SPRING! It’s a season we all look forward to all winter. Longer days and warmer weather brings with it motivation and inspiration to leap into our fitness routine and healthy eating plans. But sometimes it’s not as simple as flicking the switch on when September 1 ticks over. We can still be stuck in a slump, carrying a little extra weight, feeling low on energy or simply overwhelmed with where to start.
l sat sown with Vicious Cycle crew leader Karl who is also a qualified personal trainer and asked him for his top tips on how to kick start the SPRUNG in your SPRING.
We often hear people say: “Im not fit enough for Spin” or “l need to get fitter before l can do that”. How can people get moving and motivated to get into a training routine?
1. Start with the Basics
Get moving. We underestimate how little we move each day particularly people stuck behind a desk all day. Most phones have a Health App now or you can download a tracker that records your daily steps. The minimum daily requirement is 10, 000 steps. Walk to the train or the bus or get off a few stops before your closest one. Take stairs instead of the elevator. Arrange movement meetings around the office or the block and definitely use your lunch breaks to do a few laps around the nearest park or just around the block. It doesn’t require long distances to hit the 10, 000 minimum so as you start to move more aim to hit that on the way to work and then again on the way back. You will be up to 20, 000 in no time!
2. Power Bands
These are great to keep in the house or take to work with you. They are an excellent tool to start using to build strength and open up your posture and increase mobility. You can find these bands in Rebel and Google search exercises to complete during lunch or before and after work.
3. Find Something That You Love
Enjoying your training will ensure that will keep you going back more regularly. Group training is a great way to keep you motivated and to meet like minded people that make you feel part of a team or community. Big gyms can be intimidating and leave you unsure of where to start. Group training is instructor lead always offering you guidance and support.
So we now have a few tips on how to kick start moving our body but we know it comes down to more than that. What are the three top tips for how we can start to better nourish our bodies as we try to move away from the heavy comfort foods of winter and into a lighter cleaner nutrition plan for spring?
1. Water Intake
We know we need to drink it but we definitely don’t drink enough. 3-4 litres a day is what we should be aiming for. Pick yourself up a 1 litre jug to help with accountability and keep it on your desk at work. Glasses can be too hard to keep track of. Make sure you top up the jug twice during your day and drink them both by the time you head home. There’s 2 litres in the day. Fit one in before and after work and you have hit your daily target.
2. Vegetables
We all know they are good for us but do we know we should be eating 8 serves a day? A serve can be looked up or an easy way to measure without tools, one serve is equal to the size of the palm of your hand. If we are eating 3 serves at dinner and 3 at lunch you need to find 2 x snacks in your day to fill in the rest.
3. Eliminate Processed Foods
We hear CLEAN EATING thrown around a lot but they are never referring to how we wash our food. Clean eating is more about our foods stripped back or as little interference or manufacturing as possible between harvest and reaching your plate. Removing packaged foods from your meals can be a great way to start introducing more nutrients and less additives to your meals. But watch out for the sauces! Sometimes these can have more sugars, salts and other ingredients that cancel out all the fresh produce you have just prepared.
So there it is. Starting somewhere doesn’t have to be overwhelming or even an all in all out approach. We always promote that health and fitness should be a lifestyle. Small daily changes can lead to more long term results. Set yourself a goal to introduce something new each week or increase to a new level. You want to set yourself up to succeed not fail. Finding something you feel apart of, a community or small studio, can make training feel more enjoyable. Most importantly it should make you feel good going in and even better on the way out!
