How to Stay Healthy and Fit as a Digital Nomad

Being a digital nomad is great and all, but the lifestyle has its fair share of difficulties as well. One of these is staying in shape. When you move around quite a bit, it’s not always easy finding the time for a workout. In the past, we’ve always joined a gym when staying in a place for a month or more. Due to the ongoing pandemic, though, we haven’t been to a gym since March 2020.

Instead, we’ve had to find new ways of staying in shape as a digital nomad in this strange year we find ourselves in. In this post, I’ll share a bit about how we manage to stay healthy (or at least attempt to!) and introduce a great program you can do at home called Ripped30.

Finding the Time to Exercise

Time management is definitely not a strong suit for either of us. The day always seems to get away from us, especially when we’re in a new place as digital nomads.

Usually, we have to get up super early to teach our classes with VIPKID. After a little breakfast, I’m usually ready for a nap as I never seem to get much sleep at night.

These days, Rachel moves from one job to the other as she has more classes with Langu.

Over the last few years of our digital nomad journey, we’ve joined a lot of gyms. We try to find one close to our Airbnb so we don’t waste too much time getting there and back, but it still ends up eating a big chunk out of our day.

Cost of Living in Medellin - gym
  • Save
Our gym in Medellin

We enjoyed going to the gym here in Puerto Vallarta the past few years, mainly because we were here in the hot summer months and the gym had A/C! The yoga classes were nice, but we found that the timing wasn’t ideal for us.

When you factor in all the time it took us to get ready, walk down to the bus stop, take the bus across town, put our stuff in the locker, work out, and then get back home, it was very time-consuming.

This left us with less time to work on blog posts, videos, run our social media channels, plan lessons, and all the other things that keep us busy as digital nomads.

Transitioning to At-Home Workouts

Earlier this year, we were living in Medellin as digital nomads.

We found a pretty good gym near our apartment and would go work out 4-5 times a week. That all changed in March when the pandemic hit and everything shut down.

On the day that the lockdown was starting, I went out and bought a little guitar and a yoga mat. It proved to be an excellent decision as we would end up spending the next month living that quarantine life.

  • Save
How hippies get ready for quarantine life…

At first, we both missed going to the gym. It was nice to get out of the house and obviously great to have access to all that equipment. We also found it hard to self-motivate to work out at home.

Not wanting to gain a “quarantine 15,” Rachel knew we had to do something. We took to the interwebs to see what kind of free at-home workouts we could find.

Specifically, we had to find equipment-free workouts. As digital nomads, we don’t want to travel with things like weights. We look for workouts we can do with just a yoga mat and our body weight.

Using Free YouTube Videos

For the past few years, we’ve both been doing yoga here and there by watching YouTube videos.

Yoga With Adriene is one of our favorite channels to follow. She has videos for all levels ranging from a few minutes to more intense hour-long practices. 

Our good friend Amanda Kingsmith from the World Wanderers also has some great yoga practices on her YouTube channel.

  • Save
Following yoga videos in Medellin earlier this year

For cardio and strength workouts, we’ve found a few channels with videos that we like.

One of them is Popsugar Fitness. They have a few 10-minute, no equipment workouts that really work up a sweat in a short amount of time!

I’ve also found a lot of good videos on MadFit, including some that involve no jumping. This is good for digital nomads in an apartment so you don’t disturb the people downstairs!

Recently, I’ve been doing some of the 10 and 20-minute workouts by BullyJuice. This dude is jacked and leads you through some solid at-home workouts!

The Ripped30 Program

While it’s awesome that there are so many excellent YouTube videos that you can watch for free, we end up wasting quite a bit of time scrolling through videos trying to find one to do.

Rachel suffers from decision fatigue and especially found it quite difficult to motivate herself to pick a video or two to do for an at-home workout. Thankfully she found out about a free 7-day challenge that comes with one 11-minute workout every day.

The creator of these videos is Coach Marc, a personal trainer who lives in Los Angeles. When the pandemic hit, his business obviously took a big hit as gyms were closed. He decided to pivot to online workouts and created the challenge as a precursor to a bigger course.

