Transcript: Your Fitness Doesn't Have to Take a Vacation When You Do

Maybe the truth is you just need a plan. What's

up you guys? Famous Ashley Grant here. Welcome

to More Movement Please, the podcast where I

hope to inspire you to move your body more. Today

I want to talk about traveling. So... I am going

to be doing a road trip down to Florida and by

the time you're hearing this I could probably

already be on my trip. I think I've told you

guys in the past that I batch these and I sometimes

will record days in advance to make sure that

I always have content that can drip out even

whenever I'm not available which is like now

when I'm on my trip. So I am taking a road trip

to Florida and I just kind of wanted to share

with you guys what my plan is to stay on track

with my fitness goals while I am out of town.

So the first thing that I'm going to be doing

is I have set up a playlist of all of the exercises

that I can do anywhere with Wi -Fi. And as long

as I can connect either to Wi -Fi or at least

have some sort of a cell signal, I can access

my YouTube videos that I have saved in my playlist

so that I can keep working out even while I'm

gone. And I will be doing a lot of body weight

workouts because I won't have access to dumbbells.

I will have a fitness band with me, a resistance

band, but I won't have dumbbells. like I normally

would at the gym. So I have a lot of body weight

exercises planned and I have a lot of cardio

planned as well. I also will be doing my daily

stretches. I have gotten really addicted to doing

stretch classes. Those are some of my favorite

things to do. And my husband and I have kind

of gotten pretty addicted to doing them every

single day. We can tell when we skip one because

our bodies are just more tight on the days that

we don't do them. So if you're not stretching,

that's at least one thing that I highly recommend

that you start doing because stretching is such...

a big thing like it is it's so good for mobility

and it just it gets the blood pumping it makes

the body move better it just feels so good to

be stretching so if you're going to do anything

that involves movement at least at the very least

try doing some stretching and walking um i think

it's like 150 minutes of cardio you're supposed

to be doing each each week to be as quote unquote

healthy so if you could do you know stretching

and then 150 minutes of walking every week i

I recommend you start like just just start. There's

there's some really awesome stretch videos. Some

of them are only 10 minutes long on YouTube and

like it gets a full body stretch. There's some

that you can do that are standing stretches.

There are some that are sitting stretch classes

and then there's even ones where you're on the

floor. But I personally prefer to do the standing

stretches. I don't know about you, but I sometimes

whenever I have to. get down on the floor, I

have a little bit of a hard time getting back

up. I have issues with my knee, my left knee.

I've had trouble with my left knee for as long

as I can remember. And sometimes it really just

gets irritated. And so every video that I do

for stretching is always standing stretches.

They just, it's better for me. But if you prefer

doing seated stretches or sitting stretches,

there are all kinds of different stretch classes

that you can find on YouTube. What I recommend

you do is go through YouTube and like search

different things and see what feels best to you.

Like, for example, if you want to do the 150

minutes of walking each day, but you don't have

a really good place that you can go walking,

there are some amazing walk in place videos that

you can find online. Even if you have just five

square feet in your living room, like I highly

recommend that you do something to to get a good

workout in. Like it's it's pretty amazing how

many. exercise videos there are online, different

YouTubers that have created some really incredible

fitness content that you can use even if you

can't get to a gym. I remember whenever Snowmageddon

was hitting us here in Kentucky, I couldn't get

to the gym for, I think it was 11 days, and I

still found some really incredible workouts that

I was able to do so that I could keep doing all

the things that I love to do. Like I said, I

didn't really have access to the dumbbells that

I usually use at... at the gym, but I still got

a good enough workout in. I got my heart pumping.

I got, you know, the strength training in that

I possibly could. And so, yeah, while I'm on

my trip, I will definitely be leveraging YouTube

in a big way. Pretty much everywhere we're going

is either going to have a cell signal or access

to Wi -Fi, so I should be able to use those videos.

And then I also found some pretty awesome lists

of different exercises that I can do that require

just your body weight. Some of them are plank

exercises. Some are push -ups. There's wall sit

things that I found. I mean, I found all kinds

of awesome lists of exercises that I can do.

So basically, I'm going to, it might sound silly

to you, but one of the things that I have planned

on doing is something that I actually used to

do whenever I went to this boot camp in Florida.

I was doing this boot camp for several weeks

down in Florida. And what we did is we had a

deck of cards and on each card there was a different

exercise. And so at the beginning of each class,

the trainer would pick out like 11 or 12 cards

that had these different exercises. And then

she'd pick a few more that would say how many

reps we had to do of each of these exercises.

