For many people like myself, there’s no greater feeling than packing your vehicle and hitting the open road; especially if that’s for a lengthy period of time. Your worries disappear as fast as the blur in your rear-view mirror.

Just like taking the responsibility of topping up the fuel in your car, keeping the registration in check, and dealing with its necessary services and maintenance; so too does the task of maintaining and looking after your health and wellbeing.

Staying fit while on the road is not only a conscious choice to better your future but also a choice that may inevitably enable you to keep enjoying this freedom you crave so much.

I hope this article will serve to arm you with some of the tools and knowledge to help you ‘keep on truckin’.

Stay active or die sedentary

It’s been said before and it will be said again: there is a definitive potency to small, repeatable actions day in and day out. What I’m referring to is as simple as just keeping active. 

Many people fail to truly grasp just how effective very minor decisions can be when it comes to the long-run. Walk to the grocery store from your campsite, don’t drive. Carry your groceries to the truck, don’t push a trolley. Take that morning stroll or bike ride instead of jumping straight in the car. Hike up the mountain, don’t take the cable car. Use the stairs instead of the elevator.

At the end of the day (literally), the difference between you being in a calorie surplus (ie weight gain) and a calorie deficit can be as little as a few of the choices listed above. The beauty of this is that you don’t necessarily always have to plot out a section of your day just for exercise. You are going to get to your destination anyway, you may as well kick ass while doing so!

Eat more of the whole stuff, less of the less stuff

You knew this was coming: nutrition. Yep you guessed it, it’s important…really important. But it doesn’t have to be as hard, boring, or as rigid as the media has led you to believe. Like above, small manageable choices can be all it takes to keep your body on your side, not the side of the pharmaceutical or healthcare industry. Win. 

First and foremost, curb the highly processed foods that plague our modern world. It’s not even real, it’s engineered in a lab (I'm serious!). I’m talking about something that has a list of ingredients longer than your whole grocery list combined. Foods like doughnuts and pastries, garbage breakfast cereals and candy, some sausage meats and table spreads and sauces. You get the jist. Try to cut down and eventually limit the foods that have strayed a long way from their natural counterparts: fruit, veg, legumes, meat, fish, dairy, honey, seeds, grains etc. Just by doing this, you will drastically cut down not only on calories, but also harmful colourings and preservatives. A lot of these engineered foods have been designed to spike cravings and reduce your body’s natural ability to perceive when it is full.

Another good rule of thumb is to aim for eating five or more servings of fruit and vegetables. You will be hard-pressed to over-consume on these. 

Stay hydrated because your cells need to remain full in order to perform at their best. So too do most of the processes your body takes care of. My general rule of thumb involves staring at my pee. Yep, big fan of the pee stare. If it’s dark yellow, I’m dehydrated. If it’s clear, I’m over hydrated. Aim for slightly discoloured pee and that should see you through.

Try to cut down on having more than two or three cups of coffee per day. Not only does it start to decrease in effectiveness but there are also studies to suggest that too much caffeine can cause a diuretic effect resulting in a loss of your necessary electrolytes.

I’m not a big fan of calorie counting or food-group restrictions. In a nutshell you have three main food groups: proteins, carbohydrates and fats. Aim for eating lots of protein (meat, fish, eggs, tofu) and snack on healthy fats (nuts, avocado, eggs, natural yogurt) to keep you full for longer and to act as a great slow energy release. Carbohydrates (potato, rice, bread) are good for fast-acting energy but it’s best to not have too much of this. A handful or two of carbohydrates per meal is a good rule of thumb. 

When it comes to nutrition, everybody reacts differently and some things that work for one person, may not work for another. This is why there are so many ‘camps’ touting different diets and food group eliminations. Keep it simple and if nutrition interests you, that’s when you should delve deeper and start to really experiment with things.

To exercise or not to exercise, that is the question

Everybody has a different perspective on what they are willing to do day in and day out. If you’re one of the people that want to take their health and fitness into your own hands, then targeted exercise is right for you.

Now this is a topic that is inexhaustible and way way out of scope for this one article. However, let’s list just a few of the many benefits of exercise:

1. Firstly, the more muscle you have, the higher your resting metabolic rate will be (aka you can eat more than someone with less muscle!).
2. Secondly, exercise is great for your mental health, as well as your circulation.
3. Thirdly, it undoubtedly helps stave off disease, increases your bone density and helps you live longer.

I think that is a pretty valid group of reasons for why you should consider doing exercise if you don’t already. We’re talking cardiovascular exercise such as running, hiking and cycling and resistance training like bodyweight calisthenics and weight-lifting.

Generally, cardiovascular exercise two or three times per week will serve you really well and the same amount of resistance training workouts also. Target your larger muscle groups with exercises such as bodyweight squats, lunges, push ups and pull ups.

You don’t necessarily need a lot of equipment but some different strength resistance bands or gymnastic rings can perform a number of tasks and not take up much room or weight in your vehicle.

I’ve never talked to someone who has regretted the time they have put into their health and wellbeing. However the same can’t be said for the opposite. 

It’s safe to say that you want to live your life to its fullest; you’re on the road and out of the rat race. By taking care of your fitness and nutrition, you have a high chance of living longer, staving off disease and maintaining this awesome lifestyle on the road.