This Aviation Lifestyle
Earlier this year, I wrote a column on how to go about attempting to eat more healthily within a career and lifestyle like aviation where we find ourselves eating “on the run” quite often. Decent grab n’ go types of meals are a real challenge around airports, hotels, conference centers and fly-ins. The same challenge can be said about fitting in fitness while on the run as well.
Working out while on the road seems to be relegated as an exemplary accomplishment for only the most persistent of us. You know the types: usually Type A personalities who jump out of hotel beds at 4:00 a.m., hop into their running shoes and easily navigate unknown streets getting in a good five miles at the very least before they come back to the hotel’s breakfast buffet and virtuously eat only the healthiest of choices in the tiniest of portions. Wow, more power to them! I’m always impressed with this type of dedication. James and I know of one such couple whom we’d see around air shows doing this and their model physiques were a testament to their strenuous daily efforts.
My Type-A “go go” has long gone and I am not a morning person in any sense of that definition. So even though I’m committed to health and getting in a bit of exercise, something as virtuous as pounding the pavement before breakfast won’t be happening from my hotel room. Instead, I’ve put together for myself a basic workout outline of yoga and strength training exercises that can easily be done in a hotel room any time of day or night. I also add to that lightly jogging in place with my iPod shuffle to get in some aerobic exercise. If the hotel has a fitness center, sometimes I’ll go down to jog on the usual treadmill that can be found there; depends on time of day and my schedule.
There are several websites that can be accessed for yoga positions and strength exercises that’ll work on your flexibility as well as develop muscles and body tone. Using your own weight against you helps with not having to worry about carrying around small hand weights, stretch bands and other exercise equipment in your luggage or carryon. The www.shape.com site has an excellent array of “workouts” and “routines” that you can print out and have as reference sheets while you develop your own personalized fitness-on-the-run workouts for the road. My personal favorites that have worked out well within hotel rooms are as follows: for yoga I do the Sun Salutation to begin with and then move through Downward Facing Dog, Cobra, Bridge, back to Cobra, Downward Facing Dog then into Proud Warrior I, Triangle, Proud Warrior II, Chair, Tree and finish with another Sun Salutation. Sometimes I change this up but this is the basic routine I find myself doing for the most part. For strength training, I’ll do alternating pushups and side planks, crunches series, jackknifes, squats and lunges and will take an unopened bottled water or book and do curls and other arm weight routines with that in each hand.
None of this obviously is going to turn a person into some Mr. or Ms. Universe pageant contestant. However, these ideas will give you a fitness routine that’s easy to do in a hotel room while you’re away from home traveling. And of course, you can add or subtract to my suggestions as much as you’d like in order to personalize workouts. At this stage in my life, which is mid-life, I’m more focused on overall health maintenance and staying trim than in pursuing the perfect figure.
Other fitness aids that can go with you when you travel are things like: various DVDs featuring yoga, aerobics, Pilates, strength training and other types of workouts; a swim suit for hotel pools; even your Wii board in its carrying case if you’re as devoted to Wii Fit and other Wii fitness programs as I have become this year. The way in which Wii Fit tracks your progress including balance, flexibility, weight and BMI measurements has gotten me happily working out with this on a regular basis each week. I alternate Wii Fit workouts with the My Personal Trainer Wii program which is more of an ongoing routine and has several music and workout locations to choose from. My Personal Trainer also measures your fitness improvement through endurance tests and the actual measuring of body parts such as your waist, arms, calves and so forth. Doing both has me hyper-aware of how I am progressing with my overall fitness endeavors. I’m not really a fitness fanatic or gym rat type of individual. Frankly, I’d much rather be outdoors kayaking or fly fishing than indoors working out in front of our television. However, this focusing-in on consistent and sustaining fitness workouts plus better nutrition has resulted over a one year period of doing this into health gains that have both me and my doctor smiling about. All in all, well worth the bit of extra time and effort it takes.
It’s all too easy to lose fitness momentum while traveling on the road with work, conferences, fly-ins and vacations. Setting up a fitness routine that’s workable in hotel rooms is one way to counter this slow-down and to counteract all those calories eating that on the run can bring about as well. Here’s to a healthier and happier 2009 to all of us out there flying around!