Exercise has always been a big part of my life. not professionally or anything but more like a BFF that’s stayed in touch with me and grown up with me through all the stages of my life.

A lot of people told me I wouldn’t need to exercise while traveling, that backpackers do enough walking and are relatively active. But that’s not necessarily the point of exercising and even though they were right and we found ourselves walking an average of 10kms/day, it’s not enough, eventually your body gets used to that amount of mobility and pretty soon it’s not challenging and it certainly doesn’t get the heart rate up.

In the beginning of our travels I didn’t exercise and boy did that have a massive impact on me later, both physically and mentally. I not only noticed the change in my muscle tone but the condition and even color of my skin was changing. I also noticed my energy levels had dropped, I wasn’t sleeping as well, always constipated and I started getting achy joints. It was only when I got back into an exercise routine that I realized the lack of exercise was the factor responsible here.