PODCAST - We Took an Alaska Cruise During Training (Here’s What Happened)
===
[00:00:00] Welcome to The Athlete with Asthma Show. I'm your host, Johnny Havey, an ultra runner, endurance athlete, and yes, a guy who's had an inhaler prescribed since birth. Despite doctors telling me I could never play soccer nor run a marathon, let alone 100K ultra, I proved them all wrong. This show is where I share everything I've learned, from breathing techniques to mindset shifts, to help you become the athlete and the person you truly want to be.
So if you're ready to achieve your goals despite limitations, let's get started.
We went on an Alaskan cruise during training, and today on the show, I'm gonna share with you exactly what happened. Specifically, I'm gonna share with you what my fiance and I did right for our health and fitness goals while on the cruise, and what we believe we could improve on [00:01:00] the next time we decide to potentially go on a cruise.
If you have no desire to ever go on a cruise, that's okay. You can apply what I'm sharing today with any sort of travel, and we can really look at what it takes to not only enjoy the experience of wherever you're exploring, but also what to be careful of while traveling related to health and fitness so that you don't go completely off the rails.
So let's start with what we did right. Well, we specifically chose to go on a cruise because we knew that we would have access to a gym, and we researched and found a cruise ship that had a really nice gym, and it also had a running track. So we knew that we wanted to work out every single day, or at least try to work out every single day, and that this is what was gonna set us up to do so.
So when you are looking at any sort of vacation, any sort of trip, [00:02:00] any sort of traveling, this is something that you need to think about. If you like to work out, if it's important to you, if you are a believer like I am in what Dr. Peter Attia teaches in his book Outlive, that research shows that all-cause mortality rates are decreased by 35% just by consistently working out.
Then setting up your trips, your travel, your vacations, your work trips, whatever it is, so that you have access to something to actually do to work out is very important. This is probably the top thing that we did right on our Alaskan cruise. And the cool thing about this is we didn't miss out at all, because part of the Alaskan cruise was seeing amazing views from the ship, and the cruise was set up so that you had the best views from the gym and from the track.
So we would be working out while experiencing the beautiful views of Alaska, of 3 to 5,000-foot mountains coming up out of the ocean. Pretty darn cool. [00:03:00] The second thing we did right is when we were signing up for the trip, we knew that we wanted an all-you-can-drink package, but not from the standpoint of drinking a bunch of alcohol.
We just didn't wanna have to worry about being nickel-and-dimed for every drink we had. I love seltzer water and we love tea, and there's a bunch of other NA options that we like as well, and we wanted to be able to drink as many of them as possible. So we drank NA, non-alcoholic, all day. This was awesome.
This was a huge win on our trip, and it wasn't necessarily easy because you have people drinking all around you, all you can eat, all you can drink. Let's say you're signed up to go to a resort, an all-inclusive resort. This is something you also have to think about. Do you want to be drinking alcohol the whole time, or do you wanna be drinking some amazing NA drinks while you're there?
'Cause you can still enjoy NA without alcohol. I had some virgin strawberry daiquiris, and my [00:04:00] fiance got me into virgin mojitos. The third thing we did is when we were looking at the activities, the excursions that we could go on while on our trip, we looked at excursions that had some sort of exercise.
Now, not a ton, 'cause we also wanted to make sure we managed our energy and didn't wanna get too tired, but excursions were great for walking and hiking. The other thing we did right with excursions, though, is some people, when they book all-inclusive cruises, just travel in general, pack it to the brim with activities.
We did not do that. We made sure to leave space So while we had excursions that were specifically focused on walking and hiking, we made sure that we didn't overpack. We didn't want to be completely exhausted. We wanted to enjoy the trip, wanted to have some downtime. And when we did an excursion, we didn't wanna be on other boats, and buses, and trains, and helicopters, and all this stuff.
We [00:05:00] wanted to just simply go and walk outside and experience nature. That's what we did. We actually saw seven bears when we were in Ketchikan, Alaska. Ketchikan, Alaska, has 8,000 people, 14,000 bears. Well, we saw seven of those 14,000 bears. We also saw bald eagles when we were in Juneau, and we saw tons of whales, and otters, and all sorts of cool things when we were in Alaska.
And we experienced this amazing rainforest in Ketchikan that is known for filtering out half the carbon emissions in the United States. Pretty crazy. So we only booked one official excursion. And we had one that we kinda planned ourselves, and that was it. We had two planned in a seven-day cruise. That's how we left space.
The last thing we did related to fitness and training and just acknowledging that we both have our own fitness goals. We both have our own very specific training programs, very different programs, but very specific to what we're [00:06:00] looking at really doing and achieving in our lives right now. And that's also why we wanted to at least have the option to eat healthy.
And we did decent with this, especially the second half of the cruise. Now, I would say that our meals themselves were pretty healthy, and we both have some allergies and dietary restrictions, and that was a great thing, is actually being able to go and talk to the chef, talk to our waiter, and be able to customize some of the stuff we were ordering.
That was a huge benefit, and the re- one of the reasons why we chose to travel in this way. We didn't get it all right, and we weren't expecting to get it all right, but we did learn some very important lessons for travel in the future. If we do decide to go on another cruise in the future, we know what we need to do.
