In partnership and collaboration with Positive Health Wellness

This article continues from Healthy Travel Part III: Boost Your Mood and Creativity

Find It Easier to Boost Weight Loss Efforts

If you’ve ever wanted to lose weight, you want to look at traveling more. Sure, you must eat out more, and you don’t always get to control a number of calories you eat, but you will find it much easier to create a calorie deficit.

Let’s focus on the activity element that was our first main benefit of traveling. When you do more activity, you instantly burn more calories. You make it easier to get rid of the excess calories that you eat on a daily basis. This doesn’t matter if you take a cruise holiday or you backpack around the Amazon! You can take one of the calmest of vacations, and you will still find it easier to lose weight.

There’s no need to do anything majorly special either when it comes to activity. You’ll find that you want to make the most of your time in a new country or around a new culture so you will push yourself more to getting around all the sights. You spend all your day out of the house and get home realizing that you’ve walked 15,000 to 20,000 steps—at least!

This can depend on where you go and what you do. If you’re on a cruise ship, there may be days where you don’t get to dry land. However, these types of ships tend to have swimming pools and fitness suites. Make sure you use them to help boost your weight loss efforts—what else are you going to do?

But yes there is the issue of food. All that walking won’t necessarily work off a number of calories you consume, right? Well, this depends on the type of food that you choose to have. Enjoying that one authentic Belgian waffle or trying out the deep-fried delicacies of The South aren’t going to make you pile on the pounds suddenly. It’s about all the food you eat while away and not just one particular meal.

In fact, trying out the local foods is something that you want to do. This is the way to experience the new cultures and immerse yourself in your travels.

The trick is to follow a healthy and balanced diet still. While you can’t completely control everything you eat, you still have some control. You can choose the better restaurants to get all your food groups and even go out and buy fresh fruit and veggies from local market stalls to make sure you get your five a day. You’ll soon find that you have far more control than you thought you did.

This can also depend on where you go. If you travel around Asia, you’ll find that sticking to a calorie deficit diet is much easier than before. This is especially the case of Japan and parts of China, where there is a major focus on a healthier and more fulfilling diet.

You’ll also find that the more activity you do, the less you want or crave the junk. You can try out local delicacies now and then but will find it easier to opt for the healthier choices on the menus.

And then there’s also the water. This is something you need to work on actively.

We tend to drink less, especially when traveling. We find it harder to stop for a drink and don’t always buy the right options. After all, there are so many new cocktails that you want to try!

It’s important to make sure you carry a bottle of water around with you at all times. It doesn’t matter where you are or what you’re doing, have that bottle of water. And then keep topping it up! If you are in an area where the tap water isn’t great, make sure you set a budget that allows you to buy bottles of water regularly to keep your water intake up.

When you lose more weight, you instantly boost your health. Your heart doesn’t have to work as hard to do everyday things. Your blood pressure and cholesterol levels will drop. You’ll find that it’s easier to breathe and your chronic pain starts to disappear. Doing more is something that you love the idea of, and you’ll want to get out and travel more.

Of course, weight loss also leads to more confidence. You know that you can do more and you aren’t ashamed of or afraid of what people would think of your weight. This instantly helps to boost your mental health, as you’re less likely to allow the depression or anxiety to seep through.

Try Out Alternative Lifestyles and Health Remedies

When you visit new cultures, you get to experience how other people live. This isn’t just about developing new social thoughts or beliefs, but also about witnessing health remedies and different types of lifestyles.

Traveling will let you try out the alternative lives safely and without too much commitment. It’s possible to get away from the touristy areas and focus on how the real people live. This is a chance to experience what it would be like to live there.  This is definitely something to do before you take the permanent step of moving somewhere.

One of the benefits of traveling is the freedom. You don’t have to stay where your friends once did. There’s no need to go to the tourist hot-spots that the travel guides say. You can look at doing a month or two in an area where you teach and actually live, especially in Asian communities.

It’s possible to shed the familiarity of people like you and focus on building the right type of social connections. This is the chance to immerse yourself in a new culture.

There’s certainly the benefit of the alternate health remedies. This is the chance to see how herbal remedies really help to cure ailments and soothe problems. You get to try the remedies from the original place they were created, by practitioners who know what they’re doing. You’re not worried about health shops at home adding other chemicals to them or selling them at overrated prices.

If you decide that they do work, you can take some back with you. You also get to find out about the real ingredients so you can make them at home.

This could be your ability to step away from the pharmaceutical medications. There are so many that certain help ailments but can cause other health problems. Just look at the list of side effects that are common in some of the everyday medications. Some of the medications can also affect the balance of your hormones, which is a problem that you will avoid completely when you opt for natural remedies. These remedies have worked for others for centuries, so why not for you right now?

You also help to support your mental health. You know that you have a natural and healthy way to support your body. You feel more in control, especially financially when the pharmaceutical remedies can be so expensive.

Where Will You Travel Next?

Traveling really is one of the best things that you can do for your health. This is something that supports both your physical and mental health. You will get to support your emotional health and life a better and more natural life, even when you’re not traveling.

The eight reasons to travel more above are a snapshot of the way you will benefit. There are just so many more reasons to travel to help protect your health. They all link some way into the reasons above but deepen your benefits considerably.

Just think about the social connections you can make and the way that you will feel. You get to escape the isolation, especially if you currently don’t work or your job involves a work from home element. This is your chance to step out of the rat race and take on cultures that you’ve only ever heard of.

There are some steps that you’ll need to take to look after your health. One thing that you don’t want to do is give up your current medications for the herbal remedies. You need to make sure they work and improve your health for the better. It’s also important to watch out for bacteria in the water or any problems with cooking certain types of foods to keep your overall health safe.

When you do decide to travel, make sure you’re getting plenty of activity. While cruises give you the chance to sit back and relax, you want to take advantage of the swimming pools and fitness suites onboard. There are going to be days where you don’t see dry land, but you still want to walk around and do some sort of exercise.

But then the relaxation is also important. You want to unwind from the everyday stresses of your life. You need to spend time seeing how others deal with stress and push yourself out of your comfort zone. Build a tolerance and find a new way of handling stress every day.

Traveling really is one of the best things that you can do. All you need to decide now is where you will go first.

-Original article by Karen Reed of Positive Health Wellness