Winter is well and truly with us. It’s cold outside, and the mornings are crisp. It can feel bitter as you step outside the front door; car windscreens need scraping, and gloves are necessary. Plus, it’s cold and flu season, and your pockets are most likely bulging with tissues and throat sweets!
Yet, while we work through this cold spell, the sun still shines, and while it doesn’t bring warmth, it’s great to see. Take a walk on a Sunday morning, and you will see young and old on the field, training for and playing football and rugby matches. Spectators are wrapped up, cuddling hot water bottles; yes, I have on good authority that mums use these, along with hand and feet warmers!
The local gym is busy; runners are out regardless of the cold, and New Year’s resolutions seem possible.
New Year, Fresh Start.
A new year brings great excitement and a new start, and your goals feel more than doable. Good health, new fitness regimes, sorting your finances and seeing more of your loved ones remain top of mind.
It is also a time of reflection, which is most likely how your goals came about. It is the time of year when you look back and remember your achievements. When you decide change is needed, you want to do things differently, and the year ahead is full of possibilities.
It is when we still feel warm and fuzzy inside about our goals and ambitions for the year. Throw in a little reflection, and your internal heating system will kick in, and you will radiate with warmth.
Warmth is radiating at Sarum because…
The heating is on, laughter can be heard as usual, and the team is excited for the year ahead. There is excitement in the air, and that is because we shall be thirty next month! But I want to talk about something else today.
Instead, I’d like to talk to you about maintaining your New Year health and fitness resolutions and helping you to keep moving and warm. So, here are my top three tips.
- Break your goal down and track your progress because you will not achieve your end goal in one or two weeks/months. See it as a journey in which you are always moving forward, even when you might feel you have stepped backwards.
- Get back on the horse. Not literally, unless you have taken up horse riding. If you miss a session, a day or sneak a biscuit, don’t give yourself a hard time; get back on the horse. And don’t see this as starting again!
- Find an accountability partner because everything is easier with a friend or two. And statistics show that when you do this, you have a higher chance of achieving your goal. You don’t have to do this alone and really shouldn’t.
Remember, exercise aims to raise your heartbeat and get the blood pumping, and when you do this, you generate heat. I told you warmth came from within. Next time you feel chilly, try a few star jumps, rub your hands together – and run up and down the stairs. The trick is to get moving.
Movement is vital to warmth.
In case you are worrying about an old or have a new injury, ache or pain impacting your mobility or preventing you from attaching your health and fitness goals with the enthusiasm you’d like to give them. Give us a call to make an appointment.
