BootsnAll Travel Community

Hi folks,

Lets just say I'm in the worse shape of my life, it's fucking with my confidence, I didn't get prepared before my trip (leaving in 5 days!) and want to change it all while I'm in Oz/NZ.

I know I'll be doing a lot more walking than I do now, but, what other tips do you fitness buffs have? I've thought about joining a short term gym since I will be in Sydney for 4-6 months. But, what about when I'm on the road? Just go out for a daily run? How about general strength building? Push-ups and Sit-ups enough, or do I need more?

Thanks for all help!

Cheesy as it is, the Body For Life program is a very effective one for getting in shape within about 3 months.
You can buy the book online (hopefully 2nd hand),
but the main principles are these:

1. Eat six small meals a day. Each meal consisting of a handfull of protein and a handful of carbs, plus some vegetable. A handful is the amount you can comfortably hold in your cupped hand. Since eating that amount six times a day might fill you up too much, you can swap a meal for a meal-replacement shake of any kind which is not just pure sugar or too high in carbs. Avoid simple carbs (sugars), alcohol and junk food.

2. Exercise 6 times a week, in the morning. Two days of resistance training like weights, or even using your own body weight (pushups, crunches, squats etc., followed by one day of cardio/fat loss. The good news is that the cardio only has to be 17 minutes long. During that time you should reach 90% effort three times, by gradually increasing and decreasing your output.

3. Drink 11 glasses or more of water per day.

4. This is not in the program, but drinking green tea helps. It heats up your metabolism so you burn more fat while resting.

5. Follow the eating plan for 6 days, then on the 7th day you can eat what you like.

Seriously, I think the walking alone while you're traveling overseas will provide a LOT of exercise. Miles a day wouldn't be out of the ordinary, just for exploring the cities.

I was in pretty good shape before our trip and came back flabbier. Not much, but some. I wouldn't necessarily say i was in worse shape, but I think I looked worse. I went in thinking, "I'll be walking so much, blah blah", but learned that it didn't make up for the actual working out with weights I'd been doing pre-trip.

I also didn't actively try to exercise on the trip though. So if you made a real effort to do some push-ups and sit-ups on your voyage it may help out.

Once you're actually on the road though I think it's easier to just think, "Screw it, let's have another piece of baklava."

Mistah D, I somehow had the impression you'll be working in Sydney, right? And not just bumming round charming vagabonding girls.

So the thing I went on about is only good if you're semi-stable. If you're really travelling, I fall back on my Greek Island diet of peanuts and beer to help me lose weight

And stay off the Xenical on the road. My cousin tells me it has some very unfortunate side-effects which require you to be near a toilet at all times.

Run. It's a great and easy way to stay in shape and can be a different way of exploring the cities. You can make a game out of it and tell yourself that in each city you visit, you have to run in all their parks, or something like that.

We lost alot of weight on the road but most of it was muscle mass. We were pretty bummed but it was well worth it. We were in mainly hot and humid climates where just walking was a challenge, I couldn't have imagined running but we met a couple who did just that each night.

I second the eating alot of little meals and drinking tons of water (easier for you men who can just pee on the side of a building). Walking is great exercise and since you're admittedly not in great shape now, you might improve you're muscle mass and stamina and lose flab, etc.

I think if you're a physical fitness nut, unless you keep up your routines, your level of fitness will decrease on the road.

Also, we were sick with food poisoning (or bacteria ingestion or some crap like that) off an on enough that it was hard keeping that healthy feeling.

When we left we told ourselves that this was official "time off" from fitness regimes and we were to eat whatever we wanted and not worry about working out. It was fine.

Borderland-Thanks for the reminder on the BFL plan. I think my problem tends to be more with consistency when I'm in different situations. I'm going to need serious focus to get in shape when I'm on the road, maybe I'll just follow the bikinis on the beach Oh, and I will be in Sydney for the first 4 months (but all this talk about Brisbane is making me thinking of going there). Oh, and what is this Xenical you speak of?

skobb-What kind of program were you on before you left for your trip? Were you lifting 5-6 days a week? Any cardio invovled?

Sue79-Come be my running partner! I'll keep you entertained with horrible jokes and Bob Dylan cover songs!

Thanks for the responses all. And the most embarrasing part of all of this...I"m a vegematarian!

Xenical is a weight loss product available over the counter in pharmacies here (I think). It helps prevent fat being absorbed by your body, but then apparently the fat goes through you, and like those infamous no-fat chips, gives you... leakage.

So you may lose weight but you may also need diapers.

Brisbane? It's OK, especially the areas around the river. But I wouldn't reccomend you to spend months there unless you just want hot weather, friendly people and a pleasant but bland city.

Its going to be hard to really make a radical behavior change for yourself while you're on the road. I imagine starting a workout program will just frustrate you. Make an effort to walk everywhere, you'll explore a lot and you'll use up a lot of energy.

Try NOT to replace all the energy you're using. Cut down on how much you eat, and some days try only eating whole fruits and vegetables. An apple only contains like 50-90 calories, but after 5 of them you'll be pretty stuffed.

This is a really good article explaining the basics of metabolic rate and fat burning. Its got a whole workout aspect to it as well, but the explanation of how the body uses energy is the best explanation for the lay person I've ever read. In a nutshell, you'll probably burn more body fat more quickly by walking than you will by running.

