Health tips for lazy travelers

Travel stretches my mind in wild and fantastic ways. Trouble is, it stretches my bottom line too - the one that always chooses the buffet over the treadmill. The food, the drinks, the food - how is it possible to fit so much good food into one day? And the sad truth is that I can be extraordinarily lazy when it comes to my diet and exercise when I'm traveling.

eating healthy when travelingTo keep the expando-pants wearing to a minimum, we devoted an entire month to healthy travel. Anne Dimon from TraveltoWellness, Kimberly Ellis from DrGoddess and Bianca Osborne from VitalityGuideforWomen are just a few of the experts who weighed in on the health issue while traveling.  

As a former full-time travel writer and someone who still travels far too much, staying on track is a must. To combat my laziness, I've come up with some strategies that fool me into behaving. While Anne, Kimberly and Bianca's tips are based on the science of wellness, mine are based on doing the bare minimum I need to do to stay healthy. So go ahead and steal a bit from all of us and I bet you'll find the winning strategy for you.

Start the habit at home

I live by my calendar and everything I do goes in there - or I don't do it. When I'm traveling, I schedule fitness time into my agenda, which is kind of like taking your mother with you. Especially if you miss a workout and the pop-up reminder won't go away until you dismiss it...

Fool yourself

healthy travel tipsWhen I'm in the middle of a crazy-busy trip, I choose the furthest away parking spot or take the stairs instead of the elevator. Those mini-workouts don't take the place of a full one but they rev up the metabolism and actually make me feel more energized. Until I arrive for that 47 course dinner with a different wine pairing for each course...yum and yikes in one meal.

Sin strategically

One of the things I love most about travel is the smorgasbord of flavors at my fingertips. If I know I'm in for a treat for my dinner meal, I choose salad and veggies for lunch. And if both meals are stratospherically awesome, I tell myself that extra mile I walked in the parking lot is good enough for one day. No one's perfect.

Drink with abandon

beachside cocktailsI love cocktails on the beach, martinis at the swim-up bar, big bold dinner wines and let's not forget an aperitif at the disco...sigh. But there's also water and without water all of those other drinks would do me in. When I'm being good, I balance one alcoholic drink with a glass of water.  When I'm being naughty, I call a taxi.

Got some healthy travel tips that you'd like to share? GoGirlfriend is a community-based travel blog and we love to feature our community members here. We take previously unpublished guest posts and each month follows a theme. Check out our writer's guidelines - we'd love to hear from you.

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