How Do You Maintain Your Physique While in a Less-Developed Country

Frank2500

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I need some advice and suggestions here as this is very important. I'm traveling to my home country in Central Africa in two months and would probably be there for at least a year to catch up on a few things. How do I maintain my physique in a nation and in general, a continent where body building isn't a big thing at all and where gyms don't have the same quality equipment as those in Europe and the US? I used to frequent one of the LA Fitness centers in Philly and I've worked so hard on developing muscle that I'm currently able to lift 185lbs on the biceps curl machine. I'm worried I'm going to lose all of that muscle mass when I go home, as my body will be forced to re-adapt to the new circumstances. Plus, there are no GNCs or any of that stuff available and people tend to cook with palm oil. I'll be away from the forum for a few days but would appreciate your feedback on this. Basically, I don't want to find myself having to start all over from scratch at lower weights when I'm able to go back and work out at a gym in the US or in Europe
 

SmellyOrc

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Bicep curl machine? :crackup:

Africa... you can probably carry lots of logs and stuff. Or just front squat with some logs. Or sandbags. Or whatever other awkward objects you can find.
 

EFFORT

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If you can find a power rack and calorie dense food you'll be fine.
 

Frank2500

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Re:

I'm gonna have to work extra hard over there because as I mentioned, most people there cook their foods with a lot of oil and when you go to someone's house and they offer those foods to you, you can't say no, because it is often perceived as an insult and not taken kindly at all. This means therefore that as much as I dislike doing aerobics frequently, I'm gonna have to do a lot of that to avoid going from an almost eight-pack to a beer bely over there. It's tough.
 
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Frank,

Bodyweight exercises will keep you in decent shape. You may slim down and drop some muscle over the year there, but in terms of your physique going to crap, it wont happen as long as you workout and run consistently and eat well.

I know all too well what its like to try and keep your body in shape while eating crap food and not have access to gym equipment. But where there's a will, there's a way man..

Good luck to you over there
 

kabatura

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What country are you going to, just curious.

When I was in Rwanda for a few months I knew a few guys who were super buff/cut. I know the majority of food they ate was rice and beans. Eggs were involved and some meat, but not hardly what we would say is adaquate to stay fit.

I think if on your own you eat as healthily as you can the meals at others houses shouldn't be that big of an issue, unless it's an everyday thing.

You don't need that much technology to have a good lifting routine. Where I was there was a gym, I never went in but I'm sure they had barbells and dumbells. Some friends had some ghetto workout stuff, like a sandbag on a pulley to do tricep pulldowns and paintcans filled with concrete on either end of a stick as a barbell. It worked out well for them.
Maybe there is a fancy hotel somewhere too. There was one in kigali where you could pay to use the pool on a monthly basis, they may have had a fitness foom somewhere too since most were probably Europeans or Americans staying there.
 
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