Are you’re feeling just a bit slow and sluggish these days?
Do you find that you crave sugar and refined carbohydrates a lot more than before?
Has your workout schedule fallen by the wayside?
Perhaps, even your waistline has increased a bit.
Inevitably, you feel a bit guilty for letting yourself go – maybe even a bit self-loathing at the extreme.
While it’s not ideal that you gained fat and lost a bit of muscle, don’t beat yourself up over it too much. Everyone, and I mean EVERYONE, has cycles of high motivation and cycles of low motivation – it is completely normal. And as I’ve mentioned in my earlier blog, you will eventually ride out this period of low motivation before kicking some butt again.
You have to keep in mind, that there are many environmental factors that are influencing your mood – even right now as you read this blog.
Factors like this time of the year, when days are much shorter and the nights much longer; or the decrease in sunlight you’re getting are all determinants that are affecting your circadian rhythm and your physiology.
As we head into the thick of winter, your body is going into hibernation mode. It’s trying to conserve energy, and build up your fat stores so you can survive the cold months ahead. This translates to you wanting to move less, and eat more refined carbohydrates (which equals body fat).
Now add to the fact that we just finished Thanksgiving holidays (from as early as October if you celebrated Canadian thanksgiving), and are headed straight into the Christmas / New Year’s holidays.
There are lots of dinners, friends gatherings, office parties this time of year and potentially a vacation to top it all off!
So you see, it’s really no mystery why you’re not in the mood to stay lean and healthy at this time of the year!
The KEY now, is to NOT get too down on yourself.
You have to manage your mental space a bit.
Practice a bit of mindfulness and know that your mood swings has the better of you right this moment and soon you’ll be out of it.
If you’re too hard on yourself for letting yourself go these past couple of months, then that negativity starts to set a new pattern of how you view yourself. Namely, a person incapable of keeping the fat off, and of little willpower – and this is simply NOT THE CASE.
It is vitally important to keep your thoughts from dropping off the cliff and kick-starting a negative vicious cycle which can so easily start during this time of the year.
If you think about it rationally, you have some strong arguments written above why we are all feeling a little lazy (yes, including myself!). It’s not you, it’s the environment.
So make peace with your body… and mind. And know that you will soon get back on that bandwagon and shed off those pounds of fat.
And if you need a nudge or some positive encouragement to get you started, know that we’ll be here to give you that support.