Amidst recent conversations and reading various articles, winter can be a challenging time of the year. Colder weather and less sunshine can make it more difficult to motivate yourself to get out of bed and exercise, and for some, it can have us reaching for more comfort foods.
Motivation
Having a goal over winter such as doing a fun run or similar event, or training for a recreational or competitive sport is a great way to keep your motivation and discipline levels high. If that’s not something you are interested in, you can still set some goals to keep you on track. During winter it might be changing the type of exercise and creating variety, e.g. more walking or running instead of swimming or performing more indoor exercise rather outdoors, or going for bush walks and hikes.
nutrition
Nutrition-wise, reaching for more seasonal winter vegetables and trying new recipes can be a way to keep your vegetable intake high if you find you tend to reach for more comfort foods and fewer salads/vegetables during winter.
Our accredited practicing dietitians manage client-centered nutritional care by planning and implementing appropriate diets and menus for our valued clients – helping you to make dietary choices to attain and maintain health, and to prevent and treat health conditions.
DON'T SACRIFICE YOUR HEALTH
There are many things we don’t necessarily like doing or find much joy but we still do them daily. For example paying bills, cleaning, picking up after your dog etc, however, we know we have to do them. If only we could apply the same mentality to exercising and eating well, we would be able to maintain our health over the colder months. For a lot of people winter poses no problem at all, it’s less hot and humid and is actually more enjoyable to exercise. For those at the other extreme, maybe it’s time to re-evaluate and prioritise our health in winter as much as we do in summer, and work out why we sacrifice our health and fitness over winter.
Speak to your exercise physiologist about setting some goals to keep you fit and healthy all year round.
