6 Ways to Stay Fit and Healthy During the Summer Months

It’s summer, the season of sun, more daylight hours, vacations, cookouts and fireworks. It’s also the season of disrupted daily schedules, ignored diets, and excuses for overindulgence. However, with just a bit of forethought and determination it is possible to maintain and meet your fitness and health goals.

These six tips, as usually happens with these posts, are interrelated. They center around the notion of either keeping your non-summer schedule intact during June, July and August or creating a modified, summer schedule and sticking with it through the season or, at least through Labor Day.

Most of us tend to “fall off the wagon” during the summer due to a change in our schedules that causes us to curtail our physical activity, eat in an unhealthy manner and not get the quality sleep we require. In my mind, maintaining your non-summer schedule or establishing a temporary summer schedule that permits you to eat healthy, get enough sleep and stay active is the key to staying fit and healthy this summer.

1. Keep your non-summer schedule intact or establish a temporary summer one. We function much better when we have a schedule that aids us in achieving our health and fitness goals. Unfortunately, summer tends to disrupt that schedule for a variety of reasons, such as vacations, extended daylight hours, kids not in school, spending more time with friends and family and more time off from work.  Yes, you would think that having more free time would allow us to spend more time exercising and planning healthy meals, but the opposite is true. Schedules keep us, well, on schedule in all aspects of our lives and once that schedule gets disrupted, as Yeats said, “the center does not hold.” We begin to lose valuable sleep, eat and drink unhealthy things, and cut back on our physical activity and the consequences of those actions can affect us for months to come.
2. Get enough sleep, which for adults is 7-9 uninterrupted hours. The extra daylight, heat and more social activities account for why most of us fail to get those 7-9 hours during the summer. These things interrupt our circadian rhythm and cause us to go to sleep later, wake up during the night, and take naps during the day which exacerbates the situation.
   
   There has been some research into a reverse seasonal affective disorder during the summer caused by additional daylight. If possible, keep your bedroom cool to encourage sleep, allow for extra sleep time in the morning hours if you are getting to bed later than usual, limit your exposure to daylight after 8:00 PM and do not eat or consume alcohol immediately prior to hitting the sack.
3. Stay active just try to avoid the heat. You can do this by exercising in an air-conditioned environment or, better yet, exercising outdoors during the early morning hours. There’s nothing more invigorating than starting your day with a hike, swim or bike. If you are visiting a new place, explore your surroundings on foot while the rest of the neighborhood sleeps in. If you can, exercise with others as they will provide motivation, conversation and generally make exercising more enjoyable…or tolerable, perhaps? Just do not use the summer months as an excuse NOT to exercise.
4. Get dirty in the garden, you pervert. The benefits of tilling the soil, planting, cultivating, harvesting and eating your own fruit and/or vegetables are impressive. Not only do you get some physical activity, it is beneficial for the mind as well. There’s just something calming about working the soil and reaping the rewards of your efforts in the form of a delicious salad with all ingredients coming from the earth and the work of your two hands. In these weird times it is nice to be reminded that things in the natural world unfold as they should and as expected.
5. Eat mindfully and the veggies from your garden should help with this. I could have simply listed this as “watch what you eat” or used some other non-specific title, but mindful eating is so much more than that. It just means that you are VERY aware of every aspect of what you are eating, including nutritional value, amount consumed, classification (protein, carb, etc.), and even proper chewing. Mindlessly shoveling food down your throat would be the opposite of mindful eating.
6. Potpourri for the things I did not cover…be liberal with the sunscreen when outside, use sunglasses to protect your eyes from UV rays, do not wear dark colored clothing during the day (it absorbs heat), wear a hat, especially if you are follicle-y challenged, relax during the heat of the day (aka take a siesta), stay hydrated and limit your alcohol intake.

Yes, you can still have fun this summer while following the above guidelines. It’s not like you must adhere to them every day, just most of them. You’ll thank me in the autumn, honest.