THIS IS HOW YOU SURVIVE THE SUMMER While Maintaining Your Goals
By Anna Rhymer With some planning, you can have it all.
W
e all wait with bated breath for the sun to shine and warm our bodies after a long Canadian winter! The camping, the long walks, the beach, the late nights... all the idyllic moments made up of smiles and fun, but at what cost to our health?
Mixing Goals With Life’s Pleasures Summer can be euphoric in so many ways and intimidating in many others. The temptations of smores and spider dogs at the bonfire, the day drinking, the picnics, and the parties, all of these present a great irony to our health and wellness journey. Many of us, especially post-pandemic, are making our overall wellness and health a top priority, and as much as we want to enjoy all the luxurious decadence that the season presents, we don’t want to risk going backwards with our health, our fitness, and our overall goals. This seems to be a little coun-
terintuitive to most—I know I don’t want to miss out on anything stellar, nor will I feel deprived in the few short months of glorious warmth and adventures that ensue in the hottest of calendar days! How can we have our cake and eat it too? Is this an option? How can we not miss out on a single desire this summer, but also not sacrifice our physical and mental health goals? Let’s look at this critically and plan! Sometimes it’s as simple as a mindset shift and a little extra creative thinking to manage our own expectations. Sometimes, we just need to think outside the box with our everyday routine and get some new tips, tricks, and ideas. Rewrite the story if you must! Let’s break it down into categories. Let’s start with movement. We all know that movement is the smallest piece of the puzzle in the “exercise versus nutrition for results” conversation, but it’s omnipotent for its own many bene-
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