Archive for December, 2011

I do quite a lot of seminars and consulting which means a lot of travel.

When I add in vacations – I realized I’d taken over 49 flights in the last year. Ugh.

That’s quite a lot when you consider that I didn’t do any travel in August or September and the first half of October. So it’s 49 plane trips in about 39 weeks.

The fun part of seminars is that I enjoy teaching, and really like meeting like-minded people (other speakers, or attendees). The downside is that with my medical history I don’t have the greatest immune system in the world, so the traveling often leaves me completely wiped out, or even sick for a few days.
And when you add in the missed workouts, jet leg, airline food etc – you can see why it can wreak havoc on your health.

So the key thing is to develop strategies to handle this. The first step is recognizing that there is an issue that isn’t optimal for you. Step two is to develop strategies to improve that situation or issue (this is why we will be doing more in-house events next year).

I developed on-the-road workouts, eating strategies and travel rituals that allowed me to arrive feeling ready-to-go and get home feeling at least somewhat fresh.
Really just ideas to avoid some of the problems with being on the road so much.

I was mentioning this to my friend Valerie Waters ( superstar trainer and creator of the Valslide) recently – and she agreed that strategies were a key part of her clients success and added:

“Strategy even trumps willpower. Studies show that willpower is actually in limited supply. Meaning, resist the cookie now, it might be hard to resist it later. Therefore, I believe it is more important to build in good strategies. For example, if you eat ice cream every night, rather than trying to “be good” and resist it, simply remove it from the house. If you consistently visit the vending machine because you don’t have time to go to lunch, your strategy would be to pack your lunch the night before and bring it with you. Anyway, you get the point.”

What situations cause you to miss meals, or make less than optimal choices? What situations cause you to miss workouts?
Start recognizing these limitations and develop strategies to allow you to succeed.

–
AC