How do you keep fit when you travel?

I just got home - my parental home - from the gym: I got a temporary membership, £14 for 14 days, which I think is actually a pretty good deal.

It's about 6pm, the streets are pretty busy, people on their way home for the day. And I was thinking about how I keep myself fit when I'm travelling. This Substack is called The TechPacker, so what tech do I use and how do I pack for being away and keeping fit?

The number one prerequisite for me is packing a decent pair of shoes. Walking shoes or trainers or whatever it is that I think I'm going to be doing. That's really important to me because one of the major things I rely upon to keep me fit when I'm away, one of the things I enjoy doing, is walking. So, when I was in Shanghai a couple of days ago, I think I broke my record for the year. I don't think I have managed anything more than 30,000 steps for a day prior to that in 2024.

It was 32,000 steps for the day and it was very warm and very humid. My shirt was quite a state of white salt tide marks all over it by the time I finished. Unwisely, I'd chosen a black t-shirt for that day.

Walking is a good thing, but as I'm getting older I'm also thinking about my risk for sarcopenia, which is muscle wastage, which is kind of normal and a tendency that we move towards given largely sedentary modern lifestyles. You can do some things to stop that from happening such as strength training, which is a really good idea as you turn about 35 to 40 to make sure you're doing that to lock in that muscle.

If you think about your muscle mass as a battery, if you don't do (a) strength training and (b) eat enough protein, then you're eating away into that battery, which is why often you'll see men in their 70s and 80s who look quite skinny in terms of their arms and legs and shoulders.

And that's because of the impact of sarcopenia over those 30 years after they've turned 40-ish.

So ye, that's one of the things I think about.

I tend to use my Apple Fitness Plus app subscription, although if I'm honest I use more of the yoga and the stretching at the end of a hard day. And that's partly because of a few injuries that I've had, which means that it's a little bit more difficult for me to fit in that strength training, but it's certainly something that I'm aiming to pick up again.

And it’s also due to the lack of space in the modest hotel rooms I tend to book into. Maybe it’ll change when I start to generate more income from this Substack and my YouTube channel. I wish …

But today, I just did an 8-interval treadmill run for the first time in a long time since I had my latest calf injury. And I'm hoping that with the diagnosis and my recalibration of my diet and also the walking that I've been doing over the last few weeks has helped to manage my intestinal bacterial overgrowth, which was diagnosed and treated.

I also think this diet and eating timing reset is helping to manage my blood sugar as I tweak my diet, try not to snack in between meals and having my meals 4-5 hours apart. It’s sticking to 3 meals a day, and I've been pretty successful at doing that. And eliminating sugar alcohols, certain trigger foods which are not good for the fermentation process in my gut, so things like legumes and chickpeas.

Those the main principles of the diet that I'm sticking to.

But in terms of exercise, yes, definitely walking, trying to incorporate more strength training, and using the Apple Fitness Plus app. There are plenty of other ones out there that you can use.

But I'm also trying to pick up my running again, so I did pack my GTS Adrenaline shoes, my Brooks, my favourite running shoes, and it was really, really nice to get them out again.

It was a little bit too fast, if I'm honest, my heart rate was peaking at around about the 160s, and I needed it a little bit lower than that, I wanted it in the 150s. And I was just running 90 second intervals with 90 second recoveries. The first two intervals were probably a little bit hard. I sat on 11 at the treadmill, which was about 5 minute 43 second kilometres. So I just took that down a notch to 6 minute kilometres - 6 minutes per kilometre - and that was fine. That was testing enough, but not where I was feeling like I was overloading myself too quick. So 90 seconds, 90 seconds on, 90 seconds off, for 8 intervals. And that's me done.

And that was a kilometre walk to the gym and a kilometre walk back too. And I even managed to get a video processed, and get to The Oval and watch some cricket.

So, how do you exercise when you travel? And good apps or techniques, habits you’ve built or tips to share? Let’s see them!

The TechPacker is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.