Luxury Hotels

Simply Sunday, keep healthy on the go

Salad bar at Garden

The gal has said it before and she will say it again. The best way to manage continual flights is to keep healthy – and, by the way, it should be pointed out that short flights are just as stressful as longhaul (you still have the nightmare of pre-flight security, and the uncertainty of whether or not your flight will be delayed for a myriad of reasons, and then, onboard, you might suffer, as an entire Business cabin did on a two-hour flight this very week, having two totally useless parents who had no way of soothing a year-old who screamed nonstop the whole way).

Keeping healthy means lots of workouts. Airports offer bouts of exercise, great for the HIIT enthusiast. Take stairs instead of escalators and elevators. If you have heavy bags, all the better for muscle workout. Eat well before a flight – see the excellent salad selection, on the left, at Garden in the Hilton attached to South Terminal at London’s Gatwick airport. If you are flying out of, or transitting through, London Heathrow’s Terminal Five you have the best airport food-to-go I have ever seen, at Itsu. This company, started by Prêt-à-Manger founder Julian Metcalfe, now offers made-for-you healthy smoothies.  They are stocked as shown above, and blended when you buy. Luxury hotels have a challenge being able to offer anything quite like this: the exception is The Conrad Hong Kong, whose foodie-GM, Thomas Hoeborn, puts cold-press blenders, and ingredients, in some VIP rooms.