Healthy Travel Tips

Hey folks, it's Ben Greenfield and I'm actually in Florida right now on my way down to Jamaica to do the triathlon. Jamaica. As I promised, I wanted to answer questions that you sent to me via Facebook about traveling. And one came in from Troy this morning and I'm sitting in front of my computer right now. I'm going to go ahead and pull up Troy's question. And Troy says, when traveling especially for an endurance event, do you partake of the ethnic part or regional food choices? If so, pre race or post race, do you bring bottled water if the water supply is suspect? What about antimalarial meds or travel related immunizations? Do you carry travel health insurance? Is there need for concern regarding water quality of the lake or ocean on the swim leg of the triathlon? Wow. We could cover a lot here. But yeah, let me tell you a little bit about what I do. I'll go through your questions in the order in which you ask. The first is about the ethnic or regional foods. I'm a foodie, I love to eat foods. I actually really like to eat spicy foods, which can be a bit dangerous, especially before you're going out to swim and bike and run. So what I do is while I do partake in many of the ethnic and regional foods in the areas that I'm in, first of all, I typically try to get the spices on the side so that I can spice according to my taste, especially before the race. And I, I'd go with less spice than I normally would. The next thing that I do is I avoid anything that I'm really not used to eating or haven't recognized before. Like fried octopus and coconut oil, for example, would be something I'd save for after the race and not consumed before. Whereas I'll do things that I've eaten back home. Things like say pad Thai or a bowl of rice with chicken or things of that nature. While I'm actually in the days leading up to the race, when I get to Jamaica, I'll be at an all inclusive resort and I'll kind of bring my video camera to the buffet and show you how I navigate the buffet there and what foods you can choose that are actually safe and healthy.

Next question, do I bring bottled water if the water supply is suspect? I do not. I have yet to go to do a triathlon in an area where you can at least get your hands on bottled water. And that's the thing is most triathlons.

And I guess maybe it is a little bit of a pansy sport from that perspective, they take place in touristy areas. You know, even when I go compete in, say, like, Thailand, it's a very touristy area. It's Phuket, you know, Europeans and expats and folks from Australia and New Zealand, they go there on vacation all the time. And so there's plenty of bottled water. These aren't places that are out in the middle of nowhere that I go compete in. Frankly, they're. They're pretty posh and they're not all that bad. I don't want to give you the impression that I'm out in the middle of the wilderness with blood and sweat rolling off my face as I sit down or kneel down to sip from a muddy puddle. It's not like that. But I do travel with oil of oregano. The reason I travel with that is it has some good antifungal and antibacterial properties. For example, before I hop on a plane, I put about four to five drops under my tongue, get it into my mouth so I can kind of take care of some of the airborne pathogens. I'll drink it from a glass of water a couple times during the day while I'm traveling. And especially with regards to your polluted water question and swimming in polluted water, I'll use the stuff before a triathlon just to minimize my chances that much more of picking up like a parasite or giardia or something of that nature from polluted waters. Because whether in America or overseas, stagnant body of water can be a huge issue when it comes to exposing your body to a lot of nasty stuff. So I travel with action wipes, which are kind of like a type of wipe with some essential oils on them and some antibacterial stuff that you can wipe down your body with after the race. I travel with the oil oregano that I take sublingually before the race and after the race. Those things help a little bit. The other thing that I always travel with are high, high amounts of a high quality probiotic. The reason I travel with that is because if you are exposed to a food allergen, food poisoning, or a parasite that's coming into your gut and attacking your immune system, which is mostly in your gut. Having a good probiotic and also a good digestive enzyme on hand can really, really help you battle that stuff. So I double up the probiotics when I'm out and about. And I'm traveling for two reasons. One, because I'm exposed to more, and two, because at home I'm eating yogurt and drinking kefir and kombucha and eating lots of fermented and pickled foods that have high amounts of natural probiotics in them. And when I am on the road, I'm not getting that stuff quite so much. It's just harder to find. Finally, regarding or next to last question, antimalarial meds or travel related immunizations? Yes, I've had the basic immunizations that are necessary for traveling to the areas that I'm going to, the MMR and the polio. And I don't even remember all the ones that I've had. But I used to do a lot of volunteering in emergency rooms all through college. I really was kind of infatuated with medicine and spent many, many hours in the emergency room and shouting physicians and going into surgeries. And so I had all the immunizations and I've also gotten all the, all the ones necessary for travel. As far as immunizing kids, it's a whole different topic. But because my kids have done some international travel with me, I also have them immunized against some of the diseases like getting the MMR and some of the things that we may experience in the countries that we're going to. Health insurance, Believe it or not, in most cases, if you've got a decent credit card.

They'Ll take care of your travel insurance needs when it comes to stuff going wrong with your luggage. And sometimes they'll take care of the occasional health issue. But a lot of health insurance policies you can tack on like a travel insurance to that. Basically what I do is I've got a high liability health insurance program that covers me for catastrophic events that occur internationally. And then I also carry a private health savings account that kind of covers me up to that point so I can spend money tax free on health issues that do come up that kind of are below the deductible of that high deductible health insurance policy.

And that's about it. And of course I have a really, really solid health care directive for if I should get hit by a bus or.

Wind up basically coming close to death or dying. I've also got a really, really solid will and kind of have all that stuff set in place. And frankly, that makes me a lot more comfortable with travel knowing that if something does happen, everything from my will to my health care directive to my life insurance is going to kick into place and take care of those close to me. But again, let's not blow things out of proportion. I'm going to pretty posh places when I do triathlons, and there's really not much of a risk of, like, a water buffalo coming out and stomping you to death while you're out on a run. So those are the responses to Troy's questions. And if you have questions that you'd like me to answer via video as I'm out and about traveling, send them in. Call them in to 877-209-9439, Skype to Pacific Fit, or ask your questions via Facebook. Over@facebook.com bgfitness Talk to.