the place much better that way. Go for a long walk on the streets, in the jungles, in the mountains and valleys. Explore the local sites, meet local people, enjoy the local delicacies which in most cases are much healthier than the junk you would find in the big cities. You would not even come to know the amount of time you have to spend walking when you are enjoying the place. When tired sit anywhere you like and just observe the freshness of the place, have some water, eat if hungry and walk again.
   
2. As I said in the above point to enjoy the local delicacies. Companies like KFC, McDonald’s, Dominos, Pizza Hut, etc. are found in most countries of the world and wherever you go the taste would be generally the same. That is the USP of these companies and that is why they are called multinational brands. But a question you need to ask yourself is that what is the point in going to an alien land and eat the same food which you get in your home town, that too when the food is one of the worst foods you can possibly eat for your health.

I distinctly remember the day when I was traveling in the eastern part of the country and was coming back in a taxi after delivering a lecture at one of the places. it was afternoon and I was hungry but in no mood to have any form of junk. I asked the driver who was a local to take me to a good restaurant in the way. He stopped the car at a petrol pump, next to which was small but decent eating joint. I sat there, saw the menu and ordered a local fish after consulting the waiter. He got a whole fish cooked in mustard oil and some gravy with boiled rice. Believe you me this was one of the best foods I have ever had in my life. It was so simple yet so tasty that I could every flavor in distinction. A truly sensual experience.

3. This tip is for people who are hardcore workout freaks and want to know how to stay fit during the holidays. They would try and get their daily exercise quota anyhow. Most of the people when they come from a small holiday for a week or 10 days or a similar office tour, feel a bit small and flat and they think that all their hard work has gone in the drain and they have lost all the muscles. but you don’t have to worry as this is not the case. All the cells in the body have a sort of liquid inside them which has a number of functions as an exchange of nutrients from outside the cell to inside, transferring information and nutrients to and from the nucleus, etc. in the same way the muscle fibers or cells have a similar liquid inside them called as sarcoplasm.

Now, when you eat any form of carbohydrates, it breaks down into its simplest form in the body and then gets absorbed i.e. glucose. The amount which is not absorbed is stored in the form of glycogen in the liver or in the muscles for future use. This glycogen in the muscles is stored in their cells in the sarcoplasm. But with each molecule of carb, your body also stores 3-4 molecules of water (that is why dieticians and slimming centers tell you to reduce carb intake, as a result, you lose water weight, not fat) which makes your muscles look bigger and fuller. So when you go on a low carb diet your muscles feel flat. When you weight train the muscles are working in a big way and these muscles signal certain enzymes in the body to increase the storage of glycogen in them. This is the process of adaptation by the muscles for the future threat i.e. more heavyweight training in the future.

Now when you go off weight training for a few days or week for a vacation or due to some other reason the activity of these enzymes reduces and so reduces the amount of glycogen being stored which will reduce the water in the muscles and thus make your muscles look flatter. This is not a loss of muscle mass as a lot you think. Muscle loss starts after almost 15 days of inactivity or when you are starving yourself or you have a genetic tendency to lose muscle mass easily. So, if you are on a holiday and you feel flattered then don’t worry as it is a temporary phase.

What a lot of guys and girls do is lift weights in the gyms wherever they are and whenever they get time in a day. If a person does not have a gym, then you could go for a number of bodyweight exercises. An interesting way would be to inculcate high-intensity workouts like sprints in your workout.

If you are on a hill station, there could be nothing better than going on a high hill for sprints, or on a trek or hike in the forests and mountains. Similarly, if in sandy places like the desert or the beach, try and go for sprints in the sand. Running on sand is one of the most powerful forms of training for the legs and a vital component of training for the track and field athletes especially sprinters, jumpers and middle/long-distance runners. That’s how to stay fit during your holidays.

You can also go cycling in the hills or on open roads and streets for long distances. An excellent addition would be to add some bodyweight workouts to it like pushups, pull-ups on trees, squats, split squats, walking lunges, mountain climbers and a range of other exercises.