Getting to the gym regularly is difficult enough at the best of times; and as the year winds down and the bring-and-braai invites start to roll in, it's increasingly important to be disciplined to avoid excessive weight gain. Stay in shape during the festive season with these simple steps. Trust us, your body will thank you come January.

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Make a playlist

Music is transformative, and picking the right tunes for your work-out can help motivate you to keep on pumping. To help you get started, click on the link to Spotify’s best motivational work-out tracks here.

Take a buddy

Going to the gym by yourself is difficult unless you’re a strict machine. Take a friend with you and benefit from the company and camaraderie, not to mention a little friendly competition. If that fails, make a friend at the gym. You’re not alone. Crack up conversation and who knows, you might make a friend for life.

Change up your routine

If your current gym routine has you feeling uninspired, change things up by working out on a different machine. You know, the one you’ve been eyeing but have been too chicken to try. You could also attend the various classes your gym has to offer for a change of pace.

Get a personal trainer

Sometimes we need a kick in the pants to get up and move. Hiring a fitness trainer can do just that. There's no shame in acquiring a little extra help, especially from someone experienced in getting in shape. If you're an Edgars Club member you can take advantage of the gym membership offers with Planet Fitness. Click here to join Edgars Club.

Spruce up your wardrobe

When all else fails, something as simple as buying some new threads is just the ticket to motivate you to go to the gym. Who doesn’t like looking good, right? So toss your worn-out sweats, and shop from our selection of the best active pieces this season. We salute you.

Pro-Action moon bag 129.99; Pro-Action trainers 399.95; Pro-Action printed T-shirts from 199.95 each; Pro-Action track pants 399.95; Pro-Action shorts from 299.95 each; Stone Harbour reflective sunglasses 129.99

SHOP THE LOOK

Luxe linens

Always have a fresh stack of towels available. A nice tip is to buy different colours from your usual towels so you don’t mix them up and so that they’re always fresh.

SHOP THESE PRODUCTS

Stock the bathroom vanity with beautiful and useful necessities like hand wash dispensers, toothbrush holders and toilet brushes.

Nothing quite elevates bathroom appeal like a little natural greenery or colour. A vase full of colourful flowers really brightens the room. Or use a brightly coloured vase and add a green, leafy plant to it.

Add a plush bath mat for instant style and appeal. TOP TIP: Microfibre dries quickly and easily, and will eliminate any damp smells.

Oddly, my interests as a child didn’t include swimming! I was a normal kid with no ambition in the sporting arena. I was (and still am) musical and taught myself guitar. I liked water-skiing on weekends, and keeping snakes.

I have always loved the water; I am naturally drawn to it. My earliest memory was when I was about four or five years old, and a fairly competent swimmer. I was at my grandmother’s house and swimming in her pool while the adults all braai’d in the garden. I was minding my own business in the pool and remember wanting to see how long I could hold my breath underwater. I took a deep breath and floated face down for probably only 10 seconds before my gran spotted me and thought I had drowned. Before I knew it, gran, mom and various uncles had all dived into the pool – fully clad – and yanked me out with great vigour. After they realisied I had just been playing, I got a proper scolding. Most unjust!

Besides being on junior-school squads, I really only started swimming in 2000 at the age of 27. At that stage, I was spending far too much time on the couch and wanted to improve my fitness and lifestyle. So I joined a swim squad with coach Gary Freeling, who I am proud to say is still my coach after 16 years and is still doing all he can to improve my less-than-perfect stroke!

The first international destination I travelled to with my teammates was a little town called Ketchikan in Alaska. We wanted to compete in a cold swim around a local island called Pennock Island. It was a 14km swim in 12ºC water. What a beautiful place and such an awesome experience.

Iceland has been my favourite. It is just so different to anywhere else I have been. The landscape is a mixture of volcanoes and glaciers. Despite being petrified most of the time I was there (due to the swim I was to undertake), I managed to enjoy the experience.

I was based in a tiny town called Höfn. From there I travelled to a beautiful but frightening glacier lake called Jökulsárlón, in the south of Iceland. I undertook a small challenge there, mainly for the production of a TV series episode.

In Spain, I realised just how differently the Spaniards view time and structure! I was in a beautiful little town called Tarifa, waiting for the right weather to make an attempt to swim ‘from Europe to Africa’ across the Strait of Gibraltar – a significant distance. I was told by the swim organiser and support crew to meet at 8am, when we would assess the weather, and if conditions were good, we’d start the swim at noon. I arrived at 8am, safe in the knowledge that I had four hours for final preparations should the swim be on. I waited an hour for the Spanish team to arrive. This tardiness was expected. But when they did arrive, they simply said, ‘We swim now’, and jumped into the support vessels, looking at me to climb into the water. I was unprepared, expecting another few hours’ wait, and was forced to run across the road and purchase a six-pack of Coca-Cola from the café. This formed my only ‘feeds’ for the full swim, much to the astonishment of many. Needless to say, Coke is not recognised as the best nutritional supplement for endurance events!

