It's almost vacation time for a lot of us, and I want to encourage you to find creative ways to exercise while you're vacationing. The most obvious and simple way to exercise is to walk. I watched a young woman walk herself thin two times over a 4-5 year period.
When I first saw her, she was pretty heavy. Everyday, she was on the 
same street taking a walk. Months went by and she got smaller and smaller and smaller. Finally, she was within her weight range and she stopped the daily trek.
About eighteen months later, I saw her again. She was about the same size as the initial time I saw her. The process started all over. Everyday she was out there, rain or shine. Over a couple months, she walked the weight off and was gone again. I can only imagine she had been pregnant and was walking off her pregnancy weight both times. I might be off on that.
The bottom line is, you can find simple ways to exercise while traveling. I try to stay in tall buildings when vacationing. I use the stairs in those buildings for my personal workout. One building I stay in the most has 12 floors. I go up and down those stairs on average 250 times as my workout.
I use a heart-rate monitor to make sure I stay between 65% - 75% of my max heart-rate. That's a calorie burn of 8 calories of fat and 8 calories of glycogen per minute. It takes me about 35 minutes to go up and down 250-280 floors. It's a good workout.
Last year, I added a resistance workout on the stairs. I drop off a set of elastic bands about every three floors. After I've done my warm-up, I stop and do resistance exercises on those floors each time I get to them. I don't worry about the number of floors. I make sure I get both upper and lower body exercises in during that workout. The workout lasts about 45 - 60 minutes. Again, I wear my heart-rate monitor to make sure I stay aerobic during the whole time.
So, when you head out to the beach, mountains or wherever this year, make sure to exercise in whatever way you can. Your body will appreciate it, and you'll feel better for it. Have fun, and make sure to blog about your experience so we can all be inspired.
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