Fitness

Get fit, de-stress or simply discover a more mindful way of living with our luxury transformative retreats that will uncover the new you. With the fast pace of today’s society, often the time we need to concentrate on ourselves and our goals is overlooked or postponed. Combine beautiful surroundings with some much needed me-time by embarking on a wellness escape in a new destination that will inspire change and help you become the best person you can be.

Get fit, de-stress or simply discover a more mindful way of living with our luxury transformative retreats that will uncover the new you. With the fast pace of today’s society, often the time we need to concentrate on ourselves and our goals is overlooked or postponed. Combine beautiful surroundings with some much needed me-time by embarking on a wellness escape in a new destination that will inspire change and help you become the best person you can be.

Don’t overlook the numerous health benefits mindfulness retreats can have on your health, physical fitness and overall well-being. Practicing mindfulness can be particularly useful for athletes looking to improve their sporting performance and all fitness fanatics seeking to find new ways to optimise their movements and concentration during training. Most importantly, a mindfulness retreat is an easy and accessible way to benefit anyone with the desire to improve their physical fitness. Re-connect your mind and body on a mindful meditation holiday and extend greater appreciation towards your physical senses.

We all have those days—when we feel tired the moment we wake up and unable to resist crawling back to bed. Sometimes we feel mentally foggy or irritable, it’s no surprise that we go through a lull in the middle of the day when even a smidgen of energy seems impossible. Getting a quick natural energy fix can be really easy by switching up your daily routine or escaping on a sleep retreat to banish lethargy and rediscover a good night’s sleep. Wherever you are in the world, start your day right as we share five healthy ways to energise your morning!

Up the ante this Father’s Day and treat the world’s greatest Dad to a healthy activity break. There’s nothing quite like bonding in the great outdoors with a range of active holidays from tennis in Portugal and golf in Cyprus to a yoga retreat in Turkey and a fitness sports break in Tenerife. Choose a tailor-made health and fitness holiday designed around his favourite pastimes and give your father a fun filled break, to make this the best Father’s Day.

If you are in search of a tranquil setting for a re-energising yoga retreat in a far flung destination, then look no further than our exclusive selection of yogi holidays concealed within picturesque mountain regions across the globe. From the secluded beach setting of Oman’s Musandam Peninsula secluded by a rocky mountain terrain, to the tranquil calmness of New Zealand’s Southern Alps, each mountain yoga retreat seeks to connect your inner well-being with its stunning mountainous surroundings. Open your mind and body to the beautiful scenery as you enhance your practice during highly personalised yoga sessions and the group classes on offer at these unique mountain yoga retreats.

For those wanting to slim down and cleanse on a detox holiday, our top picks of healthy retreats will have you shedding the pounds and ridding your body of toxins in no time. Whilst the body detoxifies, weight loss jumps into action as the body rids itself of the initial excess it doesn’t need. These unwanted deposits are the products of our bad eating habits and sedentary lifestyle. Our weight management ideals are too easily scuppered by the ease of the 21st Century, and we can soon find our best intentions replaced with toxifying go-to foods.

Keeping fit is a lifestyle choice you have to commit to every day in order to maintain your results. With regular exercise, a consistent diet regime and a good attitude you can keep in healthy shape. We’ve outlined below our top simple ways to keep your body in shape. They’re not get ripped quick schemes but they’re useful to bear in mind for sustainable and easy ways to keep your health on track:

Walk, Walk and Walk Some More

Walking is the most natural form of aerobic exercise for us. Our ancient ancestors were all nomadic hunter gatherers, getting most of their aerobic exercise from walking day after day. Human beings evolved over millennia to walk, continuing to do so is therefore vital for your physical health. It burns calories, limbers up your joints and pumps oxygenated blood throughout your body. It may not be the most strenuous form of exercise but it is a calming and productive, low-impact form of aerobic exercise that is vital for maintaining your shape. Walking has a variety of mental benefits, such as alleviating anxiety and helping to combat depression, making it a double-edged sword in maintaining both mental and physical health!

Learn to Love your Regime

Having a strict regime is one of the most vital ingredients for most forms of productivity. All experts from leading academics to Olympic athletes will attest to the necessity of a regular work schedule for success. A targeted regime eliminates distractions and keeps you on track to make consistent progress.

