19/09/2024
It’s been a mental year, but I’ve managed to make a lot of progress physically…
I am by no means in the shape of my life, but that isn’t my goal, but I’m a stone down this year and running longer than I’ve ever run before.
When life is Uber busy, it can be easy to put your health and fitness on the back burner and a lot of the time, people end up going the complete other way - over consuming s**t food, not moving at all and struggling through life.
Here are my top tips to gets a grip on things and start moving towards where you want to be:
👉🏼 Manage your expectations - rather than thinking ‘I can’t be perfect (train 5 times a week, eating the most nutritious of foods and hitting 10k steps every day), so I won’t do anything’ identify what you CAN do on the limited time you have.
For me that is finding time to get my steps to a not terrible level, reducing my session times in the gym so I can get in and out, taking 5 minutes before getting into bed to stretch and mobilise, getting up slightly earlier on a Thursday so I can get my running in.
I don’t expect to be the best runner in the world, or the most jacked in the gym, but I know I’m doing enough to maintain muscle, get leaner and improve my running.
👉🏼 Move every day.
Sometimes for me that is just 7,000 steps and stretching, other days that’s a 20k run or a gym session. Just make sure you’re doing it!
I also find doing it earlier sets me up for the day too!
👉🏼 Be conscious of calories and protein
I haven’t tracked a single calorie, but I’ve been conscious of the numbers on food packets.
Most days I’ll tend to have two bigger meals, with some protein heavy snacks in between as that’s what works for me.
For some it might mean pushing back breakfast, or having 5/6 food windows a day.
👉🏼 PLAN
Having less time means you probably need to plan a lot better than you currently do.
Plan everything - gym sessions, steps, work, social time, meals.
For me, planning evening meals, and adding in an additional Sainsburys visit on a Friday night with Aria, allowed me to skip the ‘shall we get Deliveroo’ excuse and had a protein packed, calorie conscious dinner instead.