Work Hard Play Hard

          Welcome to afitnewyou!  Heading into this first Monday that follows a week long vacation stirs up some interesting feelings.  Where most times, most people, would not be too fond of getting back to the grind on a typical Monday morning, I think getting back to a routine is welcomed following a long break.  In fact, I often find it easier to start up for the week after a vacation than beginning again after a normal weekend.  I believe there are two reasons for this; one is due to the physical rest taken, and the second is the mental break that allows us to refocus.  Think about how you feel, after a long vacation...yes, you might prefer to stay on a warm, sandy beach that you might have visited, but think about how you perform when you actually get back to work.  That rest usually allows you to refocus and pick up your production.  The same principle of performing better after getting some rest also applies to your fitness goals.  When you get some needed rest, like taking a week off of the gym because you are on vacation, you will be reinvigorated and will perform better when you get back to it.  It is for this reason that I tell people to work hard and play hard, meaning bust your butt in the gym, but when you are allotted some time for a physical break from it, enjoy that to its fullest as well.  You don't have to keep at it every single day of the year.  Taking some time off will actually benefit you in the long run.

          Why do you take a vacation?  A very common answer is to take a break from the routine and allow your "batteries to recharge."  Vacations are often thought as being needed for that recovery to occur.  The same is true with vacations from your fitness goals, especially in terms of getting to the gym.  I know plenty of people who choose a hotel for their stay by whether or not it has a gym and the quality of it.  While this is admirable, I think it unnecessary and I tell people that I purposely do not even walk past a gym while I am on vacation.  I explain that it is just as important to allow your muscles to rest and relax from time to time as its important to break away from your regular routine.  When it comes to weight training, your muscles develop through a process of "tear and repair."  While training, you create micro tears in the muscle tissue that repairs with adequate recovery time.  Typically, it is referred to not train the same muscle group within a 48 hour period; this is to allow for the repair process to take place.  Well, if you are hitting it hard at the gym on a regular basis, taking a short break isn't going to harm you, it will actually allow more healing to occur.  I personally experience a stronger feeling at the gym after a week of rest.  Part of that is mental, but most of it is physical.  Of course the break shouldn't be too long, but if it is an extended break of a week or two after regularly putting the time in for months, it will be beneficial.  It is the concept of work hard, play hard.

         As I just mentioned, a break from working on your fitness goals isn't just beneficial from a physical perspective, but for a mental refresher as well.  I think a lot of what we have to do to achieve our fitness goals are needs more so than they are wants.  For example, you may want to lose 10 pounds of fat, but to do so, you will need to get to the gym regularly and maintain a healthy diet.  But, to meet those needs, we may have to do things that we typically don't want to do.  In a perfect world the foods that we need to eat would be the ones we want to eat, but we all know that isn't how it always is in reality.  Similarly, I hope you find physical activity that you enjoy doing as much as you know it is needed, but that isn't always the case.  But if you are someone that exercises regularly, and then you are forced to take a break for some reason, whether it be due to an injury, a vacation or some other reason, you usually become amped up to hit the gym again.  Following a recent temporary closing of the gym that I train at because they were undergoing renovations, which had kept me from training for a few days, I was both physically rested and pumped to hit the weights again when they reopened.  Not only did I feel physically good, but I was excited for my workout when I walked into the facility as opposed to feeling like I "HAD" to work out.  Again, if the break isn't so long that you forget where the gym is located, you may be more motivated and excited to go following a few more days off than you regularly take.

          While I cannot fully defend this idea of work hard play hard when it comes to nutritional goals, as I think some people may take this idea to an unhealthy level of binge and purge, and I feel that its easier to maintain healthy eating habits by making it a priority of your lifestyle, there is still some analogy with these fitness goals as well.  When it comes to maintaining a healthy diet, I think a big component of it is the concept of "everything in moderation."  I truly believe it is ok to have a cheeseburger from time to time as long as its not a regular food choice.  Furthermore, I think it is easier to avoid the foods you would "want" to eat by being able to enjoy them from time to time, as opposed to treating them as a poison that you should never touch.  I can't say it enough, that there of course needs to be a healthy balance of what is part of your regular diet and what is enjoyed from time to time.  However, I see nothing wrong with having some cake on your birthday, eating a whole bunch more than you normally would on a feast holiday like Thanksgiving, and enjoying some decadent menu items while on vacation IF you are normally maintaining a healthy diet.  As long as it is the exception and not the rule, its plenty fine to enjoy foods that you want to eat.

