Fitness Consistency During a Pandemic: Plan Your Workouts Like You Plan Your Meals

This year has been all about tips and tricks to stay motivated and consistent with your workouts. I’m here to offer you a new strategy, and although it won’t work for everyone, it will give you a chance to shift your perspective. The reason for writing this, came from a question I got about “how to stay motivated with fitness during a pandemic”. My first thought was don’t rely on motivation. My second thought was to give yourself some grace. And then my mind went to the way we meal plan.

Indulge me...Consider your last family dinner. Did you find a recipe? Make a shopping list? Have to go to the store and then prepare a multi-step meal? Or maybe dinner was an old family favorite, made with pantry staples? If it was takeout, was it a go-to favorite, or did you scroll Grubhub searching a bit for a new spot? Maybe it was a combination meal where you bought some veggies already prepared, but fixed the main dish?

My point is that, no matter how you got that meal, the outcome was the same. You wanted a meal, and then you made it happen. My other point is that I bet you don’t always reach that outcome the same way. My assumption is that some weeks you have extra time and feel extra motivated, and those weeks you might take more time in selecting recipes and actually going to the store. Other weeks you might be short on time and do a combination of grocery delivery, meals that require no recipes, and maybe some take out.

Are you still following? Well, if you’re struggling to stay consistent with workouts, maybe you take that same approach. Maybe instead of having the same expectation for yourself each week and failing, you plan your workouts like you plan your meals. The only time I would say, the approach might not be effective is similar to if you have serious fitness goals and all you eat is takeout. That just doesn’t work. But, if your goals are a bit more flexible, then similar to how you eat, a varying weekly approach might be just what you need to stay consistent with fitness during a pandemic.

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So, how do you plan your workouts like you do your meals? 

Weeks that you’re short on time and energy (weeks you’re favoring take out): These are days where your workouts should be the most convenient and less intense. If walking is easiest for you, plan to do that. If jumping in your regular virtual class is best, that’s your move. Whatever it is, it should take minimal planning or thought. It also should energize you and not exhaust you, so monitor the intensity that gives you that best boost.

Note: maybe one day during this busy week you have a little extra time, so like you would search for a new take out spot, maybe this is when you add a bit of a twist to your convenient workouts. Try a new walking route or a new virtual class. Keep it convenient, but with a little bit more effort.

Weeks that you’re feeling super motivated (weeks you're searching for new recipes and taking the time to go to the store): These are the days you want to be more ambitious with your workouts. Perhaps you’re finding a new fitness studio to try or you’re adding an extra workout in that week. Maybe these are the days you’re increasing your training volume with more sets, reps or resistance. Take the overall motivation you’re feeling and roll it into fitness.

The last note is that if you operate better with more of a schedule…meaning you do your grocery shopping on the same day each week, or plan meals out ahead of time, or perhaps sticks with Meatless Mondays, Taco Tuesdays and so on…you’d probably have more success and consistency if you approached fitness that same way. You could pick one day to plan your workouts for the week (or have someone do it for you) and just stick to the script. This means you don’t even have to stay motivated, you just follow your plan. 

I’m hoping you found this perspective interesting and some of you may find it a helpful strategy. I think at the very least it allows us all to realize that fitness is a lifestyle and you look beyond the short term. One day or one week isn’t going to throw off a lifestyle. By planning workouts like you do your meal, it allows you to manage the ups and downs of life during a pandemic, with a bit more flexibility and acceptance of uncertainty. If you’re on a motivation rollercoaster and feeling inconsistent in your workouts, I’d say stop resisting and see what happens if you treat your workouts like you do your meals.

The Trainer’s Trick to Designing a Better Workout

It's been 8 weeks, are you more fit than 2016?

New Year’s Day was two months ago which means those of us that made fitness resolutions should not only be feeling, but also seeing the changes to our body. If you don’t feel stronger, leaner or more confident yet, no worries, here’s a formula to help you design a better workout.

What I’m sharing is not a new method. Personal Trainers have been using this method for years. It’s called the FITT Principle and I’m going to break it down for you.

First off, FITT stands for frequency, intensity, time and type. If you have already set a specific fitness goal (start here if you haven’t) and are aware of your current fitness capabilities then you can use this formula to design a workout plan that will lead to results.

The first thing to understand is that these variables are interdependent, meaning your frequency will affect the intensity of the activity and the intensity will impact the time, and so on.

You also have to understand that for your body to change there has to be sufficient and progressive challenge, as well as sufficient recovery.

The chart above is for most adults based on the American College of Sports Medicine’s recommendations for aerobic exercise to maintain general health. Let’s consider this example: A healthy mom of two that can barely find time to workout, but enjoys exercising outside wants to meet general health guidelines.

She’ll want to start with the frequency variable when planning since that’s her limiting factor. She’s decided she can realistically do 3 days per week. She has about an hour each of those days to workout so she decides to meet the guidelines by exercising 50 minutes each workout. This is a longer workout so it’s sufficient to exercise at a moderate intensity. She enjoys being outside so has planned to bike 3 days per week at a moderate intensity, for 50 minutes.

What happens if she has less time for exercise one morning? She can either increase her intensity and shorten the workout to meet her time restriction or she can keep the moderate intensity and split the time by doing 25 minutes in the morning and 25 minutes in the evening (when splitting the workout time, you’ll want to do at least 10 minute segments).

Make sense? Good, you can now use the FITT principle to create your own plan based on your specific training goal and capabilities. Don’t forget to incorporate a plan for resistance training. You can use ACSM guidelines as a starting point.

If you’re a Philly mom with a goal to lean out, become stronger and keep up with your kids-schedule a Screening and Consultation and stat your customized fitness journey today.