So like if she pulled out jumping jacks and then

pulled out, you know, a three, then we had to

do three jumping jacks. Or if she pulled out

plank and she pulled out. a 10, we had to do,

you know, 10 sets of planks for 10 seconds each,

that kind of thing. So that's just kind of a

way to add some fun to it and also make sure

that I'm not bored with how I'm working out while

I'm gone. So that's my plan is to just bring

a deck of cards that says all the body weight

exercises that I can do. And if my instructor

from the YMCA does in fact send me a list of

exercises that I can do, I'll probably leverage

those as well. But Basically, I'm just making

plans to have like backup plans so that no matter

what, while I'm gone, I can keep moving. Because

the biggest thing for me is that while I'm gone,

I don't want to lose momentum. Like that is my

my biggest thing is that I want to make sure

that no matter what happens on this trip, I am

still moving every single day. I may not be doing,

you know, two hours the way that I normally would,

but we do have a lot of walking plans. So I think

I'm still going to get about two hours a day

of working out anyway, which is what I'm hoping

for. I just I've become so addicted to movement

that I don't want to go back to sedentary lifestyle.

So I'm hopeful that, you know, if we play our

cards right, that I'll get at least two hours

of movement in every single day. That is my goal.

Like while we're driving down. We've already

talked about, my husband and I have already talked

about all the stops that we'll make so that we

can make sure that we get in, you know, 10 to

20 minutes of... of exercise during the whole

trip so that we don't get tight. We're already

planning like stretches throughout the day, just

making sure that we get as much movement in as

possible, because even though we do have about

14 hours of driving ahead of us, we want to make

sure that during that driving, we're moving our

bodies as much as possible. And so I'm really

excited about that. And then the other thing

that I have been asked about a lot is like nutrition

wise, what are we going to do about the fact

that we're going to be out of town? Are you going

to be eating out a lot? And the truth is, yeah,

we probably will. We, you know, we did go to

the store yesterday and we got a lot of food

that we can make on the road. That was one of

the big things that we did on our 2016 road trip.

We took a road trip from Florida to California

and back. And during that trip, we didn't eat

out. I think. Hardly at all. I mean, I remember

maybe four or five times that we ate out while

we were on that trip and we were gone for three

and a half weeks. But the rest of it, we were

actually cooking in our hotel rooms. So what

we did is we we got a bunch of different things

that we could make in the microwave. And it's

pretty impressive whenever you start really thinking

about like. things from a new perspective of

how you can cook even while you're on the road.

And while we were limited, we still tried to

make sure that we weren't going over budget.

We weren't spending too much money and we weren't,

you know, eating a bunch of crap. And so that's

the plan for this trip as well, is we intend

to fix a lot of our meals in our hotel rooms.

We have planned simple meals like, you know,

making sure we're trying to get veggies in, getting

protein in and things like that. And again, I

want to reiterate, you know, I've told you guys

before, we don't subscribe to dieting. We don't

subscribe to diet culture at all. But we are

still trying to be mindful of the choices that

we're making. We're not just going to go and

just eat a bunch of fatty foods. And, you know,

because unfortunately, that's one big thing about

road trips is it's very easy to just reach for

crap and eat a bunch of junk. You know, we know

that whenever we do that, we feel like crap.

And I mean, it just makes sense, right? You eat

crap, you feel like crap. And so we have already

planned, you know, we're bringing fruit cups

and not the ones with syrup or, you know, we're

trying to get the sugar free options and things

like that. So we're bringing fruit cups. We're

bringing, you know, granola bars and. We brought

the little tuna packs that you can have tuna

salad on the road, like that kind of thing. And

so we're making very mindful decisions about

the things that we're going to be consuming.

And, you know, though we will be eating out probably

more on this trip than we normally would, we're

being mindful of our decisions. Like one of the

things that my husband and I have always done

that I really love is when we go out to eat,

we try to split a meal. Because if you're really

honest, most of the time when you go out to eat,

the portions are way too big. And we're a lot

more conscious of when we consume a meal, when

we get to that point where we feel full. And

so we are very good about splitting meals. And

that really helps us. It helps us in making sure

we're not overeating. And so that's a big thing

that's important to us. And so we will definitely

be doing splitting meals everywhere we go with

the exception of a couple of days that we know

that it'll be individual meals. But I'll tell

you guys all about that as we get going. If you

want, I'll give you guys a... I guess a debrief

of what we experienced on the trip, because I

want to I want to keep it real. Right. I want

to tell you guys exactly what's going on. And

I think, you know, if you have any travel coming

up this summer, maybe it'll help you to to figure

out how you can come up with mindful decisions

that can keep you on track even while you're