What’s up wellness warriors? Many of you know that my family lived in Germany for six months last year and I’ve been taking some time to write about my experiences and impressions here on MMW. Travel and life abroad really hit a lot of mental and emotional wellness spots, but I’d like to swing back around and talk about physical wellness today. Specifically, how I needed to make adjustments to cooking, eating, and exercise to feel my best while in Germany.
If you haven’t already read my impressions on Germans and their relationships to eating and exercise, check it out. These will provide a sort of context, if you will. Now obviously, my family is from the United States, although both my husband and I do have German ancestry (like way, way back there). So we were bringing our North American habits and customs with us to Germany.
The other thing to be aware of, and I have mentioned this during my Germany series a couple of times, is that we were living in a small furnished apartment. This was not a typical rental or a long term Air BnB situation, though. Basically think what a college dorm would be if it had separate living and sleeping spaces and a kitchen and bathroom.
While I had a kitchen with all the necessary appliances, it wasn’t big. And I don’t mean small in the way American’s typically think of European kitchens are small. I mean small like tiny house small. Truly. I am 5 foot 7 inches tall. When we stretch out our arms, tip of fingers to tip of fingers is approximately equal to our height. If I was touching one wall with my fingers, lengthwise I had about another two feet of space. Width wise, I couldn’t fully stretch my hands. Meaning the whole kitchen was about 5 feet by 7 feet.
This created certain challenges in terms of cooking and eating that had to be dealt with. Our fridge/freezer was about 1/4 the size of ours at home. So I obviously couldn’t store as much, which meant I wasn’t doing a full blown grocery shop once per week. I had a tendency to do a bigger grocery shop on Saturday and get all of our dry goods and meat for the week. But I would be at the store often throughout the week to top off produce and other non-perishables.
This meant my meal planning game had to be on. On like Donkey Kong. I am a meal planner anyhow and typically I plan 6 dinners per week (some of which are leftovers because I’m not a machine). If there are any days where we absolutely need something then that gets locked in; however I usually plan for some flexibility. This allows us to still get a healthful dinner on the table, but if my boys want to save the stir fry for later in the week and have tacos now, I can make that happen.
But doing this in Germany took on a whole new meaning. I couldn’t have that kind of flexibility because I wasn’t able to keep all the ingredients for every single meal in our apartment at the same time. So not only did I have to meal plan, but what I planned to make on each day was pretty well set in stone otherwise it ended up in many more grocery trips. On the upside, we generated much less food waste than usual because we were eating things before they went bad.
I also had to meal plan lunches for myself and the little guy. At home I usually meal prep for myself for the week, but my little guy goes to child care where lunch is provided three days per week. He would eat what I ate at least one of the days when he was home with me, but he was used to variety. So I planned and prepped for myself as I typically did, but I had to make sure I had a rotating stable of lunches my little guy would like and eat. Luckily for me, my kiddo likes fruit and veggies and simple protein (like chicken and eggs) which I was able to keep on hand easily.
The other issue was the layout of the kitchen itself. It was wonky. It’s the only word I have for it. It made using both the stovetop and the oven at the same time at best extremely difficult and at worst a fire hazard. For the record, I’m not complaining. I had fully functioning appliances and we had received a layout of the apartment before we arrived, so I knew what to expect.
Because of that, most of the recipes I scanned and brought with me or that I looked up on the internet were specific. Simply put, anything I could do on a sheet pan or in one pot/pan on the stovetop was a winner. Everything also needed to make leftovers so that I didn’t have to cook every night. Bonus points because those types of meals seriously cut down on clean up, too. It did mean that we rotated through the same dozen or so dinner recipes the entire six months.
But we were fed and fed well. Meals included a variety of fruits and veggies of all different colors just like they would at home. Meals were also based on a variety of protein sources, just like at home. And a side note, most of the meat we consumed tasted much better than US counterparts (and as I’m sure you have guessed, I buy organic/free range/grass fed/local when possible). So I guess it is okay that we had stovetop burrito bowls 239876 times in six months.
Exercise was another interesting shift. Just like cooking and eating, it was neither better nor worse than being at home. Just different. I’ve thrown it out there during this series that we biked, like A LOT, in Germany. It was our mode of transportation around town. And that’s just how many people roll there (see what I did?).
At home, I have access to a gym at the university where I teach. Which is awesome and I take full advantage. But I enjoy lots of different types of exercise. I like to be outside for a walk or a jog (which is obvious if you follow me on Instagram). And I have never been of the school of thought that you NEED a gym to work out. I can be the queen of at home exercise. I could have joined a gym in Germany (there were two fairly close by), but I opted not to.
First and foremost, I was full time stay at home mama in Germany and arranging child care for me to go to the gym a couple times a week would have been too many hoops of flaming fire to jump through. Second, as I said, it is not necessary to have a full gym at your disposal to get a decent workout. My son likes to be outside just as much as I do, and I taught him to ride both a trike and a scooter while getting plenty of walking and jogging in. When it was too wet or cold for that, enter Fitness Blender (you guys know I love that site).
I also brought a set of therabands with me. Because an exercise routine isn’t complete without some strength training. I brought three handle-less flat bands and three loop bands, all of varying resistance levels. These took up literally no more suitcase space than a light sweater. And I could loop them around furniture in the apartment or my own body for a great workout. These also came in handy to take to the exercise station for variety.
So while it wasn’t exactly the same as home, I maintained my five day a week exercise during our entire stay in Germany. All it took was a bit of planning (therabands) and some flexibility (hah!) in terms of what type of workout was being done on any given day. When you add in all the biking and that I was running after my toddler more than usual, I think I did okay.
I am often asked by students and clients what is the most important aspect of exercise and diet. My answer is always the same: consistency. For anything to work and show benefits it has to be something you are willing to continue doing, even in the face of change. And when change does come around, you have to plan if you want to maintain that consistency.
Until next time, be well friends!