If you need to keep your body in shape, create a plan, complete with achievable goals, for a month’s worth of exercise and meal plans. This proactive approach will give you a blueprint to work from. Stick to your regime as best you can and you’ll eliminate the temptation to break your healthy eating or stop exercising. You can still have fun while you stay in shape, just make sure you prioritise what your body needs both exercise and diet wise in order to achieve your goals!

Try New Ways to Exercise

Regularly changing your workouts or the types of exercise you do will keep you engaged with your targets. Boredom through repetition can derail your health goals. For almost all people, running 5 miles a day, on the same route for 6 months is a challenge for one’s focus. New ways of exercising will work different muscle groups and fight off fitness fatigue with an improved focus.

Whatever your usual style of exercise, try to do something completely different: an exercise which works an entirely different muscle group or part of the body. Say you’re a rower, try swapping a rowing session for a few lengths at the local pool. Say you’re a cyclist, do something with your upper body like rock climbing or calisthenics. Keep it fresh and you’ll keep your interest – perhaps even discovering new-found loves for different activities in the process!

Avoid the Fad

Nutrition is the biggest factor in managing your weight. Regardless of whether you’re looking to gain weight or lose fat, nutrition is where it all starts. A balanced diet of around 2000 calories will maintain the weight of an average woman, 2500 for the average man.

A common issue with staying in good shape are the results of yo-yo or fad dieting. This is where diets are adopted for brief periods, during which time the person’s weight drops dramatically, only for it to be regained once the diet is over. Avoid choosing a temporary diet to lose weight quickly if you want to maintain a healthy body shape. Pick a well-balanced, varied diet that meets your calorie requirements, perhaps with the advice of a GP or nutritionist. Avoid fad diets that only offer short-term results and could form unhealthy long-term habits.

Pilates and Yoga for Longevity

Flexibility, pain-free joints and relieved muscles are invaluable supplements to a strict regime of exercise and controlled nutrition. Yoga and Pilates are fantastic for preventing injury and keeping up the physical maintenance of your body. The motions of yoga ease post-workout muscular tension and practicing Pilates recorrects damaged parts of the skeletal system. They are full body workouts which aid the fabric of our anatomy.

Practicing some self-love in this way will aid your recovery time and help with your performance. Yoga and Pilates work on the muscle fibres, the tendons, the joints, the sockets all the connective parts of your body that we often forget as integral to maintaining a good figure. These gentler forms of exercise will add longevity to your fitness, allowing you to keep in shape for longer.

Stay Strong!

Staying in shape is a challenge but with a positive attitude and the right support, it’s a lot easier! Maintain a can-do attitude and look for solutions rather than problems. If you do find yourself struggling, talk it out with others. You can find support from friends and family or from professionals: personal trainers, nutritionists, and general practitioners.

Wherever you are in your fitness journey, whether you’re just starting to get in shape or just want to maintain your hard-earned physique, a fitness-focused holiday could help you achieve your health and fitness goals.

Talk to one of our Travel Specialists on 0203 397 8891 or contact us here to discuss tailor-making your perfect fitness holiday.

Following decades of changing ideas of the perfect female form, it has become increasingly difficult for women to feel confident in their own bodies. Now in an era where women of all body types are working with what god gave them, more women are now turning to fitness holidays to achieve their individual body goals. From defining your abs on a SUP Morocco break to full body toning on a Pilates bootcamp in Thailand, work with what you've got and target your individual body goals on a fitness holiday in dream destinations worldwide.

If you haven’t swung from the rafters with TRX suspension training before, the chances are you have already seen or read about it. Invented by a Navy Seal to keep his fellow troops fit in remote parts of the world, it involves the use of hanging bands to engage muscles using just your own body weight. By changing the way you angle your body, every muscle can be engaged in a pull or push motion.

Although you might think that a few days of rest while you’re on the road won’t hurt, it’s crucial that you stay active even then because you can easily fall out from your workout routine. If you want to get in shape and achieve your fitness goals, every day counts, so you shouldn’t let yourself skip your exercise no matter how tempted you are. In addition, you might even feel inspired to work out on a beautiful sandy beach or climb a mountain nearby. Either way, you should have everything you need to stay fit, especially if you won’t have access to the gym while you’re away.

