Top 5 winter fitness tips for staying healthy

Is winter starting to get you down? Are you finding it all too easy to make excuses for missing training sessions or living healthy?

We’re all guilty of slacking off to some degree over winter, but there are a few simple ways to keep your winter fitness and health in check over these cooler darker months.

1. Exercise every day

Our bodies are designed to move, so even if 15 minutes is all you can find during the day – use it! Interval train to get more bang for your buck! Think intensity over duration to get fitter and leaner faster.

2. Eat well & drink less

Increase your vege uptake and decrease your alcohol intake. Veges are full of awesome vitamins and minerals essential for our basic bodily functions, therefore in winter, they assist our immune system to keep our bodies healthy all winter long.

Alcohol is not only loaded with unnecessary calories but in an around about way, it actually causes your body to store those calories as fat! – Not to mention the 3am pizza or kabab that often comes with it! Eek!!

3. Drink water

We all know this but the cooler temperature of winter means we typically don’t tend to ‘feel’ thirsty. Aim to drink at least 2L/day plus more if your training or sweating more.

Green tea is a great way to get more water in and also has excellent metabolism-boosting properties. Beware that green tea does contain caffeine, so be mindful during afternoon/evening consumption.

4. Mix up your training

The old saying ‘variety is the spice of life’ is exactly right when it comes to keeping yourself interested in training. Try a new gym class/running route/sport/weight training routine. The more your body has to guess, the harder it has to respond to the training which equals results!

5. Sleep

My personal favourite and often something we as busy city siders tend to overlook. Studies show a minimum of 8 hours of sleep is needed to provide the body sufficient time to restore and replenish for the next day.

Both mental and physical gains can be made by getting adequate sleep. A great way to figure out how much sleep your body needs is to take three consecutive nights under normal conditions (so not sleep deprived/or vice versa) and don’t set an alarm. Time the hours you sleep until you wake up naturally (without continuous snoozing etc), and this is said to be your approx personal sleep requirement.

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