For some people going on vacation means complete indulgence – eating foods one doesn’t normally eat, drinking mass quantities of alcohol, no exercise, and completely getting off any kind of sleep schedule.  For me vacation is about the beach, getting as much rest as possible, having some solid, rested, uninterrupted time to train, continuing to eat as a I normally eat, but while enjoying some good dinners out and of course lobster at least once and homemade fudge and ice cream here and there.

I enjoy how I eat, so my first thought isn’t that I want to change that when I go on vacation.  Actually my first thought is how can I continue to maintain healthy habits of clean eating and exercise while I am on vacation AND have the ability to enjoy myself and have a glass of wine and bowl of ice cream?

During the summer Eric and I like to vacation in York Beach, Maine.  It’s 70 miles from Boston, so without traffic it’s a quick hour and 15 minute trip to the shore.  York is also just a few miles from Ogunquit, Cape Neddick and Perkins Cove which all offer something a little different, so there is plenty to do – I promise the State of Maine Tourism Office is not paying me to write this blog post as an advertisement ;).    There is no internet where we stay and the cell phone service is so bad up there that it’s annoying to check your phone.  So we don’t.  We completely, unplug and tune out, which I think more people in this very excessively “tuned-in”, “plugged-in” world need to do.

Eric and I choose to stay at a very casual, internet-free Inn that offers one bedroom suites or “efficiencies” as this place call them, with kitchenettes that each contain an electric stove, coffee maker, dishes, pots and pans and silverware.  We pack groceries that cover breakfast, lunch and snacks for as long as we will stay.  This allows us to make breakfast in our suite and then pack lunch and snacks for the beach for the day and enjoy our dinners out.

Usually we wait until we get up there to stock up on water (and beer if we haven’t brought it with us) for the time that we are up there. Eric and I are not big drinkers but we like to have a beer after the beach before dinner and/or a drink with dinner.  The place that we stay at also has a charcoal grill for guests to use but we have yet to fire it up as we enjoy exploring the restaurants that the area has to offer for dinner.

As far as exercise, we always pack kettlebells to bring with us; we usually limit ourselves to one bell per person so that we’re not driving up with the whole studio packed in the back seat under the groceries :).  This year I chose to bring a 20kg (44lbs) bell with me, which could have been risky, but it turned out to be the perfect bell size from get-ups, to goblet squats, to one arm swing intervals, heavy presses and even single bell push press and clean & jerk.

We found a grassy shaded area at the high school down the street that worked out perfectly for our daily training.

We even found a tree perfect for pull-ups ;):

And I was able to practice one-arm push-ups because you don’t need much equipment for those :):

A typical vacation day for us was:

wake up

breakfast in the suite

train at the high school grounds

beach

post beach/pre-dinner beer

dinner

maybe ice cream if we still have room in our stomachs after dinner

We not big party people, we much more enjoy to get to bed at a decent hour so that we can enjoy a solid training session and the beach the next day and come home from vacation truly feeling rested.

The more you maintain healthy habits whether you are going through your regular day to day or on vacation the more these healthy habits will truly become your lifestyle and the less you will seek the next fad diet or exercise trend and then binge on unhealthy foods to make up for depriving yourself.