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Summary
On episode 648 of 40+ Fitness, Coach Allan tackles staying the course on your health and fitness when summer, holidays, and life in general threaten to knock you off track.
He opens with a conversation he had with another trainer whose clients were asking to pause their coaching until September, and uses it to argue that pausing during a busy season usually means losing the progress you already built. Instead of treating summer as a full stop, he walks through how to build a realistic plan for getting through it while still moving forward.
He also breaks down the two types of motivation, accountability and self efficacy, and makes the case that summer, with its better weather, fresh produce, and longer daylight, is actually one of the best times of year to make progress rather than an excuse to coast.
Links
- https://40plusfitness.com/goals
- https://40plusfitness.com/plan
Key Takeaways
- A busy season is not a reason to hit pause. Allan describes a fellow trainer whose clients asked to pause until September; he argues pausing tends to mean losing the very progress that took months to build, and starting over from square one later.
- Treat life’s disruptions like a planned detour, not a stop. Known disruptions such as summer travel or holidays deserve a specific plan for how you’ll operate during them and how you’ll ramp back up afterward, rather than just abandoning the plan.
- A solid plan is realistic, fact based, forward looking, and written. Emotional decisions tend to get justified afterward with facts; a good plan works the other way, starting from the facts and staying honest about what you’ll actually do.
- There is no coast setting in health and fitness. Even during a busy stretch, aim to be marginally better at the end of the period than you were going into it, rather than accepting a plateau or a slide backward.
- Written goals make a measurable difference. People who write down specific, action based goals are far more likely to hit them than people who just carry the goal around in their head.
- Motivation comes from two sources: accountability and self efficacy. Self efficacy takes real time to build, so during a disrupted season Allan recommends leaning on outside accountability, a coach, a group, or a training partner, to keep momentum.
- Summer is genuinely one of the best times of year to make progress. Better weather, more fresh produce at farmers markets, and longer daylight hours all make it easier to move more and eat well than during the winter months.
- Waiting for things to calm down is a trap, because the calm never really arrives. September will be just as busy as June; the real choice is to build a workable plan now instead of waiting for a clear calendar that isn’t coming.
- A real client example shows what’s possible even through the holidays. A client who typically gained about 5 pounds over Thanksgiving and Christmas instead lost 8 pounds by working with a plan, a 13 pound swing from planning through the “detour” instead of skipping it.
“There is no park. There’s only reverse.”
Coach Allan
Another Episode You May Enjoy
Episode 670 – Get outside your comfort zone
Episode Notes
Podcast: 40+ Fitness
Episode: 648
Published: 2024-06-25
Host: Allan Misner (aka Coach Allan), author of The Wellness Roadmap
Guest(s): Rachel (co-host), our co host, coach Rachel
Listen & Subscribe: Apple Podcasts · Spotify · YouTube (audio only)