Search

Go abroad, eat pizza, stay fit.

When you think about spending a year in Europe, usually eating your body weight in pastries, pasta, and baguettes comes to mind first. Not, staying fit. But being the hyperactive individual that I am, I realized that during my year abroad, I’d be gym-less and in charge of keeping myself from becoming morbidly obese, so I took it to the internet to try and figure out how in the world I was going to do this. And now here I am, post-year abroad, with a better taste in food and wine, but also with more endurance and strength. Here’s what I did: 

Explored my beautiful city by running through it.

I spent my year abroad in Paris so there was a ton to see, not to mention many parks to run through. Paris is also incredibly walk-able and easy to navigate, with metro stops every 100-or-so yards, so if by the end of my run I was terribly lost, I could just hop on the nearest metro line and find my way back home. 

 

 

A photo posted by ess on

 

Pinterest workouts

I’m not one for spending too much time on Pinterest but if you search a specific kind of workout, you can find a ton of infographics with different workouts you can just do with your bodyweight! I also brought resistance bands with me abroad and used those to strengthen my body, rather than adding more weight to my bag with small dumbbells. 

Youtube Videos.

I found so many awesome YouTubers who post full workouts that you can do with minimal space and no equipment. I stayed with a host family in an actual house, so I didn’t have to worry about neighbors hearing me jump around in my room and making noise. I did have to worry about my host family thinking I was a complete lunatic for working out in my room, but it ended up fine and my host mom even asked if she could join me once or twice! Some of my favorite YouTubers are , , and . I still do their workouts at home, too!

 

A photo posted by ess on

 

 

Just Wing it

Some days I wanted to squat heavy but with no access to a squat rack or weights, I got creative. I put all my textbooks in a box and held that as a weight during a workout. This technique was also used multiple times when I wanted to work shoulders, or use books for tricep kickbacks and bicep curls. 

Check out these recipes, too: 

One Response