Mike finds that swapping “vacation mode” for a more disciplined lifestyle helps to keep the pounds at bay.
By Mike Wendland, F426141
June 2015
The secret to living life on the road in a motorhome is simple: Live like you are at home.
Of course, our motorhome is our home when we’re traveling. But just as living in our sticks-and-bricks home involves a routine, so should our life while RVing. And that routine should be patterned as much as possible after an “at home” lifestyle, not a vacation lifestyle.
My wife, Jennifer, calls our Roadtrek CS Adventurous XL our “Adventure-mobile.” And maybe because of that attitude, I’ve tended to live in the moment a bit more often than I should. As soon as I got in the motorhome and we took off, I let my guard down and went into vacation mode. This is not a good idea for prolonged periods of time. I learned that the hard way.
For one thing, I gained 30 pounds. I treated each day as if it were a free day, a day that I could let go, chill out, overindulge, stay up late, sleep in if I felt like it, and eat at every interesting restaurant we found.
On a real vacation — a short holiday or getaway — you can indulge in that kind of lifestyle. For a few days, or maybe even a week or two. But we travel about two to three weeks out of every month year-round, with several trips that are five to six weeks long.
The older you get, the easier it is to gain weight, and the harder it is to lose it. RVers we have met on the road have described similar struggles in the battle of the bulge. And I’ve heard from others about another variation of the problem: the reoccurring happy hour that lasts lots longer than an hour. We do a lot of boondocking, but when we are at campgrounds, I’ve seen it myself — RVers spending multiple hours being happy. I don’t want to preach or be on a soapbox, but, for the sake of one’s health, that shouldn’t be an everyday habit, either.
I’ve spent the first half of 2015 losing those 30 pounds — and a few more. And no way am I going to go back to the attitude that every day is a vacation.
So now we do serious exercise when we travel, just as we do when we’re home. And by “serious,” I mean at least a 45-minute, sweat-breaking cardio–focused workout six days a week. Add to that two days of strength training. That’s my top daily priority. I will do this until the day I die or when I wear out and have to back off.
A book that greatly influenced me in this new philosophy is Younger Next Year: Live Strong, Fit, and Sexy — Until You’re 80 and Beyond by Chris Crowley and Henry S. Lodge, M.D. Read it. It will change your life. Follow its advice and you’ll be able to enjoy the motorhome lifestyle a lot longer than you think.
Jennifer already has been living that way. She’s a fitness instructor by profession and, truly, in almost 100,000 miles of travel over the past three years, the only conflict our motorhome lifestyle has caused has been when we could not get to a gym.
I’ve now agreed with her to make exercise a priority, and we have joined a national health club chain called Anytime Fitness. We now plan each trip so that wherever we end up overnighting, we can find an Anytime Fitness location. Our membership gets us in every one, they are open 24 hours a day, and each location has pretty much the same equipment.
At times when we have to miss the gym, we either will do some hardcore biking with the bicycles we strap on the back of our motorhome, or we will go hiking.
We’ve also pretty much made dining out a rare occurrence. The truth is, most restaurant food is overly processed, lathered in butter, cooked in sugar, and not very healthful. So we seek out fresh food, organic markets, and places such as Whole Foods, where we can get our own food, which we prepare in the motorhome. When we do eat out, the restaurant we choose usually specializes in regional cooking or fresh seafood, or has a reputation for being truly special.
And I use an app called LoseIt for my smartphone to record every bite I take in, charting calories and nutrition. Just as I chart the mileage I drive and keep track of fuel and maintenance needs for our motorhome, I monitor what I eat and put into my body and, through that exercise, what I burn each day.
And you know what? As the pounds have come off, I find I have more energy every day. As I’ve purged sugar and salt and processed food out of my body, I can really taste food. I’ve come to actually prefer the fresh fruit and vegetables we find in roadside markets in our travels over the packaged sweet and salty junk food snacks that I used to crave.
It’s not just me who needed a reality check. So did Tai, our Norwegian elkhound. Now, in our travels, we search out communities that have dog parks, places where pooches can run and play with other dogs off the leash.
Tai loves it. Not only do we search for overnight locations near our gym, but we also look for dog parks. Several websites list dog parks around the United States; we use www.doggeek.com/dog-parks most often.
We also try to take Tai for at least two walks each day while traveling. Walking a dog is a great way to explore new areas and meet the locals. Just today, for example, we were in the Lake Michigan resort community of South Haven and took Tai for a walk along a river that flows through town and empties into the big lake. People kept coming up and asking whether they could meet Tai. When this happens, Tai gets lots of pets, and we have a chance to learn about the area from people who live there.
These things — cooking our own food, working out every day, and getting Tai adequate exercise and doggie socializing — are what we do when we’re at our Michigan home. On the road, we’ve found they greatly enhance the motorhome lifestyle, precisely because they are so familiar.
There’s a great comfort in routine.