We know what we did right, and we know some of the things we need to change, including We ate way too [00:07:00] much sugar. Honestly, I didn't think that we overate, if you take the desserts out. I actually felt really good about how much we ate throughout the trip, and I weighed myself before, weighed myself after.
Really only gained three pounds, and it was probably because of the sugary desserts and the sugary drinks. No alcohol, but lots of sugar. Now, typically, if you look at a given week, maybe we have processed sugar once, maybe, maybe twice. But gosh, I don't even think we have processed sugar once in a week.
It's like having homemade banana bread sweetened with coconut sugar or homemade ice cream sweetened with honey. We never have processed sugar, and if we do, it's very sparse in our diets. Well, we went from that to having processed sugar after every meal, at least for the first half of the trip. Then we cut it back, but we didn't cut it back soon enough, and we were still having a couple processed treats every day.
I love soft serve ice cream. I [00:08:00] don't know if I would cut that completely out of my enjoyment in a vacation setting. But having it a couple times in one day, not necessary, and I did that more than once, in addition to having donut with breakfast, some sort of cake or pie for lunch, and tiramisu or crème brûlée for dinner.
So literally having three to four desserts per day. It was way too much. Next time, gonna cut it back to having one per day. Or we should have had only one or two cheat days. Now, depending on how long the trip is, you could increase this, but I really think that if we... God, it pains me saying one, but at the very least, we should have cut it down to three.
We could change this to two to three. How about that? Two to three cheat days instead of the whole week. Now, this does mean eating outside of desserts because, like I said, even though we had the option to eat healthy, we didn't always eat healthy, and when we're at home, we're not eating a ton of [00:09:00] carbs. We have some carbs, but I'm not having pizza every day.
I think I had pizza every day. I probably had a slice of pizza or more every single day during the cruise. That's what I mean, is really breaking it down and having cheat days throughout the vacation, not every single day. And it's amazing at the start. When you start the vacation, you're ready, and you eat all this stuff, and then it starts getting old too.
So this is just a better way to keep the excitement of the vacation longer and to just treat your body a little better. We're definitely gonna figure out how to do this next time. The next thing is- We should have worn masks on the bus, or we could put public or just transportation. My rule nowadays, 'cause I hate getting sick while I'm traveling, hate getting sick in general, but who wants to go on vacation and get sick?
And it happens frequently, and it's because when you're traveling to the airport, there's sick people. When you're on the plane, there's sick people. [00:10:00] When you're on the train, there's sick people. When you're on a bus, there's sick people. Now, on the way to Seattle, and that's where we caught the ship to go up into Alaska, we were pretty careful.
We made sure to wear masks when we were at the airport, when we were on any public transit. And then my rule on planes, and I don't know if this is a good rule or not, but it has worked for me pretty well, is I'll wear a mask till I get into my seat, and then I assess if there's anyone sick around me. And then I either keep the mask on if there is, and I take it off if there isn't.
That's how we ran things. When we were in Ketchikan, Alaska, we were on a bus, and we didn't bring masks with us, and there were a bunch of people who were coughing and who were sick on that bus. And we weren't on there very long, but we told ourselves, 'Well If we're gonna get sick, it, it'll be today." And then we forgot all about it.
And then three days later, we were home, and we were sick, and we're like, "We couldn't have got sick on the plane," because we were sick, like, immediately, within 12 hours of being home. And then [00:11:00] we retraced our steps, and we're like, "Oh, we got sick on that bus. We didn't have masks." This is something I want, really wanna do even more so, is just to not get lazy.
Because getting sick in general sucks. It sucks even more when you get sick traveling or when you get sick coming back from traveling. Because when you come back from traveling, you're already having to integrate back into your routine. Having to integrate back into your routine while sick is terrible.
And then the last thing is, even though we were drinking NA, it doesn't mean we weren't doing it without sugar. That's what we gotta do next time. We were drinking NA with too much sugar. Now, my fiancée stopped doing this well before I did. I kept having the daiquiris. Now, the last couple days of the trip, I really made sure to have tea and sparkling water, but it was so easy to go order a strawberry daiquiri, a piña colada, the thing where they mix it together called a lava flow or a Miami vice or whatever you wanna call it.
There's different names. I was drinking mojitos and some Sprite. You know? I never do any of this in real [00:12:00] life. I make smoothies, but I don't put added sugar in my smoothies. So this is something that, same thing, I would probably only do it two or three times during a week trip instead of every single day.
And then just really enjoy having all the sparkling water and all the tea I could possibly drink. Now, I wanna hear from you. I wanna hear about how you look at health and fitness and training when you're traveling. Maybe you've also done an Alaskan cruise or some other kinda cruise. Maybe you've taken some other sorta trip.
I would love to hear the number one thing you did right for your health and fitness and wellness, and the number one thing you did wrong in the comments below if you're watching this on YouTube. Or if you're listening to this as a podcast, I invite you to send me an email, Johnny, J-O-N-N-Y, @athletewithasthma.com.
And I'll see you in the next episode.
Thanks for tuning in to The Athlete With Asthma show. I hope today's episode [00:13:00] inspired you to overcome any perceived limitations you may have. Remember, your health and wellness journey isn't about perfection, it's about progress. So I invite you to take a small step right now towards your goals. And if you found something helpful here, make sure to subscribe, leave a review, and share the podcast with others on a similar path.
Until next time, keep challenging yourself and redefining what's possible