His main program is called Ripped30. It’s a 30-day program you can do from the comfort of your home with nothing but a yoga mat.

There’s a workout plan for each of the 30 days with each day including three videos. There’s a short warm-up video, then two main workouts. In total, it’s about 30 minutes of exercise.

The workouts are spread out across a few categories – strength, HIIT, agility, core, and yoga. Some days are really intense!

You really get a solid, full-body workout.

keep fit as a digital nomad
  • Save
Rachel following Ripped30 from our living room in Puerto Vallarta

Another great thing about the Ripped30 program is that Coach Marc put together a nutrition guide. He gives you a comprehensive list of food to eat and others to avoid as well as a sample meal plan for a few days.

Best of all, you get lifetime access to the program. It’s not like you only have 30 days to do it. We ended up spacing it out and taking the weekends off, so it took us a little more than a month to finish it. At the end of that month, we were in the best shape we’ve been in all year!

ripped30 promo image best workout program for digital nomads
  • Save
The best workout program for digital nomads

Why Ripped30 is the Best Workout Program For Digital Nomads

One of the biggest realizations we’ve had since becoming digital nomads is that time is a finite resource. It’s one of the few things you can’t get back. Most digital nomads are entrepreneurs and need to make a lot of decisions in their day and making decisions takes time. 

Wouldn’t it be nice to not have to make decisions about your workout routine?

As digital nomads, we’ve found Ripped30 to be the perfect program for us. It’s not a huge time commitment but it’s a great workout.

We just roll out the yoga mat, rock out a half-hour, full-body workout, and then go about our day. Most days, we’ll also go for a walk or jog just to get out of the house and get a little more exercise.

The best part is that we can take this program anywhere and access it on any device. Coach Marc has created a really awesome plan that you don’t have to think about. You simply roll out your yoga mat, check the workout plan for that day, and hit play.

The included nutrition guide tells you what foods to eat more of and which ones you should stay away from. I like how it gives you the information so you can make the best decisions for yourself, rather than telling you to adhere to a strict diet. 

We highly recommend signing up for Ripped30 so you can take advantage of the great offer. You don’t even have to get started right away. Go ahead and eat, drink, and be merry this summer, holiday season, or whenever you’re reading this.

keep fit as a digital nomad
  • Save
That feeling when you finish all 30 days of Ripped30

Here’s Everything You Get in Ripped30

  • All of the follow-along at-home workouts
  • Daily Workout Plan
  • Nutrition Guide
  • 30 days of motivational videos and email from Coach Marc
  • Access to the Ripped30 Student Group on Facebook
  • Access to live office hours with Coach Marc

If you’re ready to get in shape at home and have a new workout program you can take on the road with you when it’s safe to travel again, just click the button below to get started with Ripped30!

Check Out the Ripped30 Program!

Final Thoughts

As a digital nomad, it’s easy to get wrapped up in your work and travels. But that shouldn’t keep you from staying in shape. Your health is the most important thing you have – you can’t live the digital nomad lifestyle without it!

So to summarize – the best ways to stay in shape as a digital nomad are:

  • Join a gym near your accommodation
  • Follow free YouTube videos
  • Try the 7-day Free Challenge and ultimately purchase Ripped30 so you can stay in shape without having to think about it much.

I hope this post has given you some new ideas and inspired you to make your health a priority!

Feel free to reach out any time if you have questions about the digital nomad lifestyle, remote work, or if you just want to say hi 🙂

Pin It For Later!

[one_third padding=”0 3px 0 0px”]

how to stay in shape as a digital nomad pin 1
  • Save
[/one_third]

[one_third padding=”0 3px 0 3px”]

how to keep fit as a digital nomad pin 2
  • Save
[/one_third]

[one_third_last padding=”0 3px 0 3px”]

how to stay healthy as a digital nomad pin 3
  • Save
[/one_third_last]

Full Transparency – We are proud affiliates of the Ripped30 program meaning if you enroll in the program through one of the links in this post, we will earn a commission at no extra cost to you! We only promote products we believe in. Your support is greatly appreciated.

Leave a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Scroll to Top
Share via
Copy link
Powered by Social Snap