Our trip to Italy is approaching, and I’m making plans. Not only how to pack my hand luggage, but also how to stay strong and feel good when I’m away from home.

When I travel, I try to keep up my usual eating and movement/training habits as much as possible. Some people will find this boring, and say “hey, relax a little!” with which they often mean sit on a beach, do nothing, and indulge. And that actually sounds quite unappealing to me!

I’ve chosen my current lifestyle for a reason. I enjoy it and it makes me feel good. And who doesn’t want to feel good, also on holiday?

The common narrative (or at least that’s my impression) is that if you exercise regularly and eat healthy food it’s a sacrifice, and that really you just want to sit on the couch and eat crisps. To me it isn’t like that at all. I love being out and about, moving and doing fun things. I can’t imagine anything more boring than scrolling the phone or sitting on a beach all day. I want to walk, move and explore, and I want to eat food that makes me feel good. And that doesn’t have to mean it doesn’t taste good!

I don’t miss anything in my daily life, except maybe better weather and a decently paid job that doesn’t burn me out. I eat good and nourishing food, and I love challenging my body through hill walking and lifting weights. So when I travel, I want to – at least sort of – do the same, while exploring new places.

Obviously I don’t have access to a gym everywhere, and there isn’t Irish steak (OMG, it must be the best in the world) from happy, grass-fed cows everywhere. But there are always ways to adapt with both food and movement. So here’s how I do it.

How I keep up strength and movement away from home

Bodyweight strength training

There’s a lot you can do to keep the muscles going! When I don’t have access to a gym I try to keep up some strength by doing bodyweight exercises, such as:

• Push-ups
• Standard squats
• Bulgarian split squats
• Other single leg squats (pistol squats, skater squats)
• Lunges & lunge walks
• Tricep press from a bench or small table
• Perhaps there’s a kid’s playground where there are bars for doing pull-ups (if you’re fit enough to do these, I only just started doing them assisted with a resistance band)

These can be quite challenging even without added weight, and especially single leg squats can be very effective even without a heavy load. At least you keep the muscles working, and taking a break from heavier weights for a few weeks can be a good thing.

Finding a gym

Sometimes you CAN get access to a gym. Either a hotel gym, an outdoor gym or something else. When we were in Sweden last year, we decided to see if we could get access to a gym somewhere. In Sweden there are plenty of gyms, and many of them offer one-week trial memberships, or some other solution for letting people “test train” in their gym. I signed up for two of these, one in Mora and one in Skövde, and we celebrated our wedding anniversary in the hotel gym at Arlanda airport!

I’ve been working with a personal trainer for three years, and I’ve learned all the good exercises with free weights that I can do in any gym when I’m away. I don’t use machines a lot because I find it annoying, they’re different in every gym and I’d rather train than to waste time trying to figure out how to use the machines, so to me it’s easier to just use free weights. But I enjoy seeing what other gyms have in terms of equipment, and maybe try something new.

I usually check if they have any good cable machines as well as leg press and/or hack squat machine. These machines are always the same and you don’t need to be a rocket scientist to use them! And who doesn’t love a good lat pulldown?

Walking

Walking is free and always available, and it’s the most interesting way to explore a new place. I’ve always been a fan of walking, and I usually walk a LOT when I visit new places. In Italy, which is our most common travel spot, and particularly in the region where we go, almost everything is built on a hill or mountain so just getting around is a workout in itself.

And then the hard part… proper food

I have high requirements of what I eat. Because of coeliac disease, bone density conditions, and that I love to keep my muscles happy and strong I choose to eat a certain type of diet. And if this wasn’t enough, I’ve become used to the high quality food of West Cork. Ireland isn’t known for its cuisine, but it should be.

After strength training for about a year I started looking at my diet, decided to add more protein and clean up my eating habits by avoiding unnecessary sugar and ultra-processed foods, to see where that would take me. Later I learned about my bone density issues, and other “rules” were added into the mix. What’s needed is basically just a good, healthy diet with high protein content, good quality carbs, enough calcium, the right veg, antioxidants and vitamin D (which I take as a supplement).

I’m very happy with how I eat, I feel good with better energy, better mood, good performance in the gym, and the added protein has made a huge difference to my results from training. Of course I want to keep this up when I’m away from home!

