Why You Should Take Advantage of A New Season and Start New Routines
Sep 05, 2021
NEW SEASON = NEW ROUTINE
Although not everyone is excited about going back to school and the end of care-free summer schedules, it is always a welcomed time in our household as our boys being back in school means more free time for me.
If you are fortunate enough to gain some free time with everyone back on a schedule, what is it that you could commit to over the next few months that could either take your health to the next level or get you back on track?
Here are some suggested areas that you may want to focus on as you shift to a new routine:
FOOD PREP & ORGANIZATION
I do a much better job of this when we are not trying to accommodate our family’s summer schedule. Having a baseball event almost every night and most weekends leaves very little time for planning and preparing our meals, which is one of the main reasons I look forward to the return of our fall routine. It is important to have a plan and to be prepared if you are going to focus on making better food choices.
It’s also important to me that I teach my boys how to take care of themselves in the kitchen so that they understand how and why we prepare foods the way we do. One of my favourite ways to spend time with them is to engage them in preparing our food before sitting down together as a family to enjoy it.
EXERCISE
I really believe that in order to achieve optimal movement, it takes a combination of strength, movement, mobility and stability work.
For strength training, I usually schedule one personal training session per week where we focus on slow repetitions to failure. This method is discussed in the book, Body By Science, written by Doug McGuff, MD and John Little. For anyone in the HRM, you can find out more about this strength training method from Dave Lee, a physiotherapist at Nova Spinal Physio or one of the personal trainers at One Up.
I will essentially plan my week around this one session. For example, if I have that session on Wednesday, I will do lighter activities the day before and the day after. On the mornings where I have a later shift at work, I will often incorporate some type of mobility routine, like yoga, to allow me to work on areas of weakness.
Lastly, as we all know, walking has many health benefits and if you are not as fortunate as I am to be able to take 10,000 steps a day just from being at work, I recommend that you include walking into your weekly exercise plan.
Begin by making a plan of what activities you would like to do for the week ahead, schedule specific times for these activities and if you need accountability, plan to meet a friend or exercise buddy to ensure you follow through on your commitment.
SLEEP SCHEDULES
For most people, this schedule completely changes in the summer. A consistent sleep schedule will allow our bodies (including those of our kids) to function well and recover, so shifting to a consistent schedule has many benefits. If you would like to know more about creating optimum sleep schedules and what to do before going to bed, check out our previous post on sleep hygiene.
SET A GOAL
Whether it is something mentioned above or something else you have been wanting to change or improve, determine a goal and write it down. Next, share the goal with somebody to help keep you accountable. Research shows that if you do these two simple steps, you are over 70% more likely to hit your target.
Most often when I talk to patients about setting goals and sharing them with others, they are afraid of failure so they either keep their goal to themselves or not set one at all. This fear of failure is based on the need for perfection. You do not need to be perfect to achieve your goals! You need momentum, you need small and consistent steps in the right direction, you need to celebrate forward progress and you need to rest, not quit, when you have a setback.
Soooo...Homework: Pick one area to focus on. Determine the small, day-to-day things that you can consistently include in your weekly routine. I can promise you that it's these steps that will make the biggest impact on your overall health.