"You go out of town and you drop everything". Well, the older gentlemen sitting next to me in the Barnes & Noble Cafe pretty much nailed it. I'm sure he was using this phrase to ream the person on the other end of the cell for dropping the ball on a particular work project, but I took this statement with my own understanding (as a student and teacher of literature one learns to apply individual meaning to almost anything. Grateful that I wasn't getting reamed by this man, I began to think about how perfect his statement was in regards to travel and fitness.
Two of my life's passions are travel and fitness and I like to believe that our passions in life are meant to compliment each other - as well as the individual. It has taken me sometime to learn to balance these two passions though. Just as the gentleman at Barnes & Noble said,"you go out of town and you drop everything". For many years this was just what I did - I would go on vacation and take on that mentality that "I was on vacation" which in my mind meant freedom to relax, eat, and forgo my workouts. At the end of my travels - and sometimes during my travel - I felt like I had to play "catch up" to get my fitness regime back on track though. At times this left me with a negative reflection of my trip and plaqued me with unnecessary stress for future trips. How was I supposed to travel, relax, and enjoy my trips while still being true to a healthy lifestyle?
Lifestyle - this is the keyword. Fitness - keeping your body, mind and soul healthy and balanced is a lifestyle. It is something we should strive to incorporate into all of our daily activities - travel is no exception. Once I recognized this and began to adopt this mindset, something interesting happened. I found that I actually enjoy traveling more now, than when I was just lazily sitting on the beach or enjoying multiple gelatos on the sunny streets of Rome. When I remain a healthy state of mind I no longer have the looming stress or "guilt" of not working out or eating too much. Instead, I now find ways to incorporate my healthy lifestyle into my travel. I use the local terrain to challenge myself with new workouts; I embrace the healthy and local food; I enrich my mind and soul with the unique cultural aspects of my trip.
Keeping balance in our lives while traveling is not as easy as "dropping everything", but as I try to remind myself - if it's easy it's probably not worth it. For me, and I suspect many others, staying healthy and balanced while traveling is worth much more than the inevitable feelings of playing "catch up" after a glutton filled and lazy vacation. Once you start to travel with balance I truly believe you will find it enriching your travel experiences rather than taking away from them. I welcome you to follow me on my travel adventures filled with fitness for the body, mind & soul ... and allow me to share experiences on how to stay balanced as you travel the world!
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