Many of us at the SilverDoor office have made some sort of new year’s resolution – and many of them are designed to get us back in shape after an over-indulgent Christmas. Alice, for example, has decided to bring in her own lunches from now on instead of buying them and Sam has decided to become a gym bunny and go four times a week! Unfortunately, however good the initial intention, most resolutions tend to have short life spans, with the average dieter falling off the wagon after just 15 days.
Staying healthy while on the move can prove extremely tricky, especially when you are in an unfamiliar area and the accommodation you are staying in doesn’t have the right cooking equipment. If you’re staying in a hotel room, the only real options available are to buy a takeaway or eat out - as well as being extremely costly, this can scupper any healthy eating plans.
Being able to cook for yourself doesn’t only tend to work out cheaper but it also gives you much more control over what goes into your food: high levels of salt, sugar and fat can sneak into restaurant meals and takeaways. Consensus Action on Salt and Health (CASH) conducted a study on some of the most popular high street restaurants in 2009 and found that nearly three quarters of the main course dishes had salt levels in excess of the recommended daily allowance.
With the average stay of SilverDoor clients being between two weeks and three months, it’s therefore not surprising that most of them require a fully equipped kitchen so they can eat what they like, where they like, when they like. A fully equipped kitchen allows you to store fresh food in fridges and freezers, so if your resolution is to eat more healthily you won’t need to worry about how you’re going to squeeze that healthy salad you pre-prepared into the hotel minibar fridge.
Spending a lot of time away on business can mean that you can fall out of routines that you have religiously followed at home, such as regular exercise. A survey carried out by Venues Event Management shows that fitness facilities are becoming increasingly important for business travellers and several studies have shown that it can even improve your performance in the workplace.
At SilverDoor around a quarter of the serviced apartments that feature on our website provide access to gyms and other fitness facilities such as swimming pools. Out of this number around 80% of properties provide these fitness facilities free of charge. Most of the gyms are on-site or nearby, so are ideal for those who don’t want to break their routine just because they’re away on business.
