A question for the seasoned travelling consultants:Working away from home, and invariably long hours, how do you find time to keep in shape? Do you get a chance to make use of hotel gym facilities?How do you manage eating hotel/restaurant food several nights a week?

I’m not yet a consultant (start in November) but run a small personal training company on the side. I get a lot of business men/women coming to me with seemingly not enough time to workout/exercise. I would generally recommended working out 3 times a week for 45 minutes. Assume you are away from home for 5 days a week. So plan it so that you exercise once at a weekend and twice during the week. One problem I have been told is carrying all the training gear (i.e. trainers, shorts, tops) away from home with you. So I say, eliminate this problem by exercising in your room. Strip down to your underwear, and do simple ‘homemade’ indoor exercises i.e.- Fill the kettle with water and do 20 bicep curls, followed by deltoid raises- Lie your bed covers on the floor and do situps/pressups- Put a chair against a wall and do tricep dips and step-ups I literally have 100’s more of these, so get in contact if you would like a full program writing. Then on the weekend do a long stint of cardio workout i.e. cycling, running etc…The total cost of these exercises in £0 (saving on average £600pa gym fees) and only takes up 2 ¼ hours a week. Hope this helps.

I'm interested in exercises that can be done without carrying around weights etc. I'm not by any means strong but doing curls with a kettle full of (cold) water or doing a couple of dips off a chair sounds trivially easy unless you're a middle aged woman with a BMI of 40. What would be your subsititutes for the following, for example:Pull-ups15Kg per arm bicep curls70Kg squats50Kg bench press (simply putting my feet on a chair doesn't come close)15Kg dumbell flyes40Kg tricep pull-downs40Kg barbell row

Are you asking what hotel furniture can be used as weights?!

Stop joining the chubby q's on the right side of the escalators and walk up on the left...

I just scrap it during the week and train at the weekend when i'm back home (out for a run etc.) but try to eat relatively healthy during the week.

100 press-ups and 100 sit ups per day takes no time and when combined with a couple of good gym sessions at the weekend or when ever possible should be enough.

Thanks for the input people..... I'm starting work in October so I'll see how the fitness level is by Christmas!

keeping fit, i am also into weight lifting and it's indeed difficult to put it into our schedule.here are some tips from my experience:*make a proper and functional working out routine. remember that sometimes less is more in bb. make sure that the trainer that will give you the routine has the knowledge (most people just make u lose ur time). 3 or 4 times a week of 45 minutes will do the job. our time is limited and we want to make the best of our working out*i can not carry weights with me, but they are important for my training. so i need gym facilities. if u are in the same boat and can't work out anywhere else like ur room, just schedule ur working days into the days that u are free or you work less. avoid having ur working days when travelling to the minimum impossible, because of the long hours of working and of any unforessen incidents that may occure,*remember that the difficult thing is not the 45 minutes of working out, but the nutrition during the day. i usually eat 6 times a day, and when in hotels is impossible to have 6 meals cooked. in that cases try to cover the meals that are difficult to be provided by the hotel by snacks or ready foods. for example, when travelling, i buy appropriate food and load the fridge of my room, and make some sandwiches with turkey/light cheese etc that will cover 2 or 3 meals of my day when working. or buy tuna, or yoghurt with oats and eat when in hotel at night.it's difficult, but when there is a will there is a way. good luck!