          There is a reason why the regular day-to-day is known as "the grind."  It can be hard, taxing and arduous.  And regiments that are needed for you to achieve your fitness goals are considered routines.  There is certainly a difference between work and play.  While I hope everyone has a job that they do enjoy, it shouldn't be too far of a reach that most of us would rather be at play than at work.  And I would bet that most of us look forward to a vacation that is booked as opposed to a meeting that is scheduled.  There is no reason why you shouldn't fully enjoy your time to play.  Vacations give us both the physical and mental breaks that allow us to unwind, decompress, and perform better when we are "back at it."  So, when you have an opportunity to kick your feet up, do so with your fitness routines as well.  Be guilt free if you have been working your tail off and now have a few days to take a break.  Your body and mind will be just as refreshed and ready to start again as the vacation makes you for your job.  Working hard, and playing hard is the refreshing way to reach a fit new you!

Time to Reassess

          Welcome to afitnewyou!  We are through January and now almost halfway into February, so I will ask again as I have been doing each post of 2018...how are you doing with your New Year's resolutions?  I am willing to bet that not even a month and a half into the new year many of you have already long forgotten them.  But as I have been saying since my first post of the year, that is OK, it is simply the time now to reassess what you have been trying to do, what has come up along the way, and most importantly, what can be done to still get you there in the long term.  Anyone who has made a resolution made for the new YEAR had done so not just for the new month, so there is a heck of a lot of time left to achieve your goals.  And if you need a little extra motivation to start again, just as you had on Jan. 1st, its the start of the Chinese New Year this Friday on Feb. 16th.  So lets reassess where you want to be and how to get there.

          One of the first places that  had I learned about the importance of reflection and assessment was during my first career, outside of the fitness industry, as an environmental scientist for a consultant company.  Our biggest clients were major oil companies that operate gas stations.  At their sites, we would have to do underground investigations in order to determine if there was any contamination occurring, and when there was, just how far it had spread.  To do this, we would have to take soil and water samples from beneath the ground, which required the use of drilling from the surface.  Unfortunately, due to not being able to see exactly what was below ground, every so often as the drill rig was operated, something would be "hit" and marred by the machinery.  This would sometimes lead to further contamination, damages that required costly repairs, and / or in a worst case scenario physical injury.  After one of these mishaps, there would be a big meeting with all involved plus company management and the client's response team.  The purpose of the meeting would be to discuss what went wrong, and more importantly what could be done to prevent the accident from occurring in the future.  Although this is a completely different field, the same reassessment of what had gone wrong, and how things could be improved applies to fitness.  If something unforeseen has arisen, just as hitting something below ground that could not be seen while drilling, a road block keeping you from reaching your fitness goals needs to be reevaluated to see how you can improve upon the process.

          The first step of reassessing where you are is to look back at what you initially identified as your goals.  If you haven't kept up with your goals and/or you have had a hard time doing so you need to reassess whether or not your goals were/are realistic.  For example if at the start of the year you had joined a gym and had a goal of getting there everyday, but you haven't been able to get there that much or at all, that might have been setting the bar too high, especially if you weren't going to the gym at all prior to joining.  Reassessing the situation would have you step back and realize that going from nothing to everything all at once was unrealistic.  The second step of the reassessment would be for you to ask yourself how do you realistically get to your ultimate goal of getting to the gym regularly.  In this example, one way this could be done is by making your goal to get to the gym simply one or two days a week for the remainder of the winter.  Then when the spring arrives, up to two to three days a week; summertime three to four, and so forth so that by the end of the year you are going regularly.  Although we cannot achieve the impossible, we can get ourselves to the next level and use that as a stepping stone to the one after that.

          The same could be said for nutritional and dietary goals.  If you had a particular goal that you were trying to reach and feel like you already have met your match, take a step back and reevaluate the situation.  Maybe you had a goal of losing a certain amount of body fat that you numbered in pounds and instead of losing you have gained.  It is OK, we aren't even a full two months into the year, there is still time to reassess what you are doing and what you need to do better.  If you were planning on changing how you eat in order to meet this goal, ask yourself what have you been doing and what you could do better.  Have you changed what you are putting in your grocery cart?  Could you do that better?  One suggestion I would have is to use an online shopping service like Peapod offered by Stop and Shop.  By shopping online for your groceries, you all but eliminate the temptation of impulse buys of items that will not help you reach your goals.  Through reassessing what has and is taking place, you create the opportunity to make a corrective change.  There is always multiple ways to solve a problem, during the reassessment process, find out what will work best for you now, and then build off of that for future gains.

          The year is still young, and again, as of today Chinese New Year hasn't even arrived yet.  If you have had a hard time meeting your fitness goals, you need to realize that you have plenty of time to get back on track as long as you reassess what has taken place.  By asking yourself whether your goals were realistic, and are you doing what you need to in order to get there, you can identify any problems that are keeping you from getting there.  This reflective process will allow you to make the changes needed to get back on track and achieve them in the long run.  Do not feel defeated, but like a football team losing at half time, go back into the locker room and ask how you can change your approach.  Reassessing your fitness goals and how you are going to achieve them is a corrective way to reach a fit new you!