As far as other exercise goes, I suppose you could do pushups, but you might frustrate yourself if you start doing a lot of situps. Situps swell the abdominal muscles when you first start doing them until you get into really good shape. Most people go really hard core with situps thinking that its burning abdominal fat and increasing muscle tone. Abs are fairly toned to begin with because they help you stand up all day long. Its just that they tend to be covered up with flub. And excercising a particular area will not burn the fat stored in that area, but it will make it get all swollen, adding to the impression that one has an even larger abodomen than when NOT doing any situps.

If you're a good swimmer, long ocean swims can be excellent excercise, and you get to see the coastline from a new vantage point. Paddling for surfing will also really whip your shoulders and chest into shape.

have you ever watched fast food nation (an american movie, which is very good)? anyway i'm a new yorker and i walk a lot each day. walk around instead of taking the bus (saving $$$ too!), if you can rent a bike, that's another great form of transportation, and RUN. i'm a runner, and running is great--i explore every new place i'm in. another thing to do is take a bunch of aerobic/whatever videos and do them. those are super cheap and eventually you might end of memorizing the workouts.

and one and two and three and stretch!

Mr. Chris D.,

Hopefully I can help here as this is an area in which I have plenty of experience. The two most important factors are diet and exercise.

Have the discipline to eat "clean" most of the time. It's a lot simpler than most people think. That means most of the food you eat should be stuff you could go out and find in nature: vegetables, meats, nuts and seeds, and whole grains. Try to minimize foods that come in a package, can, or wrapper...these are usually not so fresh. Keep sugar intake as low as possible...maybe even try to save it for the weekends if you can. Remember that the only beverage humans NEED is water, so try to comsume that most of the time. Having more muscle (and I don't necessarily mean big, bulging bodybuilder muscles) will cause your body to burn calories more efficiently, which leads me to my next point: exercise.

As for exercises to do on the road...there are so many ways to get in shape or even enormously strong if you'd prefer without any sort of equipment required whatsoever. As mentioned above, walking or running are great ways to maintain a certain level of fitness, but I prefer to use bodyweight exercises or calisthenics. Samples of these are the numerous push-up variations, handstand training, pull-ups, squats, lunges, numerous abdominal exercises...if you would like some help planning a routine or would just like to view some of the sample routines I use or have used with the athletes I train with, just let me know. I definitely enjoy this sort of thing.

All of whats been said is great.

Eating tips: Eat an apple shortly before eating, or ordering, a meal. It'll fill you up more than an appetizer, and you'll eat less during the meal. Also, an apple in the morning will help to keep your bodily functions in check, which is important on the road.
Obviously carbs are a known bloater, but not all carbs are bad. You do need some carbs, so don't cut them out all together, (it'd almost be impossible in SEA anyway). Try to eat more beans and vegetables too.

Workout tips: Cardio: Running is simply put, the best form of cardio. Once you start, you'll see significant improvements in your body condition. Try at first to keep a pace that you can maintain for about twenty minutes, even if it's a slow jog. If you get tired, instead of slowing, pick up the pace for a hundred feet or so, and then take it back to your normal pace. It'll make it seem like your flying once you slow down. The next time you run, try to pick up the pace just a bit, still shooting for twenty minutes. It's not important on how far you go, it's how long you go, when getting in shape. To make it fun, trying playing tag. When training for basketball, I'd play tag, or simply put a list of buildings out and I'd try and 'tag' as many as possible. Alot of fun in groups, especially if theres no real set path, just a goal. The key thing to working out is keeping a high metabolic rate. The longer your burning, the more fat you'll burn. Starting a workout will be hard, but will burn much more fat than a highly-trained athlete can because its changing your metabolic rate so quickly.

Strength: A great workout for the road is the Marines or Seals workout, or other variations like the Royal Marines of UK, that consist pf body weight exercises, or in other words exercises that can be done in your room in the morning. Those workouts consist of cardio (for Marines they run and swim three times a week, but you can do one or the other) situps (four sets of three), pushups (wide, normal and close, one set of each to start, three times a week), dips (can be done with a chair and a bed or two chairs, three sets three times a week), pullups (harder to do on the road, but if you can find a ledge or an overhang to grab on, just a few is good, most people can't do many anyway. three sets three times a week). Also, it's good to work opposite muscle groups. So if you do situps three times a week, do supermans three times a week. If you do pushups, do bent rows (a heavy bag is good for this).
The first time, try and see how many you can do, but don't kill yourself doing it. If you can't do anymore during a set, don't. The next time around, shoot for one more, or at least the same amount. If you're having a hard time moving up, later in the day after your workout do as many as you can of the particular exercise in a row. The next time around you should be able to get that extra rep in.
Most of the instructions for these can be found with Google, or PM me and I'll write a guide for you, although I'm sure Gary Yetter could also do the same thing for you.

Actually, I think the best form of cardio is swimming.... much less stress-impact on the joints.

I think swimming is excellent cardio, but its not as good for fat loss because your body temerature doesn't heat up as much as it does with non-aquatic exercise.
So if you want to shed the pounds keep that in mind.

Ok, if you are living in Perth and are chunky, I guess running is your bag...

Damn straight!

Yes, swimming is great cardio, but because the resistance in so much higher in water than on land, I count that in the resistance training category (although this is a personal thing). But your absolutely right, it will get you in shape and great for a less stressful workout.

Everybody always agrees with Borderland.....