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Getting into a healthy routine is hard. Keeping it going when you travel? That’s even harder.
At 38, I’ve spent the past several months making strength training, nutrition and recovery a genuine part of my lifestyle — but spending nights away from home has a way of shaking up even the most solid regimen.
So when I was invited to experience AKA Central Park’s new comprehensive health and wellness program, I was curious whether a hotel could actually make it easier to maintain my routine when I was away.
Because let’s be honest — offering a tiny gym with a couple of treadmills and free weights is hardly a helpful motivator for sticking with it.
Long-stay hospitality brand AKA debuted its new Atelier AKA Health + Wellness initiative at its properties earlier this summer.
The program, which encourages guests to keep moving eating and recovering in ways that fit their lives, revolves around five pillars: movement, nourishment, sleep, mindfulness and longevity.
I spent two nights at their Central Park location, where rooms start at $545 a night for a studio and $715 a night for a one-bedroom, putting that philosophy to the test.
Nourishment
At home, planning what you’ll eat for the week is pretty straight-forward — especially if you knock out your Whole Foods run and meal prep like clockwork on Sundays.
Traveling with nutrition goals, though, usually requires some advance planning. Sometimes it means hauling half your kitchen with you.
AKA takes care of that part.
Before my stay, they asked about my food preferences and arranged for FreshDirect to stock the kitchen with Honeycrisp apples, eggs, chicken breasts, blueberries, Greek yogurt, baked sweet potatoes, cucumbers, fresh ginger, popcorn, sourdough bread, lemons, oranges and my other favorites.
It meant one less thing to figure out after a long week of work — and, crucially, one less reason to stray from my healthy eating routine.
As a petite woman whose trying to build muscle, I’m currently eating at a calorie surplus and paying much more attention to my macronutrient intake. Having foods I already eat and track made it much easier.
The kitchen helped, too. A full-size refrigerator, stove and cookware (plus a dishwasher!) meant that I could actually prepare multiple meals rather than merely store snacks. Even measuring cups made the cut, which is a small but clutch detail when tracking your food.
I prepared all of my breakfasts during the stay, and cooking felt surprisingly normal for a hotel.
Sleep
Sleep has become one of my bigger wellness projects lately. Strength training makes recovery important, but honestly, I also just like being a reasonably functional human being the next day.
My California king came with a weighted blanket and sleep mask to help keep the city lights outside where they belonged.
The darkness was super important. Light exposure at night can suppress melatonin, the hormone that helps regulate our sleep-wake cycle, whereas keeping the bedroom dark can support better circadian alignment and sleep quality.
Research remains limited on weighted blankets, though some studies have found an association between their use and reduced anxiety. I wasn’t expecting AKA’s blanket to magically score me a 100 on my Whoop, but I did enjoy the snuggly vibes.
My room also came with an aromatherapy device and a sleep-sound machine, which I left alone, mainly because I didn’t feel like learning how to operate another gadget.
Mindfulness
Beyond the aromatherapy device, I didn’t encounter much that I’d classify as a dedicated mindfulness offering — but fortunately, one of New York’s best places to slow down sat just outside my door: Central Park.
With no podcast and no cardio aspirations, I wandered through the park, taking in the sunny weather, watching locals and tourists and even slipping off my Birkenstocks to gladly touch grass.
After a long week of work and training, it felt good to simply be somewhere without needing to accomplish anything.
Movement and longevity
The first thing I do at a hotel is check out the gym, but my expectations are generally low based on bleak treadmill-packed closets of past.
But AKA Central Park’s fitness center is big — and outfitted with Technogym equipment that caters to strength and hybrid training and conditioning as much as it does cardio and endurance.
I could immediately see myself doing my regular training program there without having to completely reinvent it around whatever equipment happened to be available.
Technogym’s AI-powered techonology took things a step further. I started with the Technogym Checkup, a full-body assessment that measured strength, mobility, balance, body composition, hydration and cognitive performance before generating a personalized wellness profile and Wellness Age score.
Then Jackson Barnes, a clinical exercise physiologist and performance coach, guided me through a personal training session.
The gym extends beyond the fitness center, too. My suite came with the brand’s fitness kit, which includes resistance bands, an exercise mat, a foam roller, a mobility ball and an active sitting wellness ball. Had I stayed longer, I absolutely would have squeezed in some mobility work or yoga.
I also scored a session at the StretchLab, a popular boutique wellness studio a few blocks from the hotel that specializes in one-on-one assisted stretching and flexibility training.
I spent 50 minutes with Kyle Sangil, a StretchLab flexologist and trained dancer, who managed to get me considerably deeper into some stretches than I would have alone in my room. After a hybrid training session, it made for a pretty perfect recovery pairing.
Together, the two sessions highlighted what the longevity pillar means in practice: building strength while giving your body room to rest and recover.
I’m not hitting macros and lifting weights simply because I want to look stronger right now, though I’m certainly not complaining about that side effect. I’m trying to build the muscle, strength and recovery habits that I’ll want to have decades from now.
And that’s ultimately what I found most useful about Atelier AKA, it didn’t ask me to put my normal life on hold because I was traveling. Instead, the program offered tools and infrastructure to adjust it to a different setting.
Sometimes adapting your routine is less about having more discipline and more about having fewer things standing in your way.
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