If you find yourself struggling to shift those extra pounds, take the time to re-assess and learn a healthier lifestyle in the lap of luxury with our 8 best spas for weight loss. Through a combination of indulgent spa treatments, fitness classes, nutrition and educational lectures, our healthy spa holidays will help you learn not only how to achieve, but how to maintain your ideal weight long-term.

The Easter break is the best time to emerge from winter hibernation and venture abroad on a fitness holiday. Reconnect to your passion and purpose by embarking on a R&R getaway to make sustainable changes along with like-minded people. Discover our best Spring fitness retreats for self-improvement. From local too long haul, and from the affordable to the luxurious, ditch the Easter eggs in favour of one of our exclusive Fusion Fitness™ Holidays. It’s never too late to set your wellness goals.

We’ve all heard about the wonderful health benefits of yoga, but there are so many different variations that it’s sometimes difficult to know what each one entails and which one would best suit your body. It’s important to have an understanding of what each style offers, so that you can choose one which will most benefit your fitness regime. So whether you are looking to embark on a revitalising yoga holiday to a far-flung location or simply want to get involved with a local class; here is a breakdown of eight different types of yoga.

Our luxury yoga holidays and retreats feature different types of yoga, so you’ll be able to practise the style you enjoy the most if you’re an experienced yogi, or have a go at all of them and find the best one for you. You’ll benefit from expert yoga teaching and guidance, in exotic destinations spanning from St. Lucia, Spain and Italy to India, Thailand and Bali. You’ll return home feeling reinvigorated with a desire to get back on your yoga mat.

1. Vinyasa yoga

Get flowing with Vinyasa yoga at Kamalaya

This type of yoga is often referred to as Vinyasa flow yoga, as it consists of different poses linked together with movement, and synchronised with breathing. Your yoga teacher will instruct you to move from one pose to another whilst inhaling or exhaling; generally when moving upwards you’ll inhale, and when moving downwards you’ll exhale. A Vinyasa yoga class can be fast-paced or slow, and allows a lot of room for the personality of the individual teacher who is taking the class. So, it’s important to find a yoga teacher whose style you enjoy, and be ready for something different when you begin a new class.

Try Vinyasa yoga at Kamalaya in Thailand

2. Kundalini Yoga

Experience "the mother of all yoga" at SwaSwara

This style of yoga has been described as “the mother of all yoga” as it is one of the oldest recognised forms. Kundalini is the word used to describe the untapped potential inside all of us, which this yoga practice seeks to target and release. It’s a very active form of yoga which includes common poses, as well as some of its own unique poses, chanting, meditation and sounds to stimulate your creative energy. People who practise it are said to finish their session feeling extreme happiness and tranquillity.

Try Kundalini yoga at SwaSwara in India

3. Ashtanga Yoga

Improve your circulation with Ashtanga at The BodyHoliday

Ashtanga is a form of moving meditation and a more vigorous type of yoga, perfect for people looking for a more fast-paced workout whilst on a fitness holiday. Breathing is synchronised with movement, producing an intense heat to sweat out toxins and improve your circulation. This type strictly follows a particular order of eight steps, each with a fixed number of breaths and movement which help maintain a healthy heart and stabilise the mind. Strength, sweat and stamina are the three main aspects of this form, which is said with your body’s natural detoxification process and leave you feeling restored.

Try Ashtanga yoga at The BodyHoliday in St. Lucia

4. Hot Yoga

Detox your body with hot yoga at Absolute Sanctuary

Otherwise known as Bikram yoga, this type is made up of a series of 26 poses and two breathing exercises carried out in a specific order in an extremely hot room. Steam is pumped into the studio to create a sauna-like environment, with temperatures reaching around 40°C, which is said to benefit joints, reduce the risk of injury and increase your flexibility. Also, due to the extreme heat, you’ll be sweating profusely meaning it’s a great component to a detox holiday. Also your heart rate will be elevated more than usual, making your body work harder and allowing you to see better results.

Try hot yoga at Absolute Sanctuary in Thailand

5. Iyengar Yoga

Try Iyengar yoga to encourage good posture at SHA

This style of yoga focuses on breath control and detail, precision and alignment when carrying out the different poses, to encourage relaxation, good posture and balance. It features hundreds of different yoga poses and fourteen types of breathing, so you can progress gradually from the easier forms to the more advanced movements. Often props are used, such as belts and blocks, to support the body in certain poses, reducing the risk of injury. This makes it a perfect form of yoga for people looking for rehabilitation on a healing holiday or those who need a gentle and very supportive exercise.

