My Summertime Health & Fitness Journey

June 3rd 2019

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Now that it is June, it is time to get my health and fitness goals in order for the summertime.

Summer is finally creeping its way in which means that it is the perfect time for BBQs, outdoor fun, and new goals! One of my biggest goals of my recent move and this summer as a whole is to work on getting in shape. I have had a very up and down relationship with health and fitness over recent years and have often struggled to stay on track for long periods of time.

Two of my biggest struggles were social temptations and a busy schedule. However, with this new move, I don’t have friends in the area or an established work schedule yet, which makes it the perfect opportunity to get into a solid routine this summer.

One thing that would always cause me to fall off of my healthy eating and fitness goals was a very active social life. Late night plans would cause me to want to skip yoga in the mornings and social eating really did a number on my diet, especially in the month preceding my move where everyone wanted to go out and grab dinner to say goodbye.

It is really easy for me to resist temptation when I am eating at home or out with my family (because my mom is keto and encourages me to stay away from heavy carbs), but being out with friends makes it way more difficult to be good when somebody suggests splitting a tasty appetizer or everyone at the table is getting something good. Now that I am doing a lot more of my eating either at home or out with my family, I can be a bit more mindful about what I eat.

And being only remotely employed right now means I have the most time for myself that I have had since the summer before I started college in 2013. Having so much free time means I need to find things to fill it with outside of endless job hunting. All this extra time is great for getting back into the gym and getting into a solid flow. I plan to use this time to develop different plans for different days and to figure out how much time I need in the gym on average. I also won’t be skipping workouts for social plans very often because I don’t really have any social plans yet.

Now that the typical obstacles are out of the way, I can focus on making strong goals for the summer! My first main goal is to work on upper body strength. My legs have always been the strongest part of me, so now I want to balance everything out and work on building shoulder, arm, wrist, and grip strength. I feel like working on those could really elevate my yoga practice and prepare me for new activities I would really like to get into by the end of the year!

My next goal is to learn to cook a few key staple foods. I have nailed cooking meat in a pan, but that can be pretty boring by itself so if I can figure out some quick and easy meals that keep things interesting, then I should be solid! Being able to cook will also save me money in the long term because eating out is expensive.

Another goal that came to me recently is that I really want to bring my health and fitness goals into my social life. I want to make friends through workout classes or meet people who also have an interest in trying new active activities like hiking or taking unique classes. Not that my friends from NY wouldn’t do the same thing with me, but I never really built that into my friendships before.

Lastly, one of the hardest goals for me is that I want to get more comfortable trying workouts that are out of my comfort zone. I live in a community that offers a lot of unique classes and I want to try out as many as I can, even if it is by myself. The more activities that I can find that keep me active while simultaneously being fun, the better chance there is that I will stick to things.

If I keep at my goals, I really hope that by the end of the summer, I can move onto trying free running and ninja warrior classes, and I also want to find a yoga studio that offers aerial yoga classes because I took one class in February and had an awesome time and thought it was a killer workout!

What is your favorite way to get active? And what is your favorite healthy recipe?

Jess~