My framework to be in good shape

Have been asked many times how I can keep my body in a good shape while travelling the world on an adventure bike. My answer is quite always the same: commitment.
Being a full time traveller sometimes would be tricky, no need to tell that is not easy to eat clean everyday or have a good workout when you are in the middle of nothing. Be clear on it: constancy has the best reward for your body, energy, your mood and soul. Maybe, as you get older, the fire burning in your belly may dim, or maybe you don't make your health & fitness a priority. Let me give you how I divide my commitment in three main part, here’s my framework:

NUTRITION see also this post

✔️No Dogma: I know what foods work best for my body so I go for it eating slowly and building awareness.

✔️ Proactive: I take the time to meal prep, I have a game plan when eating out, and snack smart to avoid over eating.

✔️ I track food macros and calories & I drink intake.

MOVEMENT must read it

✔️ I find ways to move more, avoiding sitting as much as I can, and make being active a part of my lifestyle. I love HIIT, stretching and strength workout.

✔️ I combine smart strength training with quality movement to stress my body in the right ways. HIIT twice a week. This will both build strength and boost my metabolism.

✔️I practice as much as I can some activities that I enjoy doing like tennis and swimming. It’s far easier to get moving when you want to move.

MINDSET

✔️ Get Clear: Why do you want what you want? Get clarity on your why and consistent action will follow.

✔️ Sleep well: I optimize my sleep with a specific night time routine (I use iPhone bedtime).

✔️ Manage Stress: breathing, yoga, meditation, walking, or nature to manage stress.

The diet of a moto traveler

Travel on an adventure bike, often off road, is tricky, challenging and our body has to be fit and healthy, and nutrition plays an essential role in our well-being.
There aren’t shortcuts, we need to work hard to be healthy and fit, but trust me, it's worth it.

If we look on social networks or TV, we will only see healthy, physically fit and happy people. If instead we look out of our window we will see sad people, certainly not physically fit and often overweight. Why?
In nature, we find foods that are hydrated, rich in vitamins and minerals and low in calories. In the supermarket, on the other hand, we often find dehydrated foods, poor in vitamins and minerals and rich in calories. This is because the natural and processed food have a different energy density; the processed food has much more calories for the same quantity.
By my experience and from all the studies I made on nutrition, I strongly recommend to eat only natural, whole food. Here my advises:

• Calculate your calories, go to a professional or roughly multiply your current body weight in pounds by 12 to determine the number of calories you should eat.

• 5-6 small meals a day.

• Vegetables, fruits and fish (white meat is allowed too), eggs. That’s where your calories should come from. Avoid processed sugar, bread, pasta, red meat, milk.

• One gram of protein per pound of your body weight every day. Get 30% of your calories from fat meaning, to make these easier to count, convert them to grams. Since a gram of fat contains nine calories. The rest of your calories come from carbohydrates. To calculate these, subtract your fat calories and then your protein calories from the total. Protein and carbohydrates both contain four calories per gram.

• Keep with you protein powder, a good and natural one.

• Drink tons of filtered water.

  If you can’t recognise something, don’t eat it. If possible, eat raw food. Fast one day a week (I’ll write a post on this subject). Stay lean, stay fit, stay healthy. Fat people live a life of hardships. The fitter you are, the easier it is to stay fit. Whereas the more you deteriorate your body, the harder it is to come back, and claw your way back to a baseline. It requires heroic acts.

  Stay fit, you matter. 

  Remember that you are what you eat.

Get Fit like a pro

Being superfit is the key, period.

Travelling alone on a maxi enduro, dirty, full loaded bike and most of the time off-road requires some preparation; mental and physical. Let’s talk about the physical one, and I’ll tell you why.

When you are superfit, you are strong and flexible and you have a better quality of life, mindset, mood and.. much better sex. No shortcuts man, when you are in perfect physical condition your metabolic rate is higher, you need less sleep, you have an higher stamina level and much more energy. Your testosterone goes naturally up and you become a “blessed magnet”. Everything in your life is better.