Try Iyengar yoga at SHA Wellness Clinic in Spain

6. Restorative Yoga

De-stress with restorative yoga at The Farm

Learn to reach deep relaxation and detach yourself from the stresses of daily life with restorative yoga. This will improve the functioning of your immune system and aid with specific wellness issues like digestion, insomnia, fertility and general fatigue, to name but a few. Props, like blankets and blocks, are used to support the body so you’re able to hold certain positions for longer and gain the utmost benefits of each stretch. It is a very gentle class which doesn’t see the body temperature rise as much as in other yoga classes, and is a perfect accompaniment to more cardio exercises.

Try restorative yoga at The Farm in the Philippines
 

7. Pranayama breathing

Experience different types of Pranayama at Ananda

This is a traditional practice of breath control used in yoga, which has been found to relieve stress and even improve respiratory conditions, such as asthma. There are several different types of Pranayama breathing, including inhaling and exhaling through alternate nostrils, chanting whilst exhaling and slow inhales then quick exhales. It is said to purify the mind and soul, strengthen your heart, enhance the proper functioning of your organs, remove toxins from your body, reduce blood pressure and get rid of any negative emotions that you feel, like anger, arrogance and greed.

Try Pranayama at Ananda in India

8. Hatha

Learn the basics at Marbella Club
Hatha is one of the more common types of yoga, and is great for learning the basics and reconnecting your body and mind. It describes gentle and basic yoga classes with no flow between poses, unlike Vinyasa yoga. It consists of six slow movements, breathing exercises and meditation, so it’s a brilliant place to start for beginner yogis. It’s also a great choice for people looking to learn effective relaxation techniques whilst on a spa holiday. It is designed to open up the body and allow the free flow of energy, to create balance and harmony.

Enjoy Hatha yoga at Marbella Club

Talk to one of our Travel Specialists on or contact us here to discuss tailor-making your perfect yoga holiday.

Taking your significant other on a magnificent winter wellness escape can be a good way to rekindle your love, escape the stressful everyday-life, and simply have some well-deserved time for two. Here at Health and Fitness Travel, we take into consideration the many interests, different types of couples have. There are couples who are into fitness, couples who long for adventure, or who simply want to have a quiet and peaceful time with each other. So here are some suggestions for winter wellness destinations for healthy couples of all kinds, from the sporty and adventurous couple to the luxury-loving couple, we’ve got you covered:

If your Instagram needs a bit of sprucing up, then these insta-worthy healthy escapes are the perfect solution. From a coffee plantation in Java and mountain views in Thailand to the crystal-clear waters of Oman and the stunning animals of South Africa, a stint at any one of our paradise-like retreats will have you taking photos so good even National Geographic will be jealous. The incredible fitness activities and nutritious meals will give you the healthy glow you need to star alongside these breath-taking backdrops. So, get your cameras at the ready because these healthy escapes are most definitely worthy of the #NoEdit hashtag.

Health and fitness holidays are becoming more and more popular, as they not only allow you to enjoy beautiful natural surroundings, but return home fitter than when you left. Fitness holidays are built around your health and well-being and aim to challenge you physically in a holistic experience that will leave you feeling reinvigorated.

Escape the stresses of modern life and take the time to rejuvenate your mind, body and soul on one of our luxury sanctuary spa holidays in idyllic destinations worldwide. Treat yourself to a replenishing spa break while improving all aspects of your health and wellness with a vast range of luxury spa treatments and therapies, from an Ayurvedic massage to colonic hydrotherapy. With our wide variety of specialist spa holidays, from juice fasting to fitness, and weight-loss to sleep enhancement, compliment your indulgent wellness holiday with daily fitness classes, activities and healthy cuisine for your ideal sanctuary spa escape.

The 10^th to the 16^th of June marks . So whether you’re travelling alone, looking for some peace and quiet, or if you’ve got a fitness boot-camp in mind, we have you covered.

Losing weight can be difficult and many of us have felt like giving up on dieting and even considered surgery to get rid of that extra weight. We offer some tips on how to lose weight easier just by eating the right foods. There is no need to use weight-loss pills and slimming products, a healthy balanced diet will complement exercise and therefore help you lose those unwanted extra pounds. Don't reach for that chocolate bar; instead indulge in our top 8 foods to aid weight loss: