TIP: Be active on holiday. Go swimming, diving, hiking, backpacking, or skiing.

If anyone can remember the summer – no? It was that one hot day in June where the UK saw its highest recorded temperature EVER – you’ll know how much easier it was to get outside and move more especially if, like me, you decided to go on an active holiday (ironically, we chose the hottest week of the year to head abroad!).

My holidays used to consist of finding the nearest sunlounger on which to throw my towel before lying down from dawn to dusk with my nose stuck in a book. I’m pleased to say that those days are long gone and my holidays are now spent being far more active.

With a bag full of new kit, SO (Significant Other) and I headed off for a weeks scuba diving in Egypt’s Red Sea. I’d always thought that diving was a pretty sedate affair consisting of little more than floating and breathing but, since being prompted to research the facts and figures of the sport, I now know that it actually uses up a lot of energy. During one hour spent underwater marvelling at brightly coloured corals and incredible marine life, I actually burn approximately 500 calories! In addition, the extra 25kgs of kit I don to make my underwater excursion safe and comfortable (BCD, regulator, wetsuit, weights, etc) along with the shifting of tanks, weights and a whole plethora of other equipment on the surface, means that I am getting a full body workout.

I won’t lie to you, kitting up when the blazing sun has raised the temperature to approximately 40^oC and traipsing across the sand whilst desperately trying to not pass out from heat exhaustion is not the easiest thing in the world to do. Yet once you hit that water, sink down into the clear blue depths of the amazing underwater environment to wonder at the incredible marine life, it is SO worth all the effort; turtles feeding on the soft corals, crabs scuttling across the sea bed, an abundance of fish in all sizes, shapes and colours. It’s like swimming in your own aquarium.

I’ve always loved being underwater but knowing that every fin kick means a few more calories burned has made it even more attractive. So next time you are on holiday, don’t just sit there; get up, try something new and move a bit more.

Ceri Spain
Statutory Returns Officer
Planning Office