Fortunately we have ways to keep up good eating habits when we’re away. Our most frequent travel spot is Italy where we rent an apartment and get to cook for ourselves. This is the way to go! We love shopping at the local markets and indulging in the fresh veg and fruit, and oh, the cheese!! That’s a haven for me with my calcium needs. You may worry about the sodium content, but this isn’t necessarily a problem with the typical Italian summer weather of 35+ degrees.

But not even in Italy everything around food is straightforward. Here are some of the issues I get into…

I can’t compare everything to the food of West Cork

After 6 years in Ireland, I’ve realised that I live in the food heaven of the world. And specifically West Cork is known for its food! We have top quality meat and poultry (I’ve already mentioned the steak!), fish and seafood from the local seas, and the best cheeses are made in Macroom or out on the peninsulas (Gubbeen cheese is class!). Good vegetables is generally hard to find here (like anywhere in northern Europe) but we get tasty, high quality potatoes (and eggs) from a local farmer. So for most foods, nothing can compare to West Cork!

Getting the protein

I’ve previously seen Italy as the food country of the world, and I still adore the fresh vegetables, fruit, coffee, wine and more. But the protein sources? Not so much. I’m very unimpressed with the Italian meat industry and if I could I’d avoid it altogether. The seas around Italy are heavily polluted with their own plastic island (or so I’ve heard), so I’m not sure about fish either. But I need to get my protein, and 100% plant-based doesn’t work for me. Since we’re only in Italy a few weeks every year, we’ll accept the problems with fish and meat, because getting enough protein will still be the best option. There’s good turkey and chicken, sliced meats such as ham and coppa, and this year we’ll try fish from the local market. There is also an excellent fish restaurant in our area!

But there are highlights. Our Italian home is Pianella, a little town in Abruzzo. This is the home of gli arrosticini – a type of very tasty mutton skewers. And as with most mountain areas, there’s also a strong cheese tradition, with famous pecorino from places like Scanno or Farindola as well as various mozzarellas and ricotta. At festivals, in food vans, bars, anywhere I normally wouldn’t be able to get anything to eat (because they’d only have sandwiches or pizza), there’s almost always arrosticini or at the very least taglieri, a plate of assorted cheeses and cold meats. This is very common everywhere as a starter dish, and bars may have it as an option alongside sandwiches and pizza. We all know that processed meat isn’t the healthiest for us, but compared to no food at all? I’m happy to take the tagliere. And it’s tasty!

When we cook for ourselves we get to make better choices and explore new foods, and this is the easy and most fun part. Remember, this is the home of not only arrosticini but also the Mediterranean diet! There’s an endless supply of high quality vegetables, fruits, seeds, nuts and other good stuff. This year I think I’ll explore this area a bit more than I have in the past, to explore other carb sources than pasta, and perhaps make my own snacks with nuts and seeds for roadtrips.

And of course there are good restaurants. In Italy there’s a certification system for restaurants, for handling of gluten-free food. If a restaurant has the label, you know they are competent and that you can trust that they know what they are doing. You even get your own serving staff!

Yes, I do enjoy some less healthy but tasty stuff

Finally – No, I’m not a robot. I don’t count macros and minerals every minute of my day, especially when I’m on holiday. Like everyone else, sometimes I also want to eat things simply because they taste good! Just not all the time.

“Nothing tastes as good as feeling good feels like”

This quote is REAL. I love some good wine, Perugina chocolates, the famous gelato or a good bowl of pasta (also knowing that standard gluten-free pasta has basically zero nutritional value). But do you know what I love more? Feeling good, and having the energy to do fun things. So getting real food is a priority – but I still enjoy some the other things now and then. Both are possible! Now I’m looking forward to another enjoyable and healthy holiday in Abruzzo.

I’m joining the Wellness Reimagined link-up hosted by these lovely ladies:

Deb from Deb’s world
Sue from Women living well after 50
Jo at And anyways
Donna at Retirement reflections
Jennifer from The Retirement Phase

If something in this post is confusing or repetitive, I apologise. I’ve been writing this for too long and the post sort of went in its own directions!

And if you’re Italian and disagree with me about the meat industry, I’m all ears if you have ideas about where to get better meat!