Getting and staying Fit over 50: overcoming four main obstacles (4/4)

4/4: Creating an effective, balanced and feasible planning for your health and wellbeing

In the summertime we have started, many people suffer from ‘beach fear’, caused by the idea of being on a public beach in nothing but a swimsuit, showing off a less-than-perfect body. It is a pity that we tend to be so judgmental about our own body and its appearance. Our body literally carries our weight on an everyday basis, and regardless of how it looks, it deserves a little respect. From anyone, but first and foremost from ourselves. Take that as a a starting point for your journey towards your best shape ever!

Important as this is, this is not the main point I want to make today. What is surprising to me, is that this same fear that hits us every summer is preceded every time, six months earlier, by the firm resolution to transform our bodies into the body we would like to have. So somewhere between January and June every year, something goes wrong. And my experience is that the way you plan (or do not plan) your weekly schedule may play a pretty big role in this.

In this series of four articles, I have until now explained three of the four main obstacles to get and stay in shape if you are over the age of 50. The first one was about your motivation to get in shape – and the importance of making sure your health choices are linked to fundamental, joyful life choices. The second one was about knowing and understanding your beliefs about food and drink – and aligning those beliefs with the goals you want to achieve. Last week’s third episode was about the intensity, frequency and recovery of your physical activities. I recommended ways so as not to push too hard at the beginning – and to break through performance platforms later on. In this fourth and final episode, I will focus on the one factor that constitutes the key in the ignition of your progress:?on the way you plan for your health and wellbeing in your weekly schedule.

Many of the clients I work with think that their main planning issue is to carve out time for their weekly workouts. Including time for physical activity may be an important challenge, in particular since most of us are juggling multiple responsibilities for our families, jobs and social life. Later on, I will argue that there is more to plan that just your physical activities. But the key issue to start with is an underlying one. It is related to the question?Where does your health and personal wellbeing sit amongst your weekly set of priorities?

Before even thinking about a weekly schedule for their workout, I usually ask my clients to reflect on the key?categories?of obligations and activities they need to manage in their daily lives on a weekly basis. The obvious categories that come out of this reflection are family life, job obligations and a whole list of household and administrative chores that need to be done, such as paying utility bills, doing laundry, and picking up stuff from the dry cleaners. I will call those things ‘logistics’ for now. Also, we tend to spend time on social activities like meeting friends for dinner or going to birthday parties. If we make an overview of these categories, it may look like this:

The surprising discovery for many of my clients is that the ‘me’ category of activities is completely missing. For many of them it feels like a taboo to put themselves at the center of their weekly priorities, thinking that this would be selfish at worst or unfeasible at best. Based on this, my clients and I have an interesting conversation about the need, desire and possibilities for self-care. It is often an eye-opener that it is more acceptable to take your car to the garage when it needs maintenance (because we know at a certain point it will break down if we don’t) than following a similar process for ourselves. That is, however, the exact motivation to put our own health and well-being at the center of our priorities: that we risk burning out or breaking down – and jeopardize our capability to take care of the people and things we love.?

Think about this for a moment. It may sound like a no-brainer but it is not.?How do you feel about putting your own health and well-being at the center of things?(see overview)?

Creating insight in the categories of your weekly obligations and activities is a fundamental first step. This overview, however, is still just a list of everything that needs to get done in a week. It is not a planning yet. That is the next step: allocating the?to do lists?to time slots in a specific week.

In order to work towards an effective weekly plan, I usually ask my clients to start tracking?all?their daily activities for two weeks in a weekly overview. Eat, sleep, work, play, drink – by having a visual overview of what you are doing at this moment, it quickly becomes clear where the bottlenecks and opportunities are. To give a few examples:

• Many clients discover that, by not having proper meals for breakfast and/or lunch, they start binging on snacks and sodas mid-afternoon. Including proper meals in the first half of the day helps to turn this around.
• If physical activities are not planned during the workday (or on the way to or back home from work), they often don’t happen at all. Getting off the couch after a long day is simply too challenging for most people. Planning and dividing the weekly workouts together with your spouse (covering for each other, and perhaps including a full-family physical activity over the weekend) can be an important success factor.
• A lot of people only include me-time in the form of 2-3 intensive workouts a week. The idea of me-time in the form of relaxed recovery on other weekdays is missing. Including short moments of relaxing activities (either alone or with your loved ones) breaks the cycle of staying stuck in ‘delivery mode’ all the time.
• Planning the necessary time and trips to shop for good food has a huge impact on the feasibility of your dietary ambitions. Turning them into fun rituals (like shopping for food at a farmer’s market with your family during the weekend) helps to maintain motivation.
• Meals and dietary requirements are often planned as a ‘military exercise’ in the beginning. By including a weekly cheat day (just one!) where you can eat and drink whatever you like, it becomes much easier to maintain the rhythm of a healthy diet, since you can satisfy all your cravings on a weekly basis – and often don’t feel like maintaining any excessive habits afterwards. After a whole day of donuts, burgers and chocolates, our body tends to long for the good dietary habits we practice during the rest of the week.

These do’s and don’ts - that arise from keeping track of your activities – will lay the basis for a healthy, effective and comprehensive weekly activity plan. Such a plan contains the following elements:

• 3-4 meals a day, depending on the time between meals and the amount of workouts
• 3 workouts with 48-72 hour intervals between them
• 1-2 daily ‘me-time’ moments to relax and recover
• 1 cheat day a week (one day that starts and ends at midnight!) where you can eat and drink whatever you want

In an overview, this may look like this:

In addition to what we already discussed, you will see one new element in this week plan that is very important. On Sunday evening, this person will take a quiet moment to evaluate the week gone by and plan the week ahead. Of course, you can do this at any moment that works best for you, but it is fundamental for your success since it allows to adapt the weekly plan to your individual reality and your lessons learned.

In summary

In order to create an effective, balanced and feasible plan for your weekly activities that puts your own health and wellbeing at the centre,

1. Reflect on the main ‘result areas’ in your life (and make sure you are one of them!) and list all your weekly obligations and activities
2. Track all your activities, meals, drinks and sleep for two weeks in a comprehensive overview
3. Evaluate this overview for bottlenecks and opportunities
4. Create a weekly plan that contains physical activities, relaxing me-time, the right number of meals and one cheat day
5. Take a quiet moment every week to evaluate the week gone by and plan the week ahead?

Good luck with your journey - and let me know what you think and run into!

This was the last in this series of four articles on the main obstacles to overcome if you want to get and stay in shape over 50. If you require any support in your individual journey, please get in touch by sending me a PM or by calling or texting me at +31627055970.?

Between May and November of every year, we organize monthly Fitover50 retreats at our gorgeous Fitfarm in central Italy. Check out our website (in Dutch)?www.fitfarm.life

=========================================================

Niels-Peter van Doorn delivers body, mind and heart transformation programs for individuals and teams across Europe. He is an experienced executive coach, a government-certified fitness trainer and a certified shiatsupractor.

This article is intended to be inspirational and does not substitute professional medical advice. Consult a doctor in case of health issues or questions and prior to making any changes in your diet or exercise regime.