The Big Re-Fit After a Long Winter
How to minimize the slog and embrace the process!
If you're anything like me, the winter months are perfect for long baths, extra sleep, skipping essential workouts, and eating way more than I need to, often in the form of heavier foods and carb-laden delights!
It's all fun until you glance at the calendar and realize with alarm that it's April, and pretty soon, it'll be warm out again, and the layers will have to come off for lighter wear outside. You also likely feel the magnetic PULL of Spring calling you to get into action!
My pants usually feel tight because I've been wearing loungewear for months. Even my shirts feel snug.
Uh-Oh.
Here it comes, the annual re-fit.
I call it "the re-fit" because it's me re-engaging with fitness and getting fit again.
Every year it is the same. Me telling myself, "why did you do this again?" "This is the last time I'm letting myself lose my fit base," only to lose it again between Christmas and April!
It's incredible, too; the older I get, the easier it is to lose a season of fitness in 12 weeks quickly and then feel the pain and true challenge of reclaiming it! This year was straight-up BRUTAL; I won't sugar coat it.
To make matters worse, I have steadily put on several extra pounds over the past four years that have also settled in, making regular workouts way harder than they used to be or should be for my body frame size.
So, here I am, in the re-fit, once again. I tell myself with each fitness session that this won't happen next year, and I'm committing to not letting it happen again!
If you're in a re-fit too and need some encouragement, here are some things that I've done before and am doing this year to make the process much more enjoyable and not discouraging, or worse, not fun!
Know where you are starting and where you want to be and WHY
It's essential to know where you are at during the beginning of the re-fit. Find out your weight, what size your clothes fit in, and is that where you want to be or not? If the answer is no, figure out where you want to get to, and the most important thing about it is knowing WHY you want to get to that other place. What is the big reason, and try to get clear on that and not vague? Vague is: "to feel better," "to have more energy," "to lose weight," etc. Those are all fine and good reasons, but not solid enough to have you take it seriously to commit to getting really INTO the process of the re-fit. Clear is: "I want to PR a half marathon in the next two years," "I want to bring my blood pressure down to 60/100", and "I want to be able to easily run 5 miles without feeling like I'll die". Those are clear WHY's that you can connect and commit to.
2. Track all your fitness sessions
What we track expands! It's true! Write down all your workouts. I like to use pen and paper, get little calendars from Half Priced Books that have fill-in date boxes for each month, and keep track that way. I write down what I did for exercise, how long the session was, how I felt, and what the weather was like, and I'll log a weekly weight on certain days too so I can track that progress. It is enjoyable to keep those for a few years, and you can go back and see where you were a year ago or more and compare them with your current state of fitness. You can use an app too, but I find that pen and paper help me connect more to how the workout was, the weather, and my emotional state.
3. BE IN and ENJOY the process(and choose the exercise that you ENJOY)
It's easy to expect immediate or overnight results when starting the re-fit! Be easy, patient, and gentle with yourself. Find a way to immerse yourself into the PROCESS of the re-fit. One crucial thing is to make sure you LOVE and ENJOY the exercises you choose! When you are forcing yourself to do something you don't enjoy, the results will be mixed at best! Pick something you know you like, and challenge yourself later. When you enjoy and have fun with the progress, the vibe changes in the most positive way! The process is the sweetest part OF the re-fit. Once you can embrace the process and enjoy it, the results start happening! You notice you feel different. Once you're in the process and tracking, it's harder to let yourself skip workouts or go off the rails because you've created the habit of keeping track of what you're doing. Remember that joy is in the journey, and this is no different!
These are all the things that help me get into and enjoy the re-fit each year!
I've decided that this is my last year of getting INTO the re-fit- I promise- because this year was REALLY HARD to reach the baseline, and I won't let myself lose it again!!
Enjoy your re-fit, and maybe it will be the last one you do?? Let me know with a commend and emoji!