I’m 50, and I look like 35. Why? Because I’m lucky? Because on genetic? Bullshit!
I’m exactly like you.
I look much younger only because I strongly love myself and because of my iron discipline. I’ve had so many accidents riding enduro bikes, 12 fractures and several muscle - ligament injuries. Despite all this, I continue to push myself to be fit. No, super-fit.

Some tips by my personal experience.

First of all, getting up early in the morning. Yes, man. Forget the snooze button on your iPhone and get up! Jumping out of the bed early (and with early I mean 5/5,30 AM) is not only an incredible competitive advantage for your growing process because most of your competitors are still sleeping, but getting up early is a great gift to give yourself. You get more time.

Then, hit the gym. Train every day. Don’t exercise, train! Exercise is for puppies and babies. We need to train! Train and find your best physical shape.
Find a mentor or a good Personal Trainer who can teach you the perfect technic to perform all the exercises you need. Avoid those PT who only show them up, with these ridiculous tattoos and Men's Health cover ABS, find one who really care about you and not himself. Just check his Facebook or Insta account and if the only thing you see is him showing up his muscles, skip him and find another one. He's just a poor guy who needs to feed his ego.
What you need is “Being strong to be Useful”. Also forget about those twats who go to the gym with shaved chest, who waste time measuring their muscles and looking themselves in the mirrors, they are just losers, we are playing in another category. Man up!
You must work with weights 2-3 times a week and do 2 HIITs a week (google it, it works). Become familiar with barbell, dumbbells, elastic band, kettlebells, jumping rope, squats, push & pull ups.
Keep your testosterone high, that’s the key. Don’t smoke, don’t drink too much alcool, throw the TV.
Man, you smoke? Really? Quit now!

Nutrition is a huge part of you path to be super-fit. Eat 5-6 small meals a day, find only natural whole food and of which you know the origins, tons of vegetables, large amounts of protein, and only low-glycemic carbohydrates. Avoid processed sugars, crap. Avoid “white” starchy carbohydrates (or those that can be white), this means white bread, pasta, potatoes, and grains. If you have to ask, don’t eat it. No fried food too.
Drink at least 4-5 liters of filtered water a day and sleep 7 hours.

Me at 50

Being fit is a must, fat people live a life of hardships, everything is harder for them. The only thing you can do for fat people is not to be one of them. Being fat is a choice, and we just choose not to be.

In a nutshell

1. TRAIN a lot. Hit the gym everyday, if you can’t, learn how to train on the way. Do it every single day man. You want a day off? you have to earn it, it will be your reward for something important that you have achieved. Like a pizza, that’s my prize.

Eat like a pro…

2. NUTRITION. 5-6 small meals a day. To start, multiply your current body weight in pounds by 12 to determine the number of calories you should eat. Begin consuming one gram of protein per pound of your body weight every day. Get 30% of your calories from fat meaning, to make these easier to count, convert them to grams. Since a gram of fat contains nine calories. The rest of your calories come from carbohydrates. To calculate these, subtract your fat calories and then your protein calories from the total. Protein and carbohydrates both contain four calories per gram.
Drink tons of filtered water.

3. Rest. Sleep is when your body repairs itself. You can’t borrow it: lack of sleep during the week can’t be compensated with oversleeping on the weekend. Sleep 7 to 8 hours a night. If you can have a nap of 30 minutes in the afternoon, that’s cool.

4. AVOID alcohol. There may be some rare exceptions, but in general, alcohol (as well as other addictive substances) makes people less healthy. A couple of beer with friends I the weekend are fine. A glass or red wine too.

5. LIMIT stress. There are mental habits that help. It helps to believe that everything that happens is for the better. Generally not giving a shit also work. Spend some time in the nature makes life better.

6. Do NOT eat red meat. Eating seafood and wild-caught fish is fine, but farmed red meat is not. Do not listen to the mainstream in order of good quality of protein in the meat, bullshit. Just look the way they the raise and kill animals (growth hormones, fodder etc).

7. ELIMINATE toxic people. Avoid toxic and envy people at all cost and with all means. They just drag you down. Spend some time alone, that’s priceless.