5 Strategies to Avoid a Summer Sabotage
Do you know the feeling of overwhelm from too many commitments, too many obligations, too much food, too few hours of sleep and too much sitting? It's sometimes as if living life is fair game for battle...just making it to a workout can feel like a victory, only to be undone by no groceries or no time to cook. If you can relate, or you're preparing yourself for a season too full, here are a few strategies to post on your fridge when the sabotage of summer tries to overtake you:
1. Change your perception of success: Moving in any way is money in your body's fitness account. If your only view of a successful workout is to be dripping and jaw dropped from intensity, you're missing an entire spectrum of enjoyment and exercise. Requiring high intensity from yourself quite often stops you from doing what you can with your limited time (especially if you struggle with perfectionism, all-or-nothing ideals and fear of success). As if you will only see improvements or maintain your health when you get 60 minutes of hard. Research has shown that 10 minutes of moving, 3 times a day, produces less attrition than a 30 minute block of exercise. If you can adhere to moderate amounts of moving, you will be more consistent and thereby, healthier.
2. Change your movement time: If your summer schedule looks more like battle strategy than a calendar, adapt a new routine. The most consistent exercisers are those who do it first thing in the morning (mostly because no one jacks with that time of day). However, when you workout is irrelevant if you don't also consider sleep quality and family routines, ie. waking at 330am to get your run in before running kids around, but also not getting to bed until 10, will not give you enough recovery time (or attitude adjusting) to benefit from your cardio. Instead, think about when you may slip in a workout with a family member, or while kids are at camp, or as an evening activity. Consider the possibility that a change in schedule may be just what your body, and family, needs in order to stay with your program.
3. Include food variety: Fresh produce and protein is best in the summer (grow your own!). Even if you're not keen on green, make an effort to eat more varieties of produce and protein when it's most available (and least expensive!). Salads made with carrots, cucumbers, tomatoes or fruit, increase hydration, antioxidants and fiber. The best way to eat a salad is mixed with meat! It’s efficient, easy to fix and clean up. Check out this recipe!
4. Balance moving with meals: If you are missing your workouts, you don't need to pound the protein shakes and count macros. In fact, less moving means your body needs less food. This idea piggybacks on #3...eating more quality foods will fill your energy account without overspending on storage. This doesn't mean starve, or not have pie on July 4th, but if your summer schedule truly interferes with your workouts, adjust when, what and how much you're eating. Then, when you get back to moving more in the fall, you won't have extra weight to work off.
5. Schedule yourself in your schedule: It should go without saying that being a parent or partner does not include sacrificing every moment for other people. And this tip coincides with #2...block out a bit of time for yourself every day. Stop feeling like a martyr, at everyone else's beck and call 24/7 and cannot fit a workout in at least 3-5x/week. In a prison study on time management, researchers found that prisoners, who have no required schedules, didn't spend any more time exercising that free persons. They concluded that an abundance of time doesn't correlate or cause an increase in exercise time...scheduling yourself does. One of the best ways to help yourself stay on schedule is to commit to other people either in group fitness or with a trainer, coworker or family member. We will more easily decommit to ourselves than we will to others.
Are these magical formulas for your future? Highly unlikely. They are not anything that you don't already know yourself. But, maybe this summer you're ready to stay on track with your fitness, make new strides, or begin again in earnest. Wherever you are, stay the course and do more than survive summer...shine through it.
