Travel challenges weightloss

By Joel Myhre (Contact) | The Daily Journal

Published Saturday, March 29, 2008

Though our weight loss contest has long been completed, I have continued to strive to lose weight, or at the very least, keep the weight off.

Considering the amount of travel I have been doing recently, it has been a struggle, to say the least.

After all, when you travel – and I’m relatively new to the frequent travel game – there are many “mines” out there that do not lead to good health:

Taking early morning flights to sleeping on hotel beds to simply being uncomfortable away from home tend to limit the number of hours of sleep at night. Health experts say a lack of sleep contributes to weight gain.

Between flight time and work activities, keeping on the regular workout routine tends to be difficult, at best.

The constant restaurant meals, combined with the quick, unhealthy airport meals (the cheese dog and chili made my stomach turn), wreaks havoc on that carefully planned diet.

That said, if there has been one thing that I accomplished health-wise on my recent trips, it has been in discovering a new form of exercise: airport walking and stair climbing.

True, it’s not quite as exhilarating as, say, hiking through the Himalayas (or even Maplewood State Park, for that matter.) But as far as activities go, it was a surprisingly adventurous, relatively intense, and a lot more fun than sitting in a chair or an airport bar.

I decided to do this after initially being frustrated at my inability to find a workout time, and my exasperation having to wait for three hours before my connecting flight. I said to myself, “The next time you go on a trip, wear your running shoes.”

So a couple of weeks ago, I strapped on my backpack-laptop, found a map, and started making laps around the airport I was in, Tampa to be exact.

What I discovered was that, by walking at a good pace, I was able to keep my heart rate up. When you throw in a flight of stairs, you’ve got yourself an actual workout equal to a long run or weight lifting.

I thought about running, but I figured running would attract attention to myself. Plus, running would lead to a lot of sweat (which I tend to do), and I didn’t need to offend the person sitting really close to me in the plane too much.

While the primary reasons for walking the airport was to get exercise and alleviate boredom, I discovered a few side benefits as well:

By walking through an entire airport without having to worry about finding a gate or making a flight, you get to know the entire airport. I now understand, for example, every nook and cranny of the Minneapolis airport: where all the gates are, where the observation decks, where some of the cooler restaurants are. Considering Minneapolis is basically a must-stop for all flights, it was good to know.

While airports aren’t as beautiful as, say, the Himalayas, airports, from an architectural standpoint, are cool to look at. I often felt in awe looking up at the monolithic structures, statues and other features the Minneapolis, Detroit and Tampa airports had.

When it comes to people watching, airports, especially big ones, are at a premium. I have never seen so many more shapes, ethnicities, sizes, fashion types, and personalities as I have in airports. It’s truly fascinating.

It’s a lot of fun to go through an airport almost as if you’re a ghost, observing people paying little or no attention to you. Considering I’m typically buried in the thought of whatever I’m doing, simply walking and observing with nothing else to think about was truly a breath of fresh air.

And oh yeah, I burned off some of that chili cheese dog as well.

Joel Myhre is The Journal’s general manager. E-mail him at joel.myhre@fergusfallsjournal.com