The Summer Sabotage

Here in Canada, we are finally enjoying some long overdue Summer warmth.  The sun is out and it’s a great season of parties, picnics and festivals.  It’s also an easy time to quickly blow all of the hard work you’ve put in during the winter season at the gym and with your food intake.

With vacationing and weekend events, it can become easy to skip workouts all together and before you know it, you haven’t exercised in weeks, your waistline is up and those blue jeans are just a little tighter! Of course no one is saying you shouldn’t have a little fun but don’t forget about all the sweat poured earlier in the year to get that Summer body – losing those gains can happen very fast.

• Advice : even if it means shortening your workouts or substituting some form of exercise if you can’t get to a gym it’s better than nothing! A few short intense interval runs, some body weight exercises like push ups and body weight squats or lunges can help you to maintain your strength and conditioning to some degree and allow less of a de-conditioning effect to occur.

As for food, this can be tough as the extra snack here and there at a barbeque and a few extra alcoholic drinks can blow your daily caloric intake and macronutrient balance way out of your “normal”

• Advice: don’t go to events hungry and ready to ravage everything being served. Having a protein rich snack prior and a couple large glasses of water will help to prevent you from going overboard.  As for drinks – have a limit set of the amount of alcoholic drinks you are willing to enjoy and substitute some water in between to prevent a continual flow of higher calorie beer and spirits.

Enjoy the Summer with some self control and you will thank yourself once the Fall season arrives!