How not to gain weight while traveling

Early morning (Easter day) jogging in Nice, France

As someone who travels really often - and I mean really, really often - one of  the things I definitely need to consider when overseas is maintaining a balance between enjoying life to the fullest and keeping healthy. 13 years ago when I started traveling intensely I would have never even wasted a thought on that, but time as well as experience have taught me that a healthy traveler is a happy traveler and, most of all, a smart traveler. And if I mention how much the mere thought of maybe having to stop traveling one day frightens me, perhaps you'll understand why nowadays I have an interest in postponing that day as much as possible, even if this means skipping that much-awaited cocktail once in a while, learning to make the right choices when on the airplane or at the restaurant or, most importantly, regularly hitting the gym, the running track, the pool, the slopes and so on.

One of the aspects of a healthy lifestyle is - and I guess you'll agree with me on that one - maintaining a healthy weight. I have not always been good at that myself as I was already implying a few lines further up but have, in time, learnt how to not gain (too much) weight while traveling. Looking back now I realise how funny it must have sounded to my parents when sometimes my excuse for overindulging on trips was "but I only do this or that when on vacation". Until one day my mother replied with a sentence which, upon pondering, I actually found to be quite true: "but you are on vacation all the time". Oops, got me on that one...