I have travelled extensively across beautiful Russia and it is mostly seamless – if you have all your papers in order and some savvy. But on one occasion, we arrived at the Moscow Domodedovo Airport to utter chaos. After an 18-hour flight and two hours of real scrumming at the customs area, with no queue system and some scary people, I was separated from the rest of the team in the chaos. When I reached the counter, it turned out that my Russian visa said that I was female! However, this was not communicated to me and I was whisked off to a security holding area with no way to let the others know what was going on (which I didn’t know either at that stage). Some interesting hours followed, but nothing nearly as daunting as the swim challenge at hand.

We travelled to the remote but wealthy town of Tyumen. The challenge was to undertake a one-kilometre ice-swimming event in a ‘pool’ cut from a frozen lake, in air temperature of –33ºC and water at 0.3ºC.

The most challenging to date was a swim I undertook in Antarctica. It was a difficult, ground-breaking and dangerous challenge, completed in –1ºC water temperature, which is ultra-extreme. But it was the build-up to the actual swim challenge and the logistics that were most difficult. Relying on the ship’s crew to support us and keep us alive presented significant challenges, as did the extreme weather conditions.

In 2012, our small team (Ram Barkai, Andrew Chin, Kieron Palframan, Toks Viviers and I) decided we wanted to become the first to swim around Cape Horn, the southernmost tip of South America, known as ‘The Sailor’s Graveyard’. Most sailing enthusiasts consider sailing around Cape Horn to be their ‘Everest’, so we thought it would be cool to try to get there – an insane journey – and complete a difficult swim in extreme temperatures and conditions. Added to this, we also wanted to attempt to swim across the icy wild-water Strait of Magellan, followed by an attempt to swim across the even colder Beagle Channel from Chile to Argentina and then back to Chile.

Our travels took us to a little town in Chile called Punta Arenas. We were based here for a week while we awaited the right conditions for the Strait of Magellan attempt. Thereafter, we travelled to what is sometimes referred to as the southernmost town in the world: Puerto Williams. It’s on the Chilean side, almost directly across from Ushuaia, the better-known town in Argentina that also considers itself the southernmost town. (We’ll let them fight it out.) We were based in Puerto Williams, which has nothing – really nothing – besides one coffee shop, which also sold beer and smelt of petrol fumes. We were there for just short of a week and were not too disappointed to leave once we had conquered the Beagle Channel mission and survived. From Puerto Williams, we managed to convince an old seadog who had a half-decent boat to take us on the nerve-wracking 20-hour one-way trip to The Sailor’s Graveyard. We got to visit the remote Cape Horn Island after our swim attempt, which is one of the highlights of my travels.

I travelled to a small town called Donaghadee at the extreme north of Ireland in County Down. The challenge was to attempt a world first double crossing of the notoriously difficult North Channel in relay format. The six-person relay was made up of a world team from South Africa, Ireland, Czech Republic, Finland, Switzerland and Estonia. It took 30 tough hours, but we succeeded and now hold the record.

It takes me off the tourist track, even if I am in a tourist-frequented city or town. I am often the guest of rural and remote locals and, while on standby for the swim challenge at hand, get to live with them and experience the real lives and cultures of the place I am at. It can be difficult, but I love the authenticity of it and the never-ending willingness and enthusiasm of my hosts to help wherever I am in the world and no matter how little verbal communication is possible.

My son, Jesse! Without a doubt, being away from that little man adds a whole new level of tough.

I am blessed with a small family farm right on the banks of the beautiful Breede River, which is right on my doorstep in terms of travel time. It’s where my family has come together for 25 years and where my swimming passion began.

There are so many! I want to swim the Cook Strait between the north and south islands of New Zealand, so this is a destination I look forward to visiting. Norway’s glaciated lakes and fjords are high on my list too. Then I would like to visit both the North and South poles. And maybe one day I’ll just go somewhere sunny, comfortable and warm!

Connect with Ryan at www.ryanstramrood.com.

The Indian Ocean island of Zanzibar is at its most magical in February, when it puts on one of the best music festivals in Africa. 
 Stone Town, Zanzibar: The fiery orange sunset turns the ocean into liquid gold and casts its light on the buildings around Forodhani Gardens, where the nightly food market is being set up. Young boys run across the gardens to jump, curl and twist as they hurl their bodies into the sea. I make my way through the crowd of people who have been following a street parade led by drumming and dancing troupes. The dancers permeate the crowd, still moving to the sound of the distant drum beat. One of them walks to a backpack and pulls out a python, then uses it as part of the act. After that, various other troupes compete for the crowd’s attention, and Maasai dancers begin to jump in rhythm. The growing crowd of onlookers, made up mostly of local families and tourists, give them a round of applause before our attention moves to other performers at the gardens…

From left: Zakes Bantwini from SA, Revellers at the festival. Images: Nayssa Said

THE MAIN EVENT

Some people follow the sound of music coming from across the street at the Old Fort, where two stages have been set up for the more than 50 bands that will keep us on our feet until after midnight for the next four days. This is Sauti za Busara, a spellbinding, booty-shaking and feet-stomping party unlike any other in Zanzibar – or Africa, for that matter.

The festival is a celebration of Africa’s rich musical catalogue, showcasing musicians from around the continent. The lineup includes artists from the island as well as from Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda, Algeria, Burkina Faso, Mali, Burundi, Malawi, Réunion, Morocco, Ethiopia, Sudan and even Somaliland. There is folk music, hip hop, rumba, roots, afro pop, afro beat, afro punk, fusion, jazz, reggae, taraab and bongo flava, among other music genres. In the past, South Africa has been represented by Thandiswa Mazwai, Tumi and the Volume, Zakes Bantwini, Kwani Experience, Ihashi Elimhlophe and The Moreira Project among others.

I have been coming to this festival on and off since 2012, and every edition is the same treat: bands from parts of the continent that never make it to other music festivals around Africa; song and dance day and night around the normally conservative island that shuns hard-partying; and a crowd of more than 10 000 revellers losing themselves to the heady sights and sounds. It is not uncommon to see strangers running to each other for hugs and to dance together.

Even though crowds are thick, there is always a sense of camaraderie. For example, how everyone lets children watch performances from just behind the mosh pit, or how professional photographers use their prime position in front of the stage to take pictures not just of the musicians, but of other revellers too. This spirit follows us around after the festival to the many after-parties and jam sessions held in cafes and restaurants around Stone Town. To be in Zanzibar at any time of the year is wonderful, but being here during Sauti za Busara is a magical experience that’s hard to find at other festivals.

The next festival takes place from 7 to 10 February 2019 and will feature three stages and 44 shows by 400 artists. For more details, go to www.busaramusic.org

With exclusive savings on flights, accommodation, car hire and holiday packages, getting to your destination is quick, easy and affordable with Edgars Travel Club. Click here for more details.

WHEN THE MUSIC STOPS

Busara’s other drawcard is its setting. Zanzibar is beautiful and lives up to every cliché of a tropical paradise, with turquoise water and soft, white-sand beaches. However, there is more to the island than its picture-perfect shoreline:

 1. 

Explore ancient culture

 Zanzibar is off the Swahili coast, which runs from Northern Mozambique to Kenya and Mogadishu in Somalia. The coast has in the past fallen under the dominion of Omani sultans, Indian merchants and Portuguese colonialists. Each culture has left behind its influence, which, combined with local traditions, birthed the now eclectic Swahili culture. A walking tour of Stone Town will give you a taste of life in the heartland of the Swahili coast and a window into its past. Start at Darajani market and include St Joseph’s Cathedral and the House of Wonders, which is the largest and tallest building in Zanzibar. Take in the traditional ancient royal doors, which have been here for centuries, and pop into the coffee shops and rooftop bars for epic views.

2. 

A taste of Zanzibar 

The Zanzibar archipelago is sometimes referred to as the Spice Islands, and a tour of its spice farms is a must-do. Your guide will share his knowledge about the various spices, invite you to identify some by taste, and regale you with funny anecdotes about what they are used for beyond cooking. The tour ends with a deliciously spiced lunch and a drink of fresh coconut water (watching one of the farm workers shimmy up a tree to fetch the coconuts is mesmerising).

3. 

Sail in style 

Go back to the days of the sultans, when traditional sailboats known as dhows were the transport du jour. A two-hour cruise is accompanied by music and drinks, and captained by boatmen who are full of wild and entertaining (though possibly far-fetched) tales. Listening to live taraab music against the backdrop of an epic Zanzibar sunset is a real highlight.

4. 

Meet some wild local residents

A day trip to Changuu Island remains one of the most popular excursions (despite its macabre alternate name: Prison Island). Just five kilometres by dhow from Stone Town, the island is home to giant tortoises, which visitors can observe and feed. Cool off afterwards with a little snorkelling (which you don’t have to be a good swimmer to experience) or just chill out at Nakupenda Beach for a relaxed end to the tour.

5. 

Swim with dolphins 

Of everything there is to experience in Zanzibar, nothing stands out more for me than swimming with dolphins at Kizimkazi Village. If you’re not a good swimmer, you can still see dolphins up close from the dhow. If you do swim, you get to experience being in the water with these gentle and friendly animals. It’s worth the early morning wake-up call, and the tour ends with a simple but delicious lunch.

Edgars Club members save 10% on select Mango flights. Click here for more info and to book.

In this day and age it may seem over the top to wear a shirt and tie to work. But here are four reasons why we think you should adopt the classic, sophisticated tradition – ensuring you look your best and stand out from the rest.

1. It gives you confidence

2. It shows your status

By dressing smarter, you’ll notice your colleagues will start to take you more seriously and you will command respect. Appearance goes a long way and you will soon reap the rewards of dressing the part.

3. It allows you to show your personality

4. It becomes a ritual

SHOP TIES

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