Making it Happen
It’s no secret that a successful long term exercise routine takes effort and planning. Planning when and how you will exercise ahead of time increases your chances that you will stick to your routine.
However, if you are human then you know that “stuff” happens. Things like a new job, an injury, a new baby, starting a business, or the illness of a family member can easily put your carefully planned exercise schedule on the back burner. It’s normal and it can happy to anyone!
It’s important to be aware that these interruptions can lead to weight gain. However, with the right back up plan, you can keep weight gain at bay!
Four Strategies for Dealing with Interruptions in Your Exercise Routine
1) A little goes a long way! Do your best. Incorporate as much lifestyle activity into your day as you can. Activities like walking to get a meal, or to run an errand; taking the stairs,’ or standing rather than sitting will help you burn extra calories.
2) Don’t be afraid to ask for help! It seems like ‘do it yourself’ has become more and more common these days. If your exercise routine has been interrupted due to additional responsibilities, consider out sourcing daily tasks to free up some of your time. Look for ways you can out source in your personal and/or professional life.
3) Cut the calories! When your exercise routine gets interrupted, you normally burn fewer calories per day. Unfortunately, the tendency is to increase caloric intake when you should be cutting back. Some of the more common reasons for this include stress, lack of time, and the inability to cook for yourself.
If you are unable to meal plan and cook for yourself, consider having healthy meals delivered. You can use a service like Magic Kitchen or an in-house personal chef who prepares meals in your home.
When eating out, try to check the menus online ahead of time and use sites like healthydiningfinder.com or loseit.com to check the calories in your choices. By planning ahead, you’ll be able to choose the lower calorie options and avoid the weight gain that is caused by eating out often.
Pay attention to emotional eating. If you know that stress triggers you to over eat, avoid buying high calorie snack foods just to have around. Come up with a plan for redirecting the cravings to a different behavior. Activities like taking a short walk, meditating, praying, reading a book, checking email, or listening to music can take your mind off the craving until it disappears.
Boredom can also cause you to snack. Boredom can occur while recovering from an injury or illness, or when caring for a loved one who is recovering. Just like with the emotional eating, find other activities to occupy your time and keep the high calorie snack foods out of reach.
4) Tell guilt to take a hike! Interrupting your exercise routine to take care of important priorities in your life is sometimes necessary. It happens to everyone, so give yourself some grace and move on knowing you’ll start back up with your normal routine as soon as you are able.
Guilt is a potential trigger for binging and can cause additional weight gain. So tell it to leave if it tries to enter your mind!
With today’s fast paced lifestyle, it’s work to juggle all of your priorities. Make sure to include your health and self care as one of them! 🙂
Please let me know if you have any questions by using the comment section below. I really enjoy hearing from you!
To your long term success!
Jennifer