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Remote work gives us a lot of freedom but at the same time, we have to be more diligent about certain things like our health and fitness.
Our NOMADS system is a collection of our most important tools and strategies for staying in shape as a remote worker or digital nomad.
The main topics are:
- Nutrition
- Organization
- Movement Snacks
- Attitude
- Diversified Training
- Stress management and recovery
Let’s have a look at each one!
Nutrition
- Protein and water with every meal
Everybody could eat more protein. Most people need to drink more water. Prioritize those two and your diet is already 80% in the green. - 80/20 rule
Speaking about 80%, the 80/20 rule is an easy strategy for making food choices. 80% of what you eat should support your physical health while 20% can be food for the soul aka desserts, snacks, or fast food.
Read more about the 80/20 approach here. - Intermittent fasting
It’s not for everybody but it can help with focus and energy. Especially when working remotely you want to avoid falling into an energy hole during the morning since this can mess up your whole day.
Not eating for 16 hours is really no big deal, you should give it a try.
Organization
- Sunday Habit
The freedom to work from where you want also means you have less outside structure. While working in the office the gym might have been on the way home, now you can easily go from desk to couch without remembering to work out.
Pre-scheduling your week’s health and fitness activities on Sunday makes it easier to follow through and ensures you do the right things at the right time. - Never skip twice
Always following a schedule is unrealistic. But doing something twice in a row is already forming a habit so when you have to skip a training session, make 100% sure you are doing the next one. - Have a plan B
If you are moving around a lot and your environment changes often, you must have flexible self-care routines ready. Most of the time that means having a flex-workout available that fits your current situation and training goal.
Movement Snacks
- Don’t let the stiffness creep in
The best way to avoid aches and pains is not to let them start in the first place. You can keep yourself loose and limber by snacking on small mobility and strength movements during the day. Check out more about movement snacks here. - Floor work
Working on the floor is the easiest way to start snacking. Because every position gets uncomfortable after a few minutes, you are automatically reminded to move. Get a small desk or box, a mat, and give it a try.
If you don’t like it at first, start with taking calls while sitting on the ground. - Break time reminder
If you can’t work on the floor, break time reminders for your computer are also a good way to get your snacks in.
Set them to pop up every 3-5 minutes for 10 seconds to readjust your posture and relax your face. And every 25 minutes stand up and do a few squats or arm rotations.
Attitude
- Health as a prerequisite for work-life balance
In the discussion about work-life balance, we don’t often talk about physical health. Probably because we group it under “Life” since going to the gym is a free-time activity.
But without health and fitness, there is no balance.
You can’t produce good work or enjoy life when you are too out of shape. Prioritizing your well-being and performance is the foundation on which you can build a career and a life. - Long-term focus
A foundation is good but when building something you should also know what the result is supposed to look like.
Imagine yourself as 100 years old.
What things that seem small today like taking a walk, wiping your own butt, or carrying your groceries do you still want to be able to do?
From there you can backward plan what you need to train for today. - Form follows function
For most of us, it’s important to look attractive.
However, having aesthetics as a training goal will lead to superficial training and no results.
Focusing instead on becoming strong, healthy, and productive will get your body in the most attractive shape as a side effect.
Diversified Training
- Don’t specialize
To be well-rounded and healthy you can’t just focus on one thing.
Yoga, cardio, weight training, calisthenics, mobility, whatever it is, you need all of it. And the stuff you like the least is probably what you should do more of. - 3D Strength training
Strength training is essential for everybody. Posture, metabolism, injury resilience, and daily functionality are all dependent on your muscles working well. 3D training covers the 3 dimensions of resistance training, power/maximum strength, muscle building, and strength endurance.
Neglecting one of these will hold you back in all other areas as well. - Baseline Cardio AKA walking
It’s not like old people suddenly start a walking habit, it’s people with a walking habit that get old.
Walking to places you have to go to is a good start but walking just for walking sake is even better. 1 hour every day is a great goal, ideally in nature.
Stress management and recovery
- Regular, tech-free sleep
Good sleep is the most important factor in managing stress levels and ensuring you recover well from your training.
Aim for regular sleep times and avoid screens and bright lights at least 1 hour, better 2, before bedtime. This will make your sleep more restful.
When you then wake up well-rested, do not immediately stare at your phone. - Outdoor mornings
Instead, get out of the house! Work-life balance begins in the morning and when you start your day outside you are already ahead of the stress.
Just a quick stroll around the block or even just standing on your balcony for 10 minutes makes a big difference.
Bonus points if you can make an early morning workout happen in the park. - Breathing practices and meditation
There are endless stress management tools, the important part is that you pick some that work for you and stick to them.
You need at least one strategy to prevent stress from building up over time and a way to reduce acute stress.
Regularly meditating can help with resilience while breathing practices like the recovery breathing pattern can get you out of a stressful state.
As you have seen, our NOMADS system is quite comprehensive so don’t feel like you have to implement everything at once. Or even ever.
Movement snacks and stress management are a good entry point to improving your overall health and performance. From there adding a training program and some diet strategies makes sense.
Pick what you think might work best for you in the beginning and start to make some changes today.
If you need support with any of that, we are here!
Enjoy and keep moving,
Joe
