Peak performance at work

Read This if You are Struggling to Maintain a Healthy Lifestyle While on Business Trips

5 simple steps to improve your health while on the road

Are you frequently traveling for business?

Are you struggling with maintaining a healthy lifestyle?

Are you afraid this might leave negative consequences in the future?

You are not alone!

In 2022, I have spent more than 190 days on business trips.

Constant travel, lack of time, and poor food choices lead me to a very unhealthy lifestyle.

As a result, I became significantly overweight.

On top of that, I was battling extremely high blood pressure (+170).

I knew I might not live long if I didn’t change something.

Here are some practical tips to live a healthier life on the road that I know now and wish I knew back then.

Let’s dive right in.

1. Start your day right

While traveling for business, we tend to experience more stress than usual.

This is due to many additional decisions we must take since we are navigating unknown environments and lack the cozy routine we are used to back home.

That’s why it’s essential that we proactively manage our stress levels.

The easiest way to do that?

Start the day with a short meditation.

This will help you reduce stress & anxiety while allowing you to remain calm when unpredictable situations arise throughout your day.

You don’t have time?

Here is a good news.

You only need to meditate for 5 minutes to start reaping all the benefits.

Do it first thing in the morning and see your mind becoming stronger.

2. Kick-start your body

You are finally ready to get back in shape.

You sign up for your local gym and workout every single day.

You feel this time will be different.

Then a business trip comes up, and everything falls to pieces.

Gym access becomes harder, so you decide to skip it (“just this week”).

Before you realize you lose all of your motivation and return to your bad habits.

Sounds familiar?

Consistency is the mother of all habits.

Once the consistency is interrupted, it’s game over.

No need to worry, though. I have a solution.

Ensure you stay consistent by starting your days on the road with a short 4x4 bodyweight workout.

Best thing about it?

It takes less than 20 minutes.

A 4x4 bodyweight workout is a high-intensity strength workout that combines four sets of 4 different exercises (maximum repetition).

Practically, it looks something like this:

• Set 1: Pushups (4x Max)
• Set 2: Squats (4x Max)
• Set 3: Lunges (4 x Max)
• Set 4: Situps (4 x Max)

Take 30-second break between the exercises and 1-minute break between the sets.

It’s simple and requires no equipment.

Once you get bored with the exercises above, you can switch them up with any bodyweight exercise (Plenty of them are available via a quick search on Google).

Following these plan, will get you back in shape in no time.

Not only that.

You will increase your focus and energy levels throughout your day.

No excuses.

3. Treat your body as a temple

My microeconomics professor used to say: “Garbage in = Garbage out.”

She was referring to data we used in financial models, however, the same principle could be applied to our health.

3.1. Eat like a healthy king

Being mindful about what we eat is the fastest way to achieve a healthy lifestyle.

I do realize, however, that eating healthy while traveling has its challenges.

You are invited to business dinners.

You are forced to eat outside.

You don’t have much control over the ingredients.

Instead of adhering to a strict diet (which is nearly impossible), I rather keep it simple.

Simply aim to avoid the following foods & drinks, and you will be just fine.

Foods to avoid:

• Fried food
• Red meat
• Dairy
• Butter
• Desserts

Drinks to avoid:

• Alcohol
• Sugary drinks

Eating healthy is much easier than you think.

Pro tip 1: Be mindful of the volume of food you eat and eat slowly. You will get full sooner and thus eat less.

Pro tip 2: Try intermittent fasting (navigating between periods of eating (8h) and fasting (16h). You will never be able to eat as much food if you shorten your feeding window.

3.2. Drink like a healthy queen

Drinking enough water is something that most people struggle with.

An average person should drink around 2 liters of water daily (around eight glasses).

I don’t know about you, but I simply forget to drink when I am in a high-paced, high-stress environment.

Don’t be like me.

Start your day by drinking a big glass of water (0.5L). It will help you wake up faster and remove mental fog (which occurs due to morning dehydration).

During the day, make sure to remind yourself to drink water often.

Implementing these simple steps will help you hit your drinking goals in no time.

Pro tip: Put a reminder in your calendar that notifies you to drink a small glass of water each hour.

4. Recharge mindfully

We tend to work much more on the road to maximize the available time.

It makes sense then that our mind and body gets tired faster.

Luckily, there is a way to hedge against that.

Introduce walking breaks.

Aim to take a 5-minute walking break after every hour of your work.

This will give you time to relax and recover.

Even better.

It will boost creativity and improve problem-solving skills.

All in all, you will be better prepared to tackle the challenges that come your way.

Not convinced yet?

In addition to the benefits outlined above, you will add a hefty number of additional steps to your days (and by now, you are already aware of the importance of moving your body).

If you want to learn more tips on how to increase your daily step count (without too much work) — I invite you to read one of my best articles, where I outline 5 micro-habits that will lead to consistently hitting your step goals:

5. Unwind and disconnect

In an era when the lines between professional and personal life have become blurred, it’s hard to really disconnect from our work.

Learning how to disconnect was the thing I struggled with the most while working in consulting.

I had no idea how to turn it off.

No matter how hard I tried, my mind would constantly be focused on business problems even long after my work days were over.

I was stressing about this until I discovered a simple trick.

You need to create an evening routine that will help you unwind.

What do I mean by that?

Instead of hitting the bed immediately after your work day, dedicate some time to yourself.

The thing that works for me is spending 10–15 minutes reading before turning off the lights.

Since I started doing this, I never again experienced any trouble with my sleep.

Pro tip: Avoid looking at your phone (and social media) at least 1–2 hours before bedtime. They bombard your brain with visual information and thus make it much harder to switch off.

Final thoughts

If you don’t start caring for your mind and body today, they will not care for you tomorrow.

You are ultimately the CEO of your health.

Stop with all the BS excuses and start acting like one.

Do you want to achieve peak performance at work? Follow me on LinkedIn, where I share practical tips that will help you do just that :)