Tricks for Sneaking in Exercise While Hosting Guests

Hi friends!

Tomorrow I’m heading up to Anaheim for IDEA World and Blogfest! I was getting psyched seeing so many people posting on social media about their travels to the conference today. Anaheim is just a hop, skip, and a jump away from my house, so I’ll be heading up there tomorrow evening. Conference recaps to come on the blog, but in the meantime, you can check me out on Twitter and Instagram to see what I’m up to at IDEA World! 🙂

Speaking of travel, today’s topic is about when people travel to visit you. Living 2,500 miles away from my family, my hubby’s family, and a lot of my friends, I’m happy to have house guests come visit and spend time with me… and since I live in beautiful California and they love me, they like to visit!

When people stay with me, obviously my normal routine gets shaken up. I usually do a lot more relaxing, cooking, baking, eating and drinking. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with that – it’s great! – but I do like to make sure that I stay active even when I have loved ones in town. When my father-in-law was in town a couple of weeks ago, I thought about the ways that I keep up my habit of moving often while playing host. Here are the tricks that I use:

• Hikes with my dog: Harley is a great excuse/reason to get up and get moving. It’s a win-win, because if she doesn’t get daily activity, she’s bouncing off the walls, therefore it forces me to move as well. Usually I invite my guest(s) to come hike with us, because I think it’s a great way for out-of-towners to see the pretty, mountainous West coast views. Sometimes they come, sometimes they don’t, but either way, both of us girls are getting some fresh air and exercise!
  

  Hiking with Harley this evening

• Dinnertime walks around downtown: The San Diego area has lots of neat towns with tons of restaurants and shops. We’ll often head to one of these areas for dinner, and we almost always wind up strolling around town either before or after dinner. It’s another nice way to show my tourists the atmosphere of the area while also getting in movement.

• Early riser workouts: Sometimes the extra sleep is needed more, but other times when guests are staying at my house, I’ll wake up a bit earlier than everyone and squeeze in a workout in my living room. It feels nice to get some exercise done with first thing in the morning, plus I don’t feel guilty about going off on my own since everyone else is still snoozing.

A sunset I got to see last weekend while doing yoga on the beach

•  Integrate movement into relaxation time: Usually all it takes is just a little bit of effort to make relaxation time a little bit less sedentary. For instance, if we’re going to the beach all afternoon, I’ll make a point to go for a walk along the water.

Rest days are a necessary part of a healthy lifestyle, but for the days when I want to fit in some exercise when guests are in town, these are the ways that I get it done!

Do you get a lot of visitors? What are your favorite activities to do with out-of-town guests?