Staying in shape and Erasmus. Are they compatible?

Hello, everyone! From when I started this blog up until now, together we have journeyed through the most interesting things in the university city Aberystwyth: accommodation, learning agreement, the geography of the city... So today I have decided that today's entry will be something a little more... different? The theme of today's entry is how to stay in shape when you are away from home, or in my case, being on Erasmus.

Firstly, we all know that when students go to live abroad they tend to stop looking after themselves, eat badly and well, a bit of everything happens. The first few days, throwing a handful of spaghetti in the pan and then adding some tomato sauce honestly seems like a work of art. Those bechamel stuffed peppers that mum makes are like something from God. This post isn't going to be dedicated to those mythical healthy and easy recipes, but I am going to tell you the weekly routine that I followed to stay in shape escape everything for a bit. Let's go!

When I arrived in Aberystwyth, I wanted to sign up for the gym. Being used to the gym from UVigo, well, the one in Aber... It honestly looked like paradise. It was enormous, it had every kind of room to do strength exercises, volume, stretching, cardiovascular exercise, machines, and classes for every kind of activity you could possibly think of, it was amazing! (Here is the link where you can see all the facilities that it has, if you are a bit curious or just want to procrastinate: http://www.aber.ac.uk/en/sportscentre/gym/) What was the problem? The money. It was too expensive and you had to pay for the whole year. I was only there for a semester so it wouldn't work out for me.

It was in this moment that I had to find an alternative for myself. I can't stand not doing anything active for more than three days in a row, so at the start, as it wasn't too cold, I started to go running in the evenings or in the mornings, depending on what time my classes were. In the mornings, I would have breakfast, have a rest and then go running outside the halls. I always did the same route: I went towards the supermarket, kept going completely straight along an enormous street which went on (as you will be able to see in the photos) for 45 minutes to an hour, more or less. This street was ideal for running because the ground was flat and it was quite wide, also, there were super beautiful stretches that were full of nature and other lovely bits full of fairy-tale-like houses. At the end of the route I arrived at an enormous field where the horses would run (very "Spirit" like) and there were some amazing views. It is a shame that I don't have any photos to show you... At the end, I would go back and do my daily shop in the supermarket, go back to my halls, shower and then I was done. There were a few days where I was motivated and I went down to the bay to run along that route. I honestly loved it because there were lots of runners and I don't know about you, but doing an activity with others makes me love it even more. The bad thing is that you then have to go up an incline back to the halls (I would take the bus but who goes to the gym and goes up in the lift?) and some days it was too late or cold.

It was then when things started to get a bit more complicated: the gym was too expensive, the daytime hours were too short, and the days were colder... So I decided to do exercise in my room (so nobody can say that I'm a person that makes excuses!). You are going to laugh, but on Youtube there are very in-depth tutorials where, for example, in 20 minutes following those you end up basically doing the same amount of exercise as you would do running for 20 minutes. The good thing is that the shower was only two steps away from my room. A lot of people in my residence went to the gym simply because the fact that they had signed up and were paying for it motivated them (wow), but I discovered that you can do basically the same thing at home if you try hard enough. It is clear that if you want to be like The Rock then yes, you have to go to the gym, but for me, what I was doing was more than enough. And it was free! And saying that, bit by bit I became more interested by small space exercises and I started doing floor work. I didn't have a gym mat, but I put down my bath towel and well, something is better than nothing. I managed to do the same exercises that I would do in the gym. Obviously I didn't manage to get hold of a 5kg weight, but of course, you can substitute that with objects. For example, I did the floor exercises and then to make them more difficult, I added a water bottle on my stomach or a pile of books on my back. A lot of the time I used my desk chair or the desk as a support to do other kinds of exercises and it was really comfortable. If you want to, you can!

So keeping on with this for two months, on the third month I decided to start going up and down stairs. The ones in the halls. Up. Down. Up. Down. I put in my earphones and I went up and down the stairs for 40 minutes. And no, I didn't get bored. In fact, it was one of the exercises that I liked doing the most. Mind you, the aches and pains the next day were awful, but it was worth it. It was a bit comical because I used to block the way for all of the students who were coming through with their shopping bags, but... At the end of all of the exercises I would make myself this smoothie out of spinach, mango and orange juice, it was so good!

And that is the post for today! SHARE IT! I hope that you have enjoyed it, I am aware that it is a little different to what I usually write on this Erasmus blog, but I think that there could be people interested in reading this post which is a little different. See you tomorrow! And thank you once again for reading.

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