For most of us, going on a vacation means a lot of excitement and also a fair amount of stress. It means a break in routine. Where your day starts with your morning at the gym, healthy egg white omelettes for breakfast and maybe a big salad for lunch on a regular day, you know that your well-planned health routine is going to go for a spin on vacation. What then should a health conscious person do to ensure that she has a healthy vacation?

Many times, people on vacations get upset when they reach their hotel and find that there is no gym, or worry every moment that they have put on weight in a few hours of no exercise or excessive eating (mostly baseless worries). But are you on a vacation to worry or unwind? This panic leads to stress and decreases our metabolism further. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying that we should go the other way and completely let go, eat anything just on the pretext that we are indeed on a holiday.

Here are some suggestions for a healthy, fitness conscious person to enjoy a healthy and happy vacation.

Eat – Don’t eat everything in sight. Just because you are on holiday does not mean you can have double scoops of ice cream for dessert even though you would never touch the stuff back home. Even when dining out there are always options that are healthy and nutritious that you can pick. At the breakfast buffet eggs and fruit are a great choice and I’m sure a delicious juicy salad is not too difficult to manage for one meal of the day. So eating out for many days is no excuse to make the wrong food choices.

Workout – When you’re away from the city, you probably (hopefully) have the great outdoors at your disposal to use as your gym. In fact I really do look forward to being outdoors at least on a holiday and no where near a gym. Being city people, our opportunity to workout outdoors is limited.

If you can find the time, there are several things that you can do in a beautiful outdoor setting.

• Wake up in the morning and do 6 sets of suryanamaskars. That in itself is a great workout and a super way to start the day.
• Find a tree with a strong branch and try doing pull-ups. Even assisted ones if you find a bench is great. Then you can do some push ups below the same tree. Maybe find a banyan tree and try climbing it or swing from its roots.
• Sprint. Play catch and cook or chor police with the kids or the company you are with. Relays, saakli, Frisbee whatever, bring out that child in you.
• Be enthusiastic. Be the one who plans everything and jumps out of the car to buy water or to run errands at the drop of a hat. Lounging around in your room most of the time does not help.
• Go for long walks. I don’t think I need to elaborate how important and necessary this is specially when on holiday.

Sleep – A holiday is a great way to catch up on sleep, something we fail to do because of our everyday pressures. Sleep is crucial for good health, building immunity, longetivity, recovery from training to name a few benefits. So get a lot of it on your holiday so you get back home well rested and raring to take on work and the workouts!